Motivational Self Portrait

When I took this photo I was drawn not to the pretty shiny car or even to the many reflections. Instead I was drawn to the message on the license plate, a message that resonates with me. Life is oh so short, and yet we put off so many dreams.

It occurred to me that this would be a motivational self portrait so I positioned myself to cast my shadow over the license plate. Reflecting on this self portrait I decided to try my hand at a Haiku to add to the photo. While I am fond of writing poetry I have never tried to write a Haiku so I hope I have done it justice. The title for my Haiku is 'Y Wait'.

I would love to hear what you think of my shadow self portrait and my Haiku. Good or bad, feedback and critique help me to improve.

Linking up with Shadow Shot Sunday.
and Haiku My Heart.

Memory Art

During a short visit with my In-laws back in January we did an impromptu mini portrait session and my Mother-in-law recently asked me to do a composite using photos taken during that session and the portraits I did of my Father-in-law last year. My MIL whose favorite flower is the rose, is also an accomplished pianist and lover of all things Victorian. So when she left the design completely up to me it wasn't too hard to figure out a design that she would love. Here is the finished memory photo.

This That and the Other Thing

Looking through the images I have complied to use here on Artistic Composition it occurred to me that my creativity isn't necessarily dormant but rather it is all over the board. So here it is a rather random post of my unfocused creativity over the last month.

We start by putting the camera away and pulling out the sewing machine to create this Sailor Moon costume for my granddaughter to wear on Halloween.

Next while trying to come up with a design to wish a young woman who likes the Harry Potter stories  a Happy Birthday on her Facebook page I came up with the above design and was inspired to create the motivational print below as well.

This next photo is actually a composite photo created for my Father-in-law.  At the end of October I went to visit him and my Mother-in-law in northern Arizona and they took me to see the Grand Canyon. He asked if I could get a good portrait shot of him as he has not had his portrait taken in some time. He is 6'8" so without a ladder to take the shot most of them wound up with more sky than canyon in the background. While he liked them we both decided a composite with the canyon in the background would be just right.

With so many beautiful shots of my trip to Arizona I have been working on creating some new inspirational print designs to add to our gift shop.

Of course it occurred to me that a new year will soon be here so the past couple of weeks I have been working on various designs for scenic and inspirational calendars which I am now adding to our gift shop. The design below is from a photograph of a statue of Merlin the Magician that stands in a shopping center in Sadona, Arizona and can be found in the Arizona calendar collection.

Do you ever find that your creativity becomes unfocused?

Please hop over and check out the wonderful posts linking up with A Rural Journal's Your Sunday Best.

Baby Doll Portraits

On a quite Sunday in Norfolk, I was wanting to practice infant portraiture but not having an infant to practice with I did the next best thing. I asked Sissy if she would like to do a portrait session with her favorite baby doll. Unfortunately as a mother this idea never occurred to me. It would have been so cute to have photos like this of my daughters with their favorite baby dolls. 

Unfortunately her favorite baby is not a very flexible baby doll so it limited the poses we were able to get but we did get one of the baby's feet.

This was a very fun way to practice taking mother and infant portraits. It made Sissy feel very special and was fun watching her pick out just the right outfit and cuddle with her baby doll. 

I am linking up a day late with Unknown Mami for Sunday in My City, so please pop over and visit some of the other cities participating or link up and have some fun.

Birthday Photo Session For Lovely Jill

Here is a quick sneak peek from today's Birthday session with the very beautiful Jill.

Working with Jill was a blast, so fun and energetic.

Happy Birthday Jill, May you have many, many more!

Just promise you will have me do your photo's when you are old and grey. :D

Sweet Liana: Photo Session

Just the other afternoon I had the privilege of photographing this lovely young woman. Although she is rather shy and felt a bit awkward at first she soon relaxed and had fun.

After the photo session we discussed options for a photo collage. She picked a number of photos and asked if I could create a background that was black with butterflies and stars scattered across the background. Here is the design I came up with for her.

This background was so much fun to create I do believe I will play with the idea a bit more to see what I come up with.

Sibling Group Portrait

Over the years I have often wondered if it was just my family or if others had the same problem when it came to having family portraits taken. You see getting my Zoo to all have a natural smile at the same moment is like pulling teeth from a lion. With all our children home for the first time in many years my husband and I wanted a group photo of the kids. After much pleading and cajoling we got them all to stand for the portrait to be taken.

As you can see they don't seem to thrilled to be having a group photo taken. They even suggested  I just take separate photos and Photoshop them together. One would think by this request that they don't like each other or get along but that is not the case. Here is what happens when we get them all in one place at the same time.

As you can see they have a major tendency to goof off. From the time my children were young we have encourage them to be independent thinkers and although we didn't allow them to be outright disrespectful we did allow them to express their opinions. At times like this I almost regret that decision, because one of the best shots expression wise was tainted with their freedom of expression.

 So as always I found myself going through upwards of 30 photographs till I found ones which I could use to create a natural looking composite  portrait photograph of our kids.

I am a bit undecided though if I want to frame and display the composite photo above or if I would rather just go ahead and print my favorite of them in their NATURAL state.

Next time maybe I will follow their suggestion and photograph them individually.