Happy Valentine’s Day – Teddy’s Photoshoot

Hello friends! Teddy and I want to wish you a happy Valentine’s Day! This year we took some serious business and really prepared for it. We didn’t do just one shoot. No, we actually did two! What can I say, Teddy’s so adorable and if there’s anything to celebrate, it must be love. Although Teddy likes to add having fun is equally important.

Our best pics from the first shoot:

“I don’t know who you are, but you smell funny”

“Ooh what’s this…looks interesting!”

“Ooh fun!”

“Playtime!”

“Birdie?”

“What to do with this?”

“For you!”

“What’s next?”

“What do you mean, we’re done for today?”

“Aren’t there any treats involved?”

“Saving my best smile for last”

That first shoot didn’t go too bad. Teddy really enjoyed himself with the fake rose. Best part of his game was throwing it on the floor, so I had to pick it up and lay it back on the dresser again. He also loved it when I used it as a feather toy. What I’ve learned in these nearly 18 months Teddy is with me, is if I want to have a chance of any nice photos, aka making him cooperate, it needs to be fun for him. As soon as he feels I want him to do something, he’ll do exactly the opposite. After all, he is a cat and that’s what cats do. Dogs like to please their owners, but cats can be little rebels. The challenge for me is that I have to do it all by myself. No extra pair of hands to help me keep him in place so I can stay with my camera. I’m learning with every shoot.

On to the second shoot. After viewing the photos of the first shoot, I found that all the extra props were quite distracting. Especially that toy cat with his big eyes. So I decided to do another shoot and keep it real simple. Just Teddy with his bowtie, some paper hearts and of course the rose.

He was in a very playful (read: naughty) mood. At the same time there were some wild parakeets flying around the house and their happy chattering always draws his attention, hence the look in his eyes. He’s never been an outdoor cat, yet nature tells him he needs to catch every bird he sees or hears. The pigeons are always taunting him by sitting in the balcony, close to the window, where he can see them.

I’ve save the best photo for last. He’s really playing irresitable mister Valentine here.

I hope you find a way to have a nice Valentine’s Day. If you don’t have a mister or miss Valentine in your life, there are other ways to still make it a good day. Spoil yourself. Make heart art. It can be a masterpiece or just some doodled hearts. Listen to your favourite love songs. Watch a cheesy romantic movie. If nobody sends you chocolats, go buy them yourself. And if they ask if it’s a present, tell them yes, because they will decorate it for you. It’s none of their business that it’s a present for yourself. Sometimes I like to do that. Especially when they have really nice wrapping paper. Or when I’m a bit embarres to confess it’s something I buy for myself. That happens as well.

Thanks for visiting! Oh and please do leave a comment, so I know you were here. For more regular updates, come over to my Instagram account. I try to upload a picture there every day. Bye for now!

Knights and Horses

Goodmorning to you all! It’s Monay again. I hope you had a nice weekend. Here’s a bunch of photos for you of a school event a couple of weeks ago. There were real knights and horses in the park down my apartement. So cool! When I heard what was going on downstairs, I grabbed my gear and hurried to see if it was true there were real horses involved. I mean, the park’s really not that large, so I doubted if real horses would even fit. It appeared all true. Knights and horses. And a monk called Quasimodo.

Here’s Quasimodo holding an apple. The kids could volunteer to do some quests with which they could win the title of shield-bearer. In this particular quest the kids needed to slice the apple with a real sword. They were all excellent shield-bearers to be.

 

Now the boys were batteling to become shield-bearer, but what about the girls? Was there something in there for them as well? Of course there was! What would a knight be without a true lady to be pleased and admired. There was a very delicate quest for them and only a true dame would pass the test. Quasimodo volunteered to show what the girls needed to do.

As a real lady, your hand will be kissed by a knight.

This knight hesitated a bit at first. This was not a real dame, even he could tell the difference, but Quasimodo persisted and got kissed.

And immediately fainted, because after all, that’s what real ladies do. Lots of drama for the girls with this quest. And one true dame was chosen to sit on the throne while the games between the knights began. She got to choose a fellow companion to sit by her side and the shield-bearer got to choose one companion to help him help the knights.

Meanwhile Quasimodo kept his unicorn company.

Let the games begin!

Both knights went to get their horses. It was a majestic entrance.

This is knight Red Roderick.

He did a fabulous job with the games.

And on the white horse there’s knight White Wilhelm.

Knight White Wilhelm is a fierce opponent for knight Red Roderick.

These games are not for wimps.

Red Roderick and his horse are full of spirit.

And White Wilhelm and his white horse are faster than the speed of light.

If there was a contest for the best looking horse it would have been a true competition. Both horses did their very best to score some bonus points here.

Both knights and both horses are in top condition and it’s a tight call.

So they need to battle each other.

Look at these lances splicing apart!

Beauty bonus points for the white horse.

When the games are finished, good Quasimodo takes care of the horses.

Both horses are equally beautiful.

But knight White Wilhelm is crowned winner of the games.

One last proud pose of the winning team and all can go home.

It was an amazing activity to watch. Because of the privacy of the kids involved (I don’t know their parents, so I can’t ask for permission) I choose not to publish the photos that have the kids as a main subject.

If your from the Netherlands or Belgium, here’s the link to the site of the organisation “Ridders op School”. They can be booked for all kinds of festivities, not nesecarrily for schools only.

Thanks for watching! This lady is going to make some art now. Bye!

Taking Care of Myself

Day 4 of the free online photography class I’m taking, hosted by Else Kramer.

It’s been a busy and mainly exhausting day, because Thursdays are for therapy. Going through all the horror of my past is extremely hard, but after two years, it’s already starting to make a difference. I’m able to actually find the beauty in life and sometimes there’s a spark of being happy. I’m not there yet and I’ve got a long way to go and some very hard work needs to be done, but I know I’m a hard worker and I can do this. It’s like the quote I saw on Pinterest “Sometimes I feel like giving up, but then I’ve got a lot of motherfuckers to proove wrong”. Too many people have tried to make my life a living hell, but I’m determined to make my life livable.

Today’s photo challenge was about capturing movement. The Golden Age painter Frans Hals was really great at making his portraits vivid. I absolutely love this one of a drunk man who clearly couldn’t sit still for a second.

I experimented with all kinds of things, but ended taking a self portrait again. I actually like it. I didn't even have to crop the photo, which is a major improvement for me.

The photo looked like someone elses hands were gently going over my face in a very caring way. With the therapy session still on my mind, I came up with the title “Taking Care of Myself”, which is one of the things I’m learning.

I don't own any professional studio equipment, so I used the light of the lamp that hangs over my dining table. That gave too much of a shadow behind me, so I took a standing lamp that has 3 spotlights (from Ikea), set it at the side of me with only 1 spot pointed at me. That cleared the shadow.

I only did a few adjustments in post processing (whitebalance, exposure, saturation).

Exif data for who wants to know: Pentax K5-II, Vivitar1 100mm macro lens, F22, ISO 400, 3 sec.

Thank you so much for visiting. There’ll be another challenge in my mailbox tomorrow. I’d love to hear your feedback, so please leave me a comment. Bye for now!

La Chambre Bohemique

Today is day 3 of the free photography workshop I’m doing this week, hosted by Else Kramer. We got another set of inspiring paintings by the famous painters of the Golden Age. This one by Rembrandt really spoke to me. It’s called “An Old Woman Reading”. The prompt was to take a photo of someone looking at something, just like the woman in this painting is looking at her book.

I was initially thinking about doing a self portrait that would come close to this painting. Later I changed my plan and packed my backpack to take a self portrait in the beautiful Sorgvliet park. Time was not in my favour today. Actually, I have this problem the whole week. Either I am going way slower than usual or time’s going way faster. It takes a quick rational thought to say it’s me being awfully slow. Time has it’s own pace and I don’t think it has ever changed since earth came alive. Long story short, by the time I packed all my things it was 4:30 PM. It takes me an hour to get there and the park closes at 6 PM. That would leave me a short 30 minutes. I wouldn’t be able to make it in that time.

I set up a very simple kind of home studio, using a white door as a background and covering the floor with a dark piece of fabric. A stool would be my seat. I set up my tripod and camera, adjusted the settings so I was good to go. I was using a wireless remote control to fire the camera. While I had an apple in my hand to use for this shoot, Teddy got very interested in what I was doing. So I decided to pick him up and do some shots with him in my arms.

After choosing my most appropriate photo, I did some basic editing. And that’s when I got wild and lost track of time again. I thought it would be a fun idea to really make this into a picturesque scene. A while ago I purchased several digital kits at Mischief Circus. I used elements from different designers, resulting into this final piece. I’m quite happy the way it turned out!

While being so busy and focussed I completely forgot to make and have diner. It’s been quite a warm day in the Netherlands and as usual I don’t have a lot of apetite on such days. So my stomach wasn’t telling me it needed food either. Oh well, I guess one day of poor eating won’t be a problem. I’ll have some extra Greek yoghurt and fruit after I launched this blogpost. I’ll be a good girl tomorrow.

Happy Easter – Teddy’s Easter Photoshoot

Happy Easter to you all!

I did a photoshoot with Teddy for this special occasion. I’ve been gathering all kinds of fun props for the shoot. I even crocheted him some easter bunny ears, but he didn’t like them very much. I managed to shoot a couple of quick photos before releasing him from the bunny ears hat.

You can’t really blame me for trying, as it looked uber cute on him. When I do a photoshoot with Teddy, I always try to make it fun and playful for him, because I want him to enjoy it as much as I do. Plus the only way to have a chance at some decent photos is when he’s enjoying himself, because otherwise he starts playing his own game of how to avoid getting on the photo. But the most important reason is I don’t want to cause him any stress. So yes, I did try the bunny ears hat on him, but I took them back off pretty quickly.

The plastic easter eggs were big fun to him. He loved it when I started throwing some small ones into the wooden crate. It was a fun way to get his attention, both for him and me.

Or maybe he was looking for the real Easter bunny…

Mine…

Also mine…

What’s a photoshoot without some bloopers, caused by Teddy goofing around. He sure looks like the most clever cat in the neighbourhood, don’t you think?

I hope you have a great day. Fun fact: over here it’s colder outside than it was at Christmas. So I’m staying inside and will watch a movie. It’s a great day for artsy crafty fun too.