Photo shoot, my creative goal for the week

I'm so lucky to have so many friends who are talented, creative, ambitious and always willing to be soundboards for my randomness. Last week, I met up with my wonderful and amazing friend, Mariah (One Thread That Winds), to toss around some ideas and projects that have been swirling in our busy minds, inspire each other and get motivated. We met at Infusion Tea, which is also home to ArtisTree Co-op, a group of local artists who sell their handmade products in the shop. If anyone is local in Central Florida, you need to go check it out! They have so many cute things in there - jewelry, stationery, hair accessories, baby clothes, adorable aprons. Being surrounded by all this beautiful crafty stuff, it was just the right place to hang out for creative conversation. Plus they have yummy baked goods and every blend of tea imaginable. But I digress.

I've been feeling a little stuck lately, not for lack of ideas, but more like too many ideas and not enough time - or really, not enough time management. Turns out Mariah's been going through some of the same things. So before we left, we decided we'd be goal partners. Every week we'll call each other one goal we intend to work on that week - could be anything from cleaning out a craft closet, to finishing an almost-there project, to taking a first step on a new idea. Big or small, doesn't matter, just anything that moves us forward.

For my first goal, I chose photography. I got a new camera for my birthday and I was soo excited about it, but the poor thing has been completely neglected. I feel like I need to apologize to it or something every time I leave the house without it. A few weeks ago, I came up with a photo project I wanted to do for the girls' room. I thought it might be too ambitious for me.  Mainly because I'm a procrastinator and I don't know how to break things down into baby steps. But now that their room is coming together, it was the perfect photography assignment.

A few weeks ago I bought these words at a yard sale for 25 cents each...

I thought it would be cute if I took pictures of the girls to go with each of the words, so we had a little photo shoot last weekend. 

I wouldn't call myself a people photographer really; I get camera shy behind the camera, as if that makes any sense.  And with kids being so...mobile, and stuff, and me not being all that familiar with the (8,300) settings on my camera yet, I was a little worried I'd bomb it.  I remembered this post I saw on The Idea Room a few months ago by Kristin Duke on candid photography.  She has a list of favorite prompts she likes to use to induce those special candid moments without being "posed."  I love that idea.  I made myself a cheat sheet of words to shoot candidly by, and I think I might just pin it up somewhere because they're fun words just to have around.

Want one?  Have one!

Well I have to say, I don't know what I was worried about.  These girls are so beautiful, it's almost impossible to get a bad shot of them!  I gave them a few prompts here and there, but for the most part, I just let them do their thing.  They had so much fun, and so did I.  Here are a couple of shots... omg they're so cute I could eat them with a spoon!

I got to play with some new Photoshop actions, and holy cow I could spend hours messing around.  So that's my goal for this week, edit the pics and have them printed so next week I can start on the painting part of the project.  Stay tuned!