Previous year Sunflowers for Wishes: 2013 2012 2011 2010

Apparently, I didn’t manage to blog our trip last year, even though I know we went. I have one picture in my 365 project but I remember it being REALLY hot and crowded so I don’t think I took many photos.

This year was not at all crowded and only a little bit hot. I took a ton of pictures.

Key lime & chocolate brownie batter

Lavender honey

Peppermint stick

I wanted to take some photos of Caroline in her new princess dress last week, but it was dinner time and Multicultural Night at school so my timeframe for this magical photo shoot was about 7 minutes. I live on a teeny tiny lot in a city neighborhood, so meadows and forests are in short supply. We do have an empty lot across the street, but most of it has been turned into a community garden (the vegetable kind) by a church.

But the weather was warm-ish and the sun was shining and my model was cooperative, so we popped across the street to borrow their grass, figuring we would just be making the most of a convenient location.

And we found a beautiful field of crocuses!

But it wasn’t actually that magical. It was just a little square of flowers between a driveway, a dead spot, and the church’s mulch pile. Here’s the cell phone pullback shot of Caroline in the same location:

There are several tricks you can use to maximize a less-than-ideal location if it’s all you have to work with. I knew when we went out to shoot I would be trying to disguise the background so I choose my 85mm f/1.8 lens, which is a medium length and is good at separating the subject from their surroundings. Once we found the flowers I decided to shoot at about f/2.2 or f/2.8 so I could include a good slice of the photo in focus – I wanted to be able to get Caroline’s whole profile in focus instead of just her eyelashes, or her whole body as opposed to just a sleeve.

Here are 5 more pieces of advice to help turn a bad spot into a good spot:

1. Light! The sun is starting to go down and partially blocked by some of those trees, which means a great glowy kind of backlight instead of harsh overhead shadows. If the sun had been coming from the opposite direction I would have shot the other way (which would have been unfortunate, because there’s pavement the other way).
2. Work your angles. I took a lot of these photos from overhead with Caroline crouching down, which includes a lot more grass/flowers and a lot less background. You can also get super low yourself, and shoot straight across the ground – you’ll end up with fewer distracting background elements.
3. Get close. Fill the frame with your subject instead of trying to get too much of the environment. Yes I wanted to capture the crocuses, but having her hold them or shooting the flowers on their own is a good option.
4. Horizontal vs vertical can be your friend. I shoot horizontally 90% of the time, but in this location I didn’t have a lot of space to work with. To create some variety in my shots, I took a series of photos vertically. Sure, she was standing almost next to a dirt pile, but because the photo is narrow you can’t see it.
5. Don’t say cheese. Almost none of these photos have Caroline looking at the camera. Instead, you’re looking at what she’s looking at – her hands, the flowers in front of her, etc. Let your subject guide the viewers eye into the foreground instead of the background. Then if you are looking for excellent photographers in Sydney then see those as they are top-notch and always deliver incredible photos.

If this was a client shoot instead of just a fun session for Caroline, I would have taken the extra step in  post-processing and fully removed the fence posts, dirt spots, and blue trash can from the background of a few of these. It’s not a hard fix in Photoshop, but I’ve gotten in the habit of using only Lightroom to edit my 365 photos or blog photos, just because it’s so easy.

Let me know if you have any questions!

I have very few complaints about this week, except for a general lack of sleeping that comes from later kid bedtimes due to late sunsets and pregnancy insomnia. I still feel like I can sleep for 18 hours straight if given the opportunity. I will probably feel like that for the next 2 years.

Sunday:

After church coffee hour has the best snacks (if you are 5)

Looking at this picture makes me want to bake another cake

Mother’s Day bubble bath

Monday:

Who care’s about hearing the baby when there are cars to look at?

Kissing Brutus goodnight before naps

My tree has a child infestation

Tuesday:

Merida wears cloth diapers

Linc loves selfies

**PRAISE HANDS**

Wednesday:

Wise choices

He refused to eat those fries because they are shaped like faces

One billion photos were taken

Thursday:

That’s a lighthouse you can almost see, because this is New England

Throwing rocks with friends is the best

He LOVED the sprinkler

Friday:

It turns out bouncing is more fun with friends

Seriously, Mom, can’t we get AIOs? I’m so tired of stuffing diapers.

Your weekly twinsie photo update. They’re getting so big!

Saturday:

Fun fact: bounce houses are really slippery when they get rained on

Hello Long Island!!

FINALLY planting time

Today’s weather feels like March, not May. It’s actually probably a good thing, since the warm, beachy weather was making it REALLY hard for me to keep doing boring stuff like sending the kids to school or enforcing healthy meal choices or going to piano lessons. I have a serious case of End Of The Year Mom and I’m not even sorry. Since it’s too cold for the beach today maybe I’ll actually get some laundry done instead. Maybe.

This week is Spring Break WOOHOO and we have a very full schedule of things to do. Last week I turned 34 fairly uneventfully, but there was cake which is all I need.

Sunday:

Spent 2 hours organizing ALL THIS

We both love naps

She lost count because 34 is a lot of candles

Monday:

“Helping”

Just letting you know, I’m totes going to eat this crayon

The most perfect Tula I’ve ever seen

Tuesday:

He wanted me to put the lid on it

He loved looking at the chicks. Not so much holding them.

Never not reading

Wednesday:

This is not how that toy box was intended to be used

Again, NOT HOW YOU USE CHAIRS

Play-doh on my back. Sure, what could go wrong.

Thursday:

Very interested in Multicultural Night at school

Visiting their lobster friends

I don’t do newborn photos anymore, except when I actually do.

Friday:

I will not steal this baby. I will not steal this baby. I will not…

Front porch sitting

Caroline is a very patient sister

Saturday:

The biggest bag of dirt I’ve ever seen

Grocery store: pregnancy craving edition

Game night = best night

Because I can’t seem to actually write a real pregnancy update: here’s the latest. I’m 21 weeks pregnant today, everything is totally normal, I’m going to do a gender reveal for the kids sometime this week because we know what we’re having but want them to get excited about it too. I’m slightly too pregnant to be totally comfortable anymore, in almost any situation. I need half a dozen pillows to sleep and I could sleep 12 hours a night AND still take a nap. I cannot wait for it to be summer, not because I like being hot but because then I can go float in the lake as much as possible.

If you like my week in iPhone photos and don’t follow me on Instagram, may I gently suggest this is a good time to do so? It’s a beautiful time of year here in New England so most of the photos aren’t the inside of my house anymore.

This post was written as part of my partnership with Miracle–Gro.

Growing up in New England, Mother’s Day = planting day for my mom. Any sooner and you’re pretty much guaranteed to get a late frost that kills everything, and then you have a dead garden and an empty wallet. So she would wait for early May and then spend Mother’s Day in the garden putting in plants and flowers and using the best .095 trimmer line to maintain their garden.

I’ve been planting with the kids on Mother’s Day since they were old enough to help and they love it (OMG just LOOK at tiny 2012 Evan and Caroline planting with me!!) This year Caroline asked every day if it was Mother’s Day yet because she wanted to plant “her” garden. She requested “pink and purple and pink and purple and red” flowers.

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