Even though it’s the middle of July, today was cold and rainy. I’m not complaining, but I wasn’t expecting it when I talked over our next woods shoot with Anna. This was not the original idea, that’ll have to wait. However, I thought it was common knowledge that you don’t leave a fire unattended in the forest? Apparently not. While driving to find a spot, I saw the smoke and pulled over. No one was around, no tents nearby, nothing to show any person was using this spot. Yet, there it was, a fire burning in the fire pit. So we waded through the mud and got a shot.
Tag: woods
Foxy Forest Tea Party
It’s been a while since we’ve gone to the local forest, I think I’m getting cabin fever. Tomorrow will be a forest day! But for now, here’s a little tea party. =)
Let Them Eat Crow
Ok, not really. But it’s an idiom that kept repeating itself in my head today. I needed to get out of the house, take a day of from painting and kneading clay, so why not do an impromptu shoot with the kids? First I needed outfits. I had this idea to make Anna match Tiarnan’s height by standing her on a chair, with a beautiful, full, lovely gown that hung down to the ground. Sadly, after checking the local thrift stores, I had to settle for two dresses: one short, velvet, and green, and the other a black halter that was much longer. Tiarnan scored a nice ugly suit, tie, and Rockport shoes for $7! Now, the reason most of my photos are in the forest is because that’s where we live. We’re surrounded by trees, and I’m not about to haul the kids into one of the abandoned buildings (hello next door house)…
The premise is that these two had gotten dressed up to go to a dinner party, where birds were “all the rage”. However, on their way walking to the party, Anna fell, the cage hit the ground, and their bird escaped. They’d spent hours in the woods looking for the bird with no luck. The end. Yeah well it was impromptu, right? All I can think of these days is the paintings and all those ideas floating around. =P
Anna Bear
This year Anna insisted she wanted to be a bear. Her best friend is going to be a bunny so the obvious choice for Anna was a bear, right? I tried to talk her into being a fox, but relented when I realized it was her choice. I just so happened to have two different types of fur I’d bought back in Portland about 5 years ago. I can’t remember exactly what project I’d envisioned using such fur, but I had it and that was great for now! I’d been putting off making Anna’s bear costume because I’m not much of a seamstress. I can repair seams, sew buttons, I have a sewing machine, and know what a running stitch is, but this thick furry fabric was scaring me. Thankfully my mother simplified it. “Just double the fabric, lay Anna on top of it, and draw out a tunic, voila!” This was after we’d magically found a black bear hat at TJ Maxx yesterday. I felt more confident now that I didn’t have to sew a hood as well. /phew So, here’s Anna as the bear, a cute bear, not a scary bear, as she wanted.
In Dreams and Top 5!
Guess what?! I got to be the first guinea pig to act as a guest picking the Top 5 over at Froknowsphoto.com! The theme was “City” and I tried to stick to the theme. There were a lot of great photos, and narrowing it down to 5 was actually harder than it might seem. Really made me appreciate, even more, what Jared Polin does just on the weekend themes. I skyped with Jared to explain my top 5 picks and the new theme. (I picked that too!)
So the new weekend theme is, “In Dreams”, because I wanted to try to make it fun and creative…but still allowing a WIDE variety of submissions. I mean really, we all know how vast dreams are. My submissions are two different themes. First being the “Eternal Bath”, which could go two ways. One, dreaming of bubble baths that never go cold (hello right?), or darker with dying in the tub. Don’t ask, nothing I’ve personally dreamed of but the idea was there.
The other idea involved Anna, which I can’t help but photograph her, she’s such a willing model! The idea is that in dreams she’s lost in the forest, afraid, until she happens upon a family of forest elves and ends up helping them collect acorns. My mom just happened to have these old elf dolls that she put on my son’s shelf, much to his disapproval. He thinks they’re a bit creepy.
Walking to School
This is something I think we only did when we lived Palm Springs, and that walk included a skateboard. In Los Angeles I rode the bus with *the* coolest driver, Mr. King, with his black finger-less leather driving gloves. But I digress. Here’s my last picture post for “school.” I’m moving on…
This last shot Anna set up and wanted the photo taken with the Lensbaby. I happily obliged.
Forest Tea Party
Every now and then I like to try to recreate my paintings in real life. This time, however, I wasn’t going to bring the cats to the forest, so I used my daughter and her giant teddy bear. They enjoyed a nice little tea party in the forest.
Norwegian Forest Cats
So I was looking at the fox tea party painting and thought there needed to be another tea party. This time, there had to be cats, so why not Norwegian Forest cats? Oh, and then a bear. Because what happens when you have two Norwegian Forest cats, having tea in the forest, and a bear just happens to come along wearing a proper tea hat? She’s invited to join them, of course!
