next time will just pay for the pictures

As part of our austerity budget, we decided to forego paying someone to take pictures of our daughter for Xmas cards. How hard could it be to get a nice photos ourselves, right?

Wrong.

I googled 'baby christmas picture ideas' and got inspired by all the cute chubbers. I particularly loved the babies that were surrounded by xmas lights. The pictures looked so dreamy. I thought 'I can do this'.

So, first I set up a shoot that used a red blanket as a backdrop, had a nest of white lights, and an xmas teddy bear. I took a practice shot with the teddy bear to see how it would look:

I liked this very much, I was very excited. Unfortunately, I did not account for the big difference between the stuffed animal and a baby. Yeah...the baby moves. Oh, and the baby was a cranky fuss tonight. The best photo I was able to get with this idea was:

That was not gonna do. I next decided to try to put her in her xmas dress and use a white backdrop. My daughter hates dresses and decided that the best course of action was to eat the dress in protest. The best shot from this stroke of genuis:

Running out of patience, I went back to my original idea. My daughter started cooperating and almost seemed to pose for the pictures. The downside was the lighting. When I took the flash off, the pictures were great, except for her face. Her face was all shadow. When I put the flash on, the xmas lights and dreamy quality I was looking for disappeared. This is what I got:

So, without a good shot, and with only a few days left before we HAVE to get out cards out, I am going to have to try this again tomorrow. Wish me luck.