Thursday, May 20, 2010

Shameless, I tell you...

I stumbled across the absolute best idea on the Making it Lovely blog. The best idea. And I am going to shamelessly steal it. And for those of you with new babies, I recommend you shamelessly steal it too. Here's the deal: Making it Lovely blogger Nicole Balch takes a picture of her adorable daughter, Eleanor, in the same chair, each month. She then compiles the photos into a kind of timeline portrait. Best. Idea. Ever. Not only does she dress Eleanor in a cute little pink outfit, she attaches a pin. The pin is yet another genius idea, since it gives perspective to the photo and shows how Eleanor has grown over time. So in order to shamelessly steal this idea, I would need three things: 1) A chair. Luckily, we bought Tate this adorable orange chair from Cielo. Check. 2) A pin of some kind. Luckily, while out shopping, we discovered the perfect pin at, you guessed it, Cielo. Check. 3) To go back in time a week or so. Because I discovered this genius idea approximately one week after Tate's one month birthday. Of course. I was disappointed and thought about giving up the idea, but decided that if we start one month plus a few days, we will still get the general idea. So I set out to set up a photo shoot. You can imagine how it went, with a 5 week old baby slumped on an orange wooden chair. There was a harried preparation to get him in his white onesie, attach the pin (which, at this point, looks large enough to attack the little guy), set him in the chair while he was not crying, and snap a picture before his head lolling caused him to fall off said chair onto the wood floor. Luckily, we took a number of pictures without any accidents. All in all, it was a flurry of action which led to lots of blurry pictures, but in the end, we got the shot. And here it is, Tate's Month One (give or take) birthday shot. More to come each month!
(Yikes! I am having second thoughts. Should it be this shot instead?)
Zach and I can't agree, so friends, what do you think... pic one or pic two? This is important as it will set the tone for the entire two-year series. So please weigh in!

6 comments:

  1. I think I like the second one better, the colors are brighter and you can see his facial structure a bit better. You also get a nice perspective of the chair.

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  2. What a great idea (and a great steal)! I'm torn—I think the second picture is a better. The chair is in sharper focus, and Tate looks adorable. But I really like the contrast of the orange with the blue wall in the first picture, and for an overall series of photos, I think I'd prefer the composition in the first photo rather than the second.

    What about doing both settings for the next month or so and choosing the winner based on how the series progresses, rather than on month one?

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  3. I love the adorable squirminess of the first picture, but I think the second one is a better picture to build from. And he looks more Tate-like to me in the second one...more like the happy, calm, thoughtful kid I have fallen in love with. This is going to be so great!

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  4. I like the second one . . .

    But you can always lay him down for the picture. No rules since you are "stealing" the idea :)

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  5. I like the first one better, since I too love the contrast between the blue wall and the orange chair. Also, he looks happier. But, really, how can you go wrong with that chair, that pin, and that baby?

    Also, I'm totally stealing this idea. And I'm so shameless, I'm not even going to proclaim myself shameless. I'm wondering if there's some way to work in the dog as a size indicator too . . . the only problem is that Barry's size/look changes so much between summer (when his fur is cut down) and winter, when he's a big fluff-ball . . .

    Melissa

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  6. I am 100% second photo. So funny and sweet.

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