This is my favorite time of year. Everything is turning from brown to green and flowers are blooming everywhere. It doesn’t last very long, maybe two weeks so I try to take advantage of every spot I can find. I had planned to do a photo shoot in clovers for St. Patrick’s Day because I got Harley the cutest little outfit. I knew downtown Covington would have a patch of clovers somewhere and when riding around after work to find a good one I noticed everyyyything was in bloom. Harley is a a rainbow loving gal so I thought we could do a quick session around downtown Covington so I could build a rainbow of prints of her for her room (well modified…..she only wanted her favorite colors). I adore how it came out! In about an hour we created a beautiful rainbow for my sweet girls rainbow bedroom.
Downtown Covington in Spring
I thought some of you might like to see behind the scenes of the different locations I used so you can see how ordinary locations can be extraordinary if you have a vision. I went back and took a few behind the scenes photos to share. Also, I thought I would share what I asked Harley to do during the photos so her four year old self would cooperate and not have “photographer’s child syndrome” which I hear so often.
The session was shot with my Canon 5D Mark III and my Canon 135mm 2.0 and 35 mm 1.4 lenses.
The first photos we took were by a beautiful pink azalea bush. They are blooming everywhere and are so beautiful. This bush was across the street from a Quick Stop convenience store that burned down. There was grass around the bush but when I went back the next day they had cut it. I knew if I took close ups and angled just right, I would just get the bush….
For these pictures I explained to her how different flowers have different smells to make them smell sweet so the bees will be attracted to them. Azaleas don’t really have a smell but she insisted and tried so hard to find it. Her little face is so sweet!
The last picture was the day I drove by and said oh that’s a good spot. You can see the grass was cut when I went back for a better picture but still a pretty bush! I would have just done all close up shots.
Here is a SOOC image along with my camera settings. The settings were very similar throughout the session as it was an overcast day.
After the pink flowers we drove to a lot behind the court house. It was full of green clovers AND yellow flowers. Win win! We did yellow flowers first. She said they were prickly so I grabbed a wooded bowl from my trunk for her to stand in. We brought some daffodils from our garden and to keep her still here I asked her to pick the little yellow flowers and put them inside the daffodil’s. She was a busy bee filling up her little daffodil buckets.
Right next to the yellow flowers were the clovers so we just changed her outfit. These were soft so she didn’t mind being barefoot and it was easy to occupy her here. We were looking for four-leaf clovers for St. Patricks day and making clover crowns. Something I used to do with my sweet grandmother.
I told her to take a nap in the clovers. She thought it was the funniest thing and thought it was even funnier to block my camera with her feet! That picture shows her true personality.
Here is a pull back of where the clovers and yellow flowers were. I knew that because the lot was surrounded by buildings I would have to shoot aiming down to avoid them. Of course when I went back to take the BTS photos they were cutting the grass so I got those just in time!
So after this location you will never guess what happened….My phone was in the front seat of my car and I put my camera bag in the trunked and the car locked!! I can’t believe I locked myself out! I had to flag down a pizza guy and call my husband to come rescue Harley and I. So we sat on the curb snuggling because it was cold and telling stories until he came with the spare keys. I wasn’t going to do the next stop because my dad was coming over but I decided to just do it quickly. I am so glad I did.
The last color was Harley’s favorite. My sweet girl loves the color purple. The wisteria vine I wanted to use was in the parking lot of a church office building and of course on Sunday morning when we were doing the shoot it was blocked by a big truck so I decided to look around and come back to that. I saw a vine deep in an overgrown lot. Luckily I had a little ladder with me so I put the ladder down in the middle fo the vine and had her count the pedals. She loves to count so it kept her still.
Can you spot the wisteria in these BTS photos?
We went back once church was out and I’m so glad I did. It was such a big beautiful vine!
She is not allowed to stand on the ladder at home so it was quite a treat for her to do so here.
Hope you found the behind the scenes photos helpful. I am fortunate to have such beauty around me but you can see it may not be in the most obvious places. We were going to a field of white flowers….well when I say field I mean empty lot by the Home Depot….but my little bug was tired and Grand Dad was coming to visit. And she pointed out she did not want white in her rainbow because there is not white in rainbows lol. She’s the boss sooo….
Green halo: Poppy and Cy Handmade
Pink halo: Ivy & Nell Baby
Green clover dress: Rosa Flamenco
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