When Mollie Makes asked if I would send some extra photos of my work for Issue 18 along with a photo of myself for the contributors page, I decided to throw together an impromptu secret garden party in my back yard. It was so secret, that I was the only one there!
I also always wanted to see if I could make one of these composite collage thingies. I have no idea how you are supposed to make them. I basically just shot a bunch of photos of myself around the table and then cut/pasted them together. It’s not perfect, and you can see some seams if you look closely, but it was just for fun, and I thought it turned out pretty cool!
Here are some shots of the goodies!
I didn’t have the table cloth or the tea set or the place mats or the flower jug or those red napkin/towels beforehand. I went to Ross to see if there was a tea set, and I came back with a million things and a newly rekindled love for Ross where stuff is so much cheaper than expected! Unfortunately, the tea set was so cheap, that you aren’t even supposed to drink out of it for realsies. Oh well!
I chose sort of a red theme to go with the strawberry jam on the toast.
Uh I also just noticed that whoever is sitting at this spot at the table is not going to have a fork….
I showed some pics to my mom right after I sent them to Mollie Makes, and she was like, “Ermagerd. The English love their gardens, and your garden is embarrassing.” Then suddenly, I was super afraid of shaming my family with my shoddy gardening! Luckily, they only published small, cropped thumbnails, so my mom doesn’t have to kill me. I was already super thankful that I had any garden to speak of to take impromptu photos like this!
All these shots are actually the second day I shot the same set. The first day, everything turned out so grainy, and I didn’t know why. Friends on Twitter figured out that my ISO had been on the wrong setting for like a million years. OOPS. I don’t know anything about photography and have never futzed with the ISO! I debated between just using the photos I took so long to shoot vs. re-shooting again the next day. I chose the latter. I just couldn’t deal with them grainz! I think the neighbors must have thought I was insane. Same set-up. Same outfit.
I would totally have a real tea party with real girlfriends in my garden, because I loved the set-up so much. However, it is usually cold and gloomy here, so that wouldn’t be too much fun!
By the way, I normally do not have this amount of stock on hand to photograph on the fly. I was super lucky that I had JUST vended at Renegade Craft Fair and had stock leftover from that. Phew!
I totally fell in love with this dress from TopShop, but I didn’t know if it was too cheeky to wear for this magazine. I consulted with Maddy and Lady SuperGood, and I seemed to get the thumbs up, so I went for it.
I mean TopShop is from the U.K. and so is Mollie Makes, so it should be all good, right? Right!
I know I should have steamed the bottom. I actually had already ironed (carefully!) the top part because there was a really deep crease in it, and I was already proud of myself for not melting it. The magazine cropped off the bottom anyway, so, all was right in the world.
I need to shoot photos for the new Yummy You! online shop soon, and I’m not sure if we should go clean and simple with a white or pastel backdrop, or if we should go somewhere “on location” like these photos. We’ll see!
