Back to chocolatemilkforbreakfast.blogspot.com for now. I let the custom domain lapse.

Happy Caturday

The cats are getting on quite well with our little girl but sometimes they just want to be left to sleep. Here is Leeloo trying to hide in plain sight.

Happy Caturday

An old picture of our little darlings being nice and peaceful (which they are not right now while the
baby is trying to sleep).

Currently... January 2016

Linking up with Jenna and Anne for what I am "Currently..." doing.

Its the new year, Yay! :) I have only two months left off for maternity leave - boo! That flew by. Currently I'm....

{resolving}  to, errr, well I haven't actually made any new years resolutions. This year I'd like to sort out my finances (so we can continue to afford to eat) and open the little one a bank account. I'd like to take more decent pictures of her too, here's my 2015 roundup. I'd like to be able to get through my new degree course without impacting my family time (once I go back to work this will be trickier).

{reading}  'A World History of Art' for my new OCA course. Its very interesting so far but I have so little time to complete it in, less than 2 years left to do two modules (the last one took me two years to do one)!





{organising}  the Christmas decorations back into their boxes and into the loft. I had this idea to buy a bunch of clear plastic boxes to organise the loft with but have yet to actually do this. Its a great idea because then I'd know what was in all those boxes. Do you know exactly what's in your loft? No I thought not. In the mean time I'll settle for covering some nappy boxes in xmas paper so its obvious which boxes are the decorations next year.

{loving}  spending time with my beautiful daughter (and lovely husband). It was her first Christmas and although she didn't really understand, I think she liked the lights and definitely the presents (soon got the hang on unwrapping and even helped me with some of mine). She's sick this week, nasty cold isn't the best way to start the new year thou :(



{craving}  more time off. I'm slightly regretting not taking the full 12 months maternity leave but I didn't think I could afford to not go back to work once the maternity leave pay stopped (after 9 months). I've got until end of Feb but it doesn't feel long enough now its almost here.


What are you currently doing?

PhotoFriday - Small Scale

An old image of Jame's Mysterious Device.

Baby's first Christmas

Had another go on the seamless paper today. She looks so cute in her 'Babys first Christmas' suit that I was trying her for size. The one below was just a snapshot where she'd seen the cat come past, she really loves Leeloo & Dallas.

Santa's Little Helper Redux

I had another go at photographing the little one with the lights (actually used different lights which I was happier for her to get hear her mouth).

I think this time was more successful with the white seamless. The two lights at the back are much closer to the paper (so appear brighter without Mike having to process for me in PS). The downside to this is, because I'm using desk lamps instead of proper (read expensive) studio equipment, they intrude into the frame and the photo needed to be cropped right down in Lightroom. See the original photo unprocessed below. So two lamps at the back and two lamps at the front but quite far away from her. I thought I'd need to use a diffuser on the fore lamps but the light didn't seem too harsh as is. Also, it was a brighter day than when I first tried so the ambient light in the room was higher which I think also helped.

What do you think? Do you have any tips for photographing babies? Please leave a comment below.

Happy Caturday - Relax

Leeloo says relaaaaxxx.....

Santa's Little Helper

After looking through my 2015 pictures to select the best ones (its a tradition on my other blog, you can see my previous years here). I was disappointed to realise my creativity had fled with the hormones, sleepiness nights and samey routines! Doh. I resolved to do something about it and see if I could try and get a decent picture of the little one. I wanted to photograph her with Christmas lights but it was really hard stopping every two seconds to stop her eating them! So I took the lights away and replaced with something safe to chew. It was the first time trying the 'seamless' paper too (which isn't very seamless when you need it two sheets wide) so it took more processing than I'd like to get it looking even this good. I expect Mike will get it looking tip top in photoshop with his mad skills (I did the adjustments in LR, I opened PS and was flummoxed). I think I need to watch some tutorials or something ;) I'll try again with the lights once I've got the technique down a bit better, one thing at a time methinks, at least she doesn't look like a fish so that's some progress. What do you think? Do you have any baby photographing tips for me? Please leave them in the comments section below! :)

Happy Caturday!

Dallas 1, Little One 0, for control of the bouncy chair.