Eight

So I decided I really loved the baptism pictures we took of Elora by the window at church.

The last three years we have taken  some lovely pictures for Elora's birthday, but they all had the same grassland backgrounds; this year I decided I wanted something different. Why not do more like the window picture? Of course, I always forget that I'm much better at taking pictures outside than inside. Part of that is I don't have all of the tools I need to take better inside pictures- something to reflect light or a secondary light source, plus I usually forget my tripod.

This time I also had light that wasn't as bright and perfect as I'd had the day before for the window picture- it was overcast and dim. On top of that I had conflicting ideas about what I wanted. I loved the mysterious high contrast photo I had already, but I also wanted some that captured her smile and had less harsh lighting. I had one from the previous day where I liked her expression (yay, dimple), but her face is too shadowy- I know it will print too dark.

 

 



 

In the end, I decided the first picture from Saturday is the one I will hang on my wall, but at least now I have some smiling ones to choose from for her scrapbook too.

One thing that made the first pictures nice was the contrast of her white shirt. The next day she wore a lacy shirt she got for her birthday, which I thought would add some interesting texture, but really the white shirt was better. Also, because of the dim light (and no tripod) the pictures aren't nearly as sharp. Boo.

 

I liked the black and white aspect of the original picture, so I made most of these in both black and white as well as color to see which I liked better. Here's the first group of b+w.



 

 

I like the contrast of the bottom left, the expression in the top right,
and the composition of the bottom right.



I wish the bottom left had the nice eye detail from the right.
 I do love the color of her shirt in the top left though.

I just realized I don't have the color version of this photo in the group, so here ya go. I like this picture a lot, but it will definitely print dark:
























 Here are a few horizontal ones:

On the bottom one, now I'm thinking maybe
I'd like it more without the added texture around it. Hmm.

 



Here are some with more body. I like composition of these ones, but I would like them more if they had a sharper focus. I'm also thinking maybe I should've taken the molding out of the picture?

 

I really like the gesture in the bottom photo,
I just with the light was better and the detail was sharper.

 

This one is okay..I'm wondering if I'd like it better if it were whiter.
 What do you think?

 I did take one picture I really liked; unfortunately, it wasn't really a portrait. oh well.

 

 

 

Elora is a cute eight year old no matter what kind of photo we take!

 

Baptism

Last week, Elora got baptized! She was kind of nervous, but everything went pretty well. We had to go to a church building other than where we usually meet, as ours didn't have a baptismal font. We did stop at our church on the way though, to get the cd player for the music (no one in our Branch plays the piano, and we weren't sure if they'd have one in meeting room anyway.)

At our church building, I brought Elora inside for a few minutes, because I had this idea for taking some pictures in front of the big windows, and they turned out pretty nice! We have way too much junk around our walls to take pictures like this at our house. Not to mention the fingerprinted windows...)

 

 

I love this sideways look, it's even better in black and white. I just wish I had something to reflect the light for this forward facing one, so her face wasn't so dark.

 

Elora got to wear a special hair ribbon for her baptism. Grandma sent it to her before her baby blessing, when she wore it on her wrist. It came with a pretty poem that says to wear it in her hair for her baptism day, and she can wear it again when she gets married. Elora thinks it's very pretty.

 

 

At the baptism, there was another girl from our Branch also getting baptized, so it was nice that Elora didn't have be be alone! They only had these two outfits for the girls to wear: one jumper and one dress; Elora chose the dress. It kept hanging down around the neck, so I was glad I'd had her wear a white undershirt!

























Elora and Daddy were ready to take the plunge! The missionaries had filled up the font earlier, and told us that the water wasn't very hot because someone  had been at the church taking showers? They said it was lukewarm, and we just shrugged our shoulders, but when the other family arrived they insisted they refill at least part of it with some hotter water. Even with the hot water added last minute, everyone said it was still mighty chilly!

























The font was different than any I'd seen before; it was in the Primary class room, where they took a cover off of middle of the floor..in a carpeted room! Yeah, they got the floor pretty soaking wet when they each got out.

 

We were all very proud of the girls for getting baptized!

Eli would NOT smile for any family pictures.

 

No one in our group had been to this church building before, and it was kind of neat to see some tile work in the hallway. Elora and I had some fun taking pictures around the colorful design. Her skirt even matched it!









































































After everyone got dried off, we all went to Dairy Queen. It was a fun day!