Tutu Artsy

I may be a tad crafty (more on that at the end of the post), but I am by no means an artist. I'll be the first to admit that there are a lot of things I just don't have "the eye" for. One of those things is photography. I have a little point and shoot camera that I use fairly regularly, but since I got my schmancy new schmart phone, I find myself doing a lot of pointing and shooting with that.

I've come to realize recently that even though I might not have a natural talent for photography, if I don't want my kids' lives to be documented by twice yearly professional shoots and a couple of blurry phone pics a week, I'd better get with it!

I feel like the overall quality of my photos has improved a bit in the past year or so. I've managed to pick up a few tips online, but the advice that I hear over and over again from every photographer I admire is, "Practice, practice, practice!"

With that in mind, I decided to take some photos of Penny in her tutu. The ones I like best are actually the ones I shot into the sun. I never would have thought to try shooting into the sun if I hadn't read a blog post about it somewhere last month (if I could remember where, I would totally give the writer credit!). Our master bedroom faces east and in the mid-morning the whole room is just bathed in light, so I decided to try it out and see if I got a few good ones.

The following photos have not been changed in any way. I did no photoshopping or balancing or color correction. There was even a little dust on my lense, which I would have been upset about except that 1) I think it caught the light just right and 2) it's a perfect representation of my house - with a baby and a pre-schooler, there's just a little bit of dust on things these days. :-)

I hope you like them as much as I do!









I personally think my little model made all the difference. Then again, I could be biased.



PS - You got a sneak peek of Penny's tutu photo shoot when she hacked my blog on Monday. I did, in fact, make the tutu. It's not quite as easy as she made it out to be (I didn't take a nap and wake to find it finished), but it is super simple. If you buy the tulle from a bolt of fabric (rather than in bulk as a strip wound around a spool like ribbon) then the hardest part is measuring and cutting the tulle into strips. I think there's even less cutting involved if you shell out the big bucks and buy it on the spool. If you want a tutorial, comment here and I will post one the next time I make one. That shouldn't be too long since pretty much every friend I have who has a baby girl gets a tutu from me (sorry to spoil the big surprise ladies).