A handmade market

Our mega glam garage sale was an effective experiment, though perhaps not the roaring success that we might have wished it to be. (You know - when heaps of people come and give us all their money)
The weather was fantastic, and although there were a significant number of hiccups in the morning as we got things set up (including a man who wanted to buy McKenzie's guitar - NOT FOR SALE!) it all looked wonderful (if I do say so myself)

Thanks to Analiese and her photography talents I can give you a tour of our little market and it's wares.

This is my work:

Prints. Note to self: iron tablecloths. (Even when they are just unfinished quilt tops)

Framed prints. Notebooks. Reina's rice filled heat packs. Zana's bags, and Reina's cushions.

Zana's monogram key chains and dresses (below)

McKenzie's prints are beautiful. Her music was lovely too, and after buying her CD I have listened to it on loop all day today... Do yourself a favour and check her out.

Katie's booties and muesli. Tool box/magazine holders and Candle centrepieces (below) by Reina (and Ryan)

Jess's cupcakes and brownies (the brownies were especially yum!)

We will be opening our shop on September the 28th and you will be able to find all these things and much more from other amazing local talents.

If you want to catch up with me in the mean time I will be at the Makers Market at UNSW next Saturday (September 7) so feel free to come and visit me (and a whole troop of other awesome etsy sellers) when you are done voting!

My family.

On the morning that we were to get our photos taken by Analiese (from *Dimples* by AnalieseJane) Ronin fell onto his face and bruised his cheek.
Can you tell?
NO.

Analiese's photos have basically confirmed two things that I pretty much already knew.
1. She is an awesome photographer with some leet photoshop bruise removing skills.
2. I have adorable children!

 See? So cute. (If only this were a perpetual reality because they were both little nut cases today...)

I actually really dislike having my photo taken partly because of the regular boring reasons (wah wah my eyes are crooked blah blah) and partly because I think that I look especially stupid in posey photos.

These photos weren't like that. With occasional guidance (lighting and composition ideas) Analiese just took photos of us being a family and when Ky decided that he wanted certain photos of him with his boys she was more than happy to oblige.

 (Fun fact: Ronin is eating grass in the photo on the left and is shoving a flower in his mouth in the photo on the right... Just keeping it real)

The turn over between getting the photos taken and getting the link to the online gallery of our work was fast, and I was SO happy with the photos that she chose to send us. Especially because she sent through the photos of us being real as well as the ones of us being atypically (comparatively) good looking.

I love this photo... (that green colour in the back? One of my favourite colours in the world)

And I love this photo even more... because this is basically the story of my life. Kyle laughing at something (probably something that he said himself) and me looking at him just like that.

It's REAL!
I suppose that's the take home message.

Photography is awesome because it captures real moments that are worthy of remembering - and I love those real, honest photos much more than posed photos. Analiese was great because she made the boys feel comfortable (Gabriel LOVED having his photos taken) and let us laugh and parent and joke and just be ourselves and still managed to make us look good!

Gabe's mismatched socks :) He was really worried he was going to fall off Ky's shoulder.

Sometimes it's a difficult thing to prioritise family photos when other things come up (like power bills and registering your car and all those other gross real life things) but you can't really put prices on memories like these. I have a lot of photos, a lot of them have great memories attached to them, but they don't look super nice like these ones. Why bother paying to get photos taken? BECAUSE THEY LOOK BETTER. You know... cos it's their job!

Good photographers have skills that you probably don't.
I know how to use photoshop to make art, I can even edit some photos but making beautiful photos isn't my job. Thanks to Analiese I even know how to shoot using the manual settings on a camera... but my photos don't look like these.
Also - I am usually the one taking photos and so there aren't a lot of photos of me and my boys together (selfies absolutely do not count) so these photos are amazing for me.

I have already ordered prints.

Ky and I have set a goal to get photos taken every year to track our families growth.

 It is worth it.

Love your camera

I have always felt a bit limited by words, which might be one of the reasons why I love art so much. That's not to say that I don't love words too - I read a lot, but sometimes you can say a lot more with an image. You know...

1 picture > 1000 words.

However many words a picture may be worth, learning how to take nice photos has always been on my list of things to do.
Reading other peoples blogs and seeing how awesome their photos are has only served to remind me almost daily how badly I wish I knew how to do more than just take an 'auto' photo.

So on Monday morning Analiese sat down with me and schooled me on how to use a DSLR - it's my mums, but after this she'll be lucky if she gets it back... (don't worry mum, I know that you're very very lucky)

For anyone who is interested in learning more about using your camera then I would absolutely recommend going to one of Analiese's classes. I have spoken about her before on this blog, so if you have a good memory you will know that she is a relative of mine, but asides from this and her being generally awesome - I really enjoyed learning how to take a decent photo.

The benefit of her 'Love your camera' course was in the absolute personal application of it. It wasn't just about learning how to use a tool for sake of being able to use a tool, but the whole conversation (it was one on one so it was informal and relaxed) applied to how I would be using a camera after I left the class. So while I haven't taken any other photography classes (ever) I still think that it is a great reminder even for people who have.

She went through all the auto and semi-auto settings on the camera and then we took a bunch of photos fully manual, which was around the time that my boys all came back from wandering around the park and so I was able to take some photos of them.

Analiese is predominantly a family photographer, but this class is about learning how to use and love your camera so that you can use it to tell the stories that you want to tell in the way that you want to tell it. There was no pretentious 'only shoot manual because everything else is cheating' or anything like that, but I am excited that I can apply the things that she taught me (and use the little cheat sheet of notes she gave me) to my point and shoot camera - which also has a manual setting.

I'm totally putting pressure on myself to produce good photos on this blog now, but with a shop opening in the works and life as hectic as ever, it is really nice to have some more skills in my arsenal and great as well to have been able to spend some time doing getting something from my bucket list ticked off.

Analiese has a class coming up later this month (on the 20th)  so check out her website and send her an email if you are interested in a spot there - or if you would like to have a class like me just one on one, email her for more info.

ps. Obviously Analiese took the photos of me taking photos - she sent them to me (because I'm vain and I asked for them) and they had a number for the file number. I totally renamed it 'eleanorisaphotographer' hahahaha. One class and already I'm all like 'woo check me out' Hi-larious.