Life Inside the Doll House

It is finally time for us to drop tools and have a bit of holiday time. I finished work late last night and today I will be packing us all up for a trip to Ireland to visit family and old friends. I am both daunted and excited by the number of photos I will be taking this week. Here are my photos from the week so far. Day 229 - Essential summer shot, with a little help from Alien Skin. I love how I can introduce light leaks with it. I am also really into the square crop at the moment. Day 230 - We got a Spirograph. It is a lot of fun. I am surprised by how much the boys enjoy it but Bear is a little young for it yet.  Day 231 - I don't take enough photos from this position. I love all the whiteness and the angles.  With Alien Skin Without... Day 232 - Late home and at a loss to shot anything new and/or interesting. These pictures make me think of the old TV show, the Munsters, and I can't help but smile. They also mak...

I have bought the Experimental Portraiture course on Creative Live and am slowly working my way through it. I could easily watch the whole thing all day, but I don't have that sort of down time. I love it and have been feeling so inspired by it. The course is taught by two amazingly talented women, Sue Bryce and Lara Jade. I love their work. They both specialise in really beautiful portraits of women and watching them makes me want to run out and buy big beautiful dresses for me and Bear. Sue also uses compositing to create stunning dark and evocative images, and I am desperate to learn how to do these things myself. So I had a go at trying an image that I have seen a few times before. It is not an original idea but I wanted to play around with the concept to gain some confidence with the skills needed to create this sort of image. I am looking forward to lots more image play in the future.

This weekend we went to a really cool place near us that we do not take enough advantage of. We had a fantastic afternoon in the sun and the kids had a chance to burn off some energy. They tend to squabble a lot when they are at home these days, but we see some lovely sibling love when we take them out and about. I enjoyed shooting into the sun an managed to catch some cool sunbursts. We found these gymnastic rings. It turned out that they belonged to some people who were hanging out nearby. They very kindly let us play a bit longer and told us where to buy some of our own. They kids loved them and really impressed us with their skills.  When we got home Bear asked me to put some pretty flowers in her hair. She brought a picture of Rapunzel to illustrate what she was hoping for. We were all exhausted after our big day out and it was late, but I decided to give her what she wanted. I was so glad I did because I got these lovely ...

This was our last week before school breaking up for summer. Most of my pictures were taken just before bedtime and I think that our exhaustion is pretty evident! Day 222: I mentioned a few post ago that I have been taking moodier pictures lately, which pretty much matches my mood. I have a tendency to take very high tone images but I am mostly drawn towards other people's darker picture. I lack confidence with the use of shadows and lighting but I have been playing with them more lately. Rexy seems to be my moodiest subject at the moment. I'm not sure why. I do think that it will be essential for me to get to grips with this sort of shooting if I am to achieve the kinds of photos I want.  Day 223: I took lots of reading for homework shots in the old kitchen during my last 365. I am so struck by how much older Roo looks in these latest shots.  Day 224: Bear and her dollies at bedtime.  I have been playing with a lovely piece of editi...

Day 221 was one of our big summer days out and as a bonus I managed to get two more things off my bucket list - we saw the beautiful White Cliffs of Dover and went inside a lighthouse. My husband is keen for us to do more walking and build up to doing some pretty major hiking or trekking. The kids have always been too young and long walks end up being torture with all the moaning about sore legs and boredom. But to our surprise the kids really enjoyed it and it ended up being a brilliant day out. Hooray! We will definitely do this again.