Lens Pets!

Confession time: apparently I like to steal other peoples ideas on Etsy.

In 2011 I was hired by Lifetouch Preschool Portraits as a photographer (in North Carolina). I work with children--(from babies to about 4 years old)--taking their school portraits and traveling around from school to school to do it. And these kids, well, sometimes it's hard to get their attention. I have rattles, puppets, stuffed animals, Lifetouch props, etc. Why not go the extra mile and have something that forces the kids to look directly at the camera and enables me to take photos with both hands? Done. Luckily, I came home in January for a visit and my mom was surprisingly eager to do this craft. Thank God for it because I don't have a lick of knowledge on sewing and would have inevitably hidden the results in the back of a closet like an ugly step child. Does that make sense? Where's the phrase that I was thinking of? Crap.

Anyways, here's a quick post about making these lens pets. All the photos of these pets were taken while they under constructions, still having glue and pins in some places. I'll take better photos later. There's a ton of different pets I want to make so this is just a teaser post I guess? Before the whole batch is done? Mmmk. Question mark.

After deciding which lens pets you want to make, you get supplies!

Sewing Machine

Fabric ($1.99 @ JoAnns--makes 3)

Eyes! (Different sizes)

Elastic (each takes 1 - 8.5" strip)

Felt (Purchased just about every color)

Random accessories like buttons and bows, etc

You also need a bunch of stuff like thread, pins, needles, fabric glue, fabric scissors, etc.

Lens pets are made out of hair scrunchies. I went to a lot of stores, but wouldn't you know---they aren't in style anymore! Hence, making my own. (My mom did these next steps on her own, so I don't have pictures.)

1.) Iron the fabric squares

2.) Measure 5" sections across the short side

3.) Length is long side. DON'T CUT

4.) Cut 5" strips (should get 3 with a little left over) Save scraps

5.) Put wrong side face up; fold small edge and sew across. (1 end of the fabric is finished--sew the raw edge) Repeat on other end.

6.) Place wrong sides together - sew down the long side. My mom used the edge of a zipper foot as the guide.

7.) Use a large safety pin on 1 end to turn fabric right side out. Iron flat

8.) Cut elastic the size of soup can + 1/4" for overlap. (About 8 1/2")

9.) Thread the elastic through the material and then overlapping 1/4" material, pin it together. Sew the elastic together while pinned.

10.) Line up the seams of the fabric, tuck end with stitches showing inside the other end. Pin to hold.

11.) Hand sew edges without sewing thru both sides. Sew around.

12.) Before decorating, make sure the seams are the rim of the scrunchy.

13.) Decorate.

Okay, typing that was the first time I read the instructions and it was super confusing so I'll probably have to come back and elaborate once she clarifies (I'd ask her now, but she's completely immersed in Modern Family)

My mom sewing the ends of the scrunchie together to close it

Sewing, sewing, sewing (strips waiting to be 'scrunched' on the armrest)

Finished scrunchies

We only got red, black, and brown scrunchies done today

more scrunchies...

stopped for a late lunch :)

the strips again

You know what's awesome about hanging out with my mom? She loves Dr. Phil. So I had to sit there and work and listen while a guest told the world that he spends his life outside of work acting like an 18 month old baby, diaper-baby food-clothing and all. oh joy :/ {i hate dr. phil}

Testing the scrunchie on a soup can (as a fill in for camera lens)

Also used the soup can to (with chalk) trace the outline for cats head

Adding ears

Adding a bow, nose, and tail

My mom adding the fabric glue to a lobster claw

My mess. And what I'm working off of

Using doubled up thread to create the cats eyes and mouth

Cat with Muno (Yo Gabba Gabba, kind of bad looking)

Meh, hopefully I'll get better at this. Looks more like a one eyed walrus than a YGG character

Monkey

Crab
Cat (with pin on face still)
So, that's how far I've gotten. I do not have the patience for this artsy-fartsy stuff, but I'll be glad to have these when I go back to work. And for so cheap! These sell on Etsy for over $20.
:)

The Move to Charlotte

It has been a little over two weeks since I've moved to Charlotte and I have to say that the permanency is finally settling in.

My brother and I drove down on the 21st in my little Aveo and we were crushed. The drive wasn't bad, however. I made him listen to songs on my ipod after he made me listen to NPR and I hooked my laptop up to the radio and we watched episodes from the 1st season of 30 Rock. And by watched I mean that I watched and he listened as he drove. Coming into Charlotte we first went to Tom and Rachel's new house to check it out and unload some things. It's a newer house, 2.5 baths, 3 bedrooms and a open kitchen/living area. The neighborhood is pretty compact but they like the closeness of it as they like to get to know their neighbors. Without traffic the drive to Tom and Rachel's from where I'm staying is about half an hour.

We spent the night at Steph and Ricks place (which is where I live now) and then I took Tom to County Command to get the keys to the car they get with the job. The semi arrived that day with all of our belongings so I watched the kids while Rick went and helped Tom unload the truck. Rachel, Hannah, and my mom flew in that night and we all went and ate outside at Chili's and the kids played together.

Each Sunday I've gone to the Charlotte Temple Corps, which is about 15 minutes away from home. The corps is nice---DHQ is in Charlotte so there are a lot of Officers that attend. Because of the outreach going on, there is also a large group of hispanic/black kids that attend as well. The first Sunday that I went they were enrolling 7 new Junior Soldiers from this group and it was pretty awesome. It's also crazy how, I don't know how to say this without offending anyone, but how 'open' the people are at this corps. It's a little more laid back that Flint Citadel though Traditional. There's a small brass band that plays at the beginning of the meeting and during the congregational song but they aren't the main focus. They have family prayer time and (this is where the 'open' part comes in) all the kids get up immediately and go to the altar. When there is testimony time, often many of them stand up at once. It's crazy how eager these kids are about the Salvation Army and Jesus. Inspiring too. Everyone's nice and straight forward about approaching newcomers. Garrett brought a fake snake with him and all these Officer ladies were talking to him about it and pointing out this older Officer guy and saying to go get him with the snake, because he doesn't like them. So Garrett took off after this distinguished unsuspecting Officer and showed him his snake and the Officer pretended to run away and be scared and it was super cute.

I dumped Garrett in the nursery the first week I went and he did great. It's a super small room compared to Flint's nursery but they have organized crafts and movies and several boys a little older than Garrett, but who include him. Hannah, who has never let Rachel leave her alone in the nursery, seems to be flourishing in Charlotte. Last Sunday Rachel sat on the floor in the nursery and Hannah walked away from her and took an empty seat at the kids table where they were working on a craft and hung out!!

I haven't felt any inclination to join the band or start helping with anything, in part because I nanny almost every day and the hours change weekly so I can't commit myself to something I can't do 100%. I am, however, working on finding a job. I'm in no rush just because I want time with the kids and to learn the city before I have no time at all. Also, this city is so huge and there are millions of stores that I don't even know where to start.

Being a live in aunt is 85% good, and 15% bad. Bad because I can get burned out and impatient with the kids and also because I miss Hannah. I've been scouring websites looking for activities and stuff to do with the kids on the days that we are stuck with each other. Most of which I have been to on previous visits, like the indoor water park and Discovery Kids. Garrett's at a weird age where he's not really talking and has selective hearing when it comes to instructions. So I'm a little wary of taking him to the reading hour for kids at Barnes and Noble or the art class they have at select Chick-Fil-A's. Also, I hate zoos and museums so I leave those for his parents to take him to. This kid continually surprises me however. You're never certain how much a child comprehends when they don't talk, but there are days when my jaw drops at the things that Garrett does. He has a select vocabulary. He can say "taco, pizza, cocoa, die, mama, da-da, brush, boat", etc. Sometimes he'll do something out of the norm like give Gabby her sippy cup or put his own dishes away in the sink once he's done eating, but cancels it out by jumping on Gabby or getting into the eggs and smashing them in the carpet. He's in a big boy bed so often you'll wake up and he's in your room with a carton of juice waiting for you to give him a drink.

Gabby is cute as a button. She's sitting up by herself, crawling, and keeps trying to walk. She's teething so it's been...unpleasant. Rick thinks she's getting 6 at once and that kept her sick for awhile. Garrett seemed like he was teething but that turned into some kind of puking/fever thing that has me sick and Steph on the verge of. So who knows who is going to church on Sunday.

This is getting really long. Sorry. But I like it here, I'm continuously impressed by the opulence of houses and cars down here, by the large amount of stores that make you feel poor just saying their eloquent names out loud. There's a mall right by us that is like Somerset on steroids. We have dozens and dozens of Targets and Walmarts and Harris Teeters (huge supermarket chain). So whereas you had to decide whether to hit up Miller Rd or Center Rd Target, or Grand Blanc, Burton, or Flint Walmart, we now have more location choices than time to visit them all.

I'm starting to feel the 'I have no friends here' aspect, as there isn't anyone really my age at the corps and Rick's friends are 20+ years older than me and Steph's are all guys she tries to set me up with (TONIGHT I met the 'Harry Potter' guy she works with >:/ ). Rick and Steph try to get me to leave the house when I have a day off from watching the kids, but where would i go? I went to a movie by myself once. Went to Best Buy another time. I kinda want to go back to school, but the expense would cripple me.

This is it for now. I'm not going to keep posting because my life is no way entertaining, but my brother has a blog detailing what he and Rachel are up to with their jobs so you can follow that.

www.sixonefourcharlotte.blogspot.com

Oh yeah, the city! I forgot. No one cares, but the city of Charlotte is so nice! The downtown is called Uptown and headquarters Wachovia Bank, Bank of America, etc. I know it's not near the same size as Chicago, but the infrastructure of the cities are so different! Whereas Chicago has subways systems and crazy road systems and packed sidewalks and tolls, in Charlotte you can be driving thru what you think it just a normal town and then BAM, a few blocks away you see this giant skyscraper. The Panther's stadium is literally like a block off of the tiny road I take to Tom and Rachel's. However a couple years ago Rick and I walked thru parts of Uptown and I just remember that there was hardly any foot or vehicle traffic. Uptown doesn't seem to have the 'college town' vibe. Charlotte does have a ton of events and stuff that go on---art walks and tons of live music performances. Hoping to hit up something in the future.

Day 23-Maternity

This past Saturday, I shot my first official maternity session.

I was not looking forward to it.

I went so far as to entertain ideas of calling and canceling or hoping that the snow we'd been getting would be a big enough deterrent that they wouldn't risk the hour drive. It didn't help that I was in a snippy mood and had gotten sick the night before.

Nonetheless, I spent an hour and a half getting my 'studio' ready and about 5 rushed minutes attempting to create dramatic lighting with my sister sitting in.

Marsha & Matt arrived by their 1pm appointment and as soon as I met them and showed them downstairs my fears were just about gone.

I'm a big self doubter.

The problem, or not so much that as an inconvenience, with maternity shoots is that there's tons of room for creativity, but no one seems to be utilizing it. I poured over pages and pages of maternity shots thru Google and Flickr and never found anything I hadn't seen a million times before. I wanted to offer them something unique, not to just make the generic-what everyone else does-photos.

Still, I had asked her to send me a few ideas of what she was looking for before the shoot and I think we hit on those pretty well.

Below you'll see a few photos that I've edited already. You'll notice that the faces/heads of the couple are cut off a lot. Somehow in editing I realized how much I had been shooting that way and found I liked it. After all, the photos aren't just about mom & dad. There's a baby in the picture and I'd like to focus a little more on its presence.

Problems I ran into:

• I don't have a lot of studio space so doing lighting effectively or shooting anything bigger than a close up was a little difficult.
• I need a dressing area.
• My basement is freezing! I can plug a heater in but I blow fuses over and over again.
• Clients are in my 'studio' for at least 2 hours and while I have a little table with some of my prints on it, there's not much in the way of self advertising for them to look at while they wait.
• We end the shoot, they pay, thank me and then leave. I have to get in the habit of sitting them down, showing them products and deals and stuff that I can offer them in addition to buying digital files.
• I need to keep a checklist of what the client wants and what I want so that I make sure I hit all those ideas.
• When I post unedited photos for them to look at and go thru, they tell me what numbers they like. But then I have to go in and figure out what number matches what image I have on my computer to edit. It's a long process. I need to fix that.
• Making the photos NOT look like engagement photos

Mary

Mary
Originally uploaded by erinmwyatt05

Posting this photo now. Info later!

Day 22- ZOMBIES

Sometimes I just get in the mood to create something! This time I was feeling a shoot with more than 2 people and something different other than the person in street clothes posing for me on paper backdrops. I asked my friend Jessica if she would be interested and then we shot around ideas to make the shoot more interesting. Shooting water? Been there. Throwing paint? Too messy. Light writing? Possibility. Bubbles? Kinda lame. Food fight? Waste.

In light of it almost being Halloween (whoop!) we decided on a Zombie Shoot.

Sunday 6 people (1 of which I knew) (4 girls, 2 boys) came over and we started shooting outside in my backyard.

I had out two strobes, one shooting thru a diffuser/umbrella, and the other with a softbox on it. I put the lights on either side of the group, didn't really mess with them, just hoped for the best.

For most of the shoot I used my 50mm portrait lens and shot at 100ISO and 1/60 at f5.

All the photos were edited Adobe Lightroom 2. I messed around a lot and when I finally found a combination of settings that I liked, I pasted those onto all the photos that I was going to use.

Going back there would be a couple things I would change, a few ideas I'd use, but with each shoot I learn more.

Anyways, this was a super fun shoot and I'm glad for the people that went out and got supplies and clothing and made this awesome!!

Some problems I had:

• People moving around, casting shadows on others behind them
• Strobes cycling too slow, flashes didn't always go off.
• SYNC CORD! Ah, the bane of my existence. Trying to move around while my camera is connected to one of the lights. Both lights tipped over at separate times and one umbrella broke.
• White balance. For once I did not have a single problem with it. So it shouldn't be on this list. But I just wanted to point it out!!
• Camera focusing. We were out in the dark and at times I couldn't tell if my camera was correctly focused on the subjects or not.