Lace Romper Photo Shoot

When my mom came to visit so brought her DSLR camera in case we wanted to do a photo shoot.  Heck yes!

I think these little ladies are so adorable.  But these little smiles were not easy to capture! 

First I decided I wanted to set up in my entry way.  There's a ton of natural light during the day, and this time of year there are a lot of overcast days too (soft lighting).  I used boxes of baby clothes, a white sheet, and party door streamers to make the background.  

The day we decided to take the photos was bright and overcast - yay!  But it was soooo very cold (arctic front).  I opened the door for more light - I can't believe that they are standing next to the glass.  I was wearing a huge hoodie and sweat pants while I sat in that spot.  They were all wearing lace rompers that Jami bought for them almost a full year ago.  Luckily they fit a large range of sizes, but I'm glad we finally got photos - cause Scarlett's won't fit much longer!

Here are a few cute photos I took that day of each girl.  I couldn't figure out why the twirls weren't happy but they both woke up the next morning with a cold.  Poor girls were feeling sick and I was making them pose.  Such is the life of a fashion model!  Jaide was the hardest to capture smiling.  She would only smile when looking down or while running away.  The other girls were done after one session, Jaide took 3.  Before nap, after nap, and the next morning.  Ugh.  I think the photo I finally captured with her smiling was in the evening after nap time so the lighting was terrible.  

So I've been learning a lot about photography lately (a hobby that I enjoy).  I think you need a good camera, good lighting, know how to use it in manual mode (I made a few mistakes on these photos, but I'm still a newbie!), and then post editing in photoshop.  I've used photoshop for lots of random stuff, but this past summer my mom's friend taught me how to edit photos.  I had no idea what a layer mask was before that day.  Changed.  My.  Life.  Since then I've been playing around with all sorts of stuff.  I'm still learning and I'm sure that I'll look back someday and laugh at my work, but for now I'm really enjoying myself!  For the photos I smoothed skin, sharpened eyes, fixed the color balance, etc.

Here's Scarlett before/after:

Jaide's photo was so tricky cause the lighting was all off.  Then I replace a lot of the background with a different photo (so there wouldn't be as many empty spots).  I had to edit out Jami or my mom's hand (not sure who was holding what baby right then).  I used another photo I took right after to replace the flower and covered arm.

Here's Jaide before/after:

I took out some of the red tones on Siena's skin (cause she was playing by the door and was so cold).  I love her smile in this photo but I cut off the top of her head, so I had to use another photo to add on the top of her pony tail.

Here's Siena before/after:

After the hours of work getting these photos finished, I realized that I had no energy left for a group family shot.  So after church that next Sunday Jake and I went to the backyard to snap a quick current pic of ourselves.  For our before/afters you can see I edited out the snow that was falling on us (it looked like dandruff).  I did the normal skin smoothing, removing skin redness, sharpening eyes, etc.  I also made my sweater look more black so you couldn't see the baby snot on my shoulder (though, this photo doesn't show most of it).  I also fixed the bottom of my earring cause it was behind my shirt and really bothering me.  I love how vibrant my hair color looks!  I had just cut/colored it that weekend, the colors are already fading.  I don't love the cut as much but I'm still trying to figure out how to do it myself.  I added the turquoise in with the pink cause I wanted something new.  I think they are fun together and Scarlett LOVES that I have blue in my hair.

How Jake really feels about taking photos (now I know where Jaide gets it!)  And Scarlett was photo bombing Jake's session!