Pumpkin Spice Lattes and the Leaves of Many Colors

My husband lives for summers. He loves the sun and the sand and being outdoors from morning till night. Not me. I pretty much hibernate in the summers....I stay tucked away in my nice ice-cold, air conditioned house with the lights dim, barely going outside unless absolutely necessary. I know a lot of people get seasonal depression during the winter, but I'm the opposite. I LOVE autumn and winter! I love it when it gets dark at 5 in the evening. I love the ice and snow. I really believe I'd do wonderfully in Siberia. :) I also count down the days until Starbucks starts selling their Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Woot woot!

I have the last four weeks of my photo project to post today. This is a busy time of year, so the blog updates will probably be a few and far between until after the holidays. I also have a link to share for a magazine that did a blog feature on me. Just click on this link and it will take you to their site.

Mozi Magazine - Diane Harrison Feature

Thanks to Mozi Magazine for inviting me to share my work with them!

The past four themes on my photo project were: White Space, Emote, Gold, and My Favorite Season. Gold and Season were easy. White Space wasn't too bad. Emote was a mess. I do really well when the week's theme is something concrete - like a color or an object (flowers, water, etc). I have a hard time when the theme is abstract. Even in regards to art, I don't like abstract art. I like paintings that have an obvious and clear cut center of interest. I like to have things spelled out for me. 

I'll start with White Space. I knew most of the other photographers in my photo project were going to post a lot of photos that were "blown out" and I wanted to do something a little different. I thought this was rather amusing, although my children did not agree. We filled a small swimming pool with soapy water and Paige was going to play in the water...thus making the bubbles the white space. The water was too cold and she wouldn't get it, so Cole to the rescue!! So you have full disclosure, I did have to bribe him with a Minecraft ball cap he wanted. I only had him in the water for about 2 minutes since it was so cold, and then I finished shooting the bubbles once he'd gotten out. 

WHITE SPACE

Okay, Emote. I couldn't think of anything that fit that definition. I took my three year old and our puppy outside and let them play together. I know, I know...abstract theme and all, I still missed the boat. 

EMOTE

With Gold, I knew immediately what I wanted to do. I hit up the Halloween shops and Hobby Lobby to find gold glitter paint and some gold flower stems. We painted Paige's face and hooked the stems in her hair. The sparkler was added in post-processing. This theme was two weeks ago and I still find glitter in her hair every time I'm styling it. 

GOLD

And now, My Favorite Season. I love autumn and winter both equally, but for different reasons. I decided to go with an autumn theme and again, Paige was the target. :)

MY FAVORITE SEASON

A Little Bit Of Everything

Oh my. It's been ages since I've had a chance to put up a blog post. With school starting a little over 2 weeks ago, my schedule has been thrown off. Waaaaaaay off. Paige started kindergarten and Cole is in 4th grade - this is the only time they'll be in the same school, so I'm enjoying the ease of only one pick-up and drop-off location. We took one final mini vacation before school got into full swing. All the way to Branson lol. We spent the first evening at a small amusement park (think go-karts, putt putt, and kiddie rides), the next day was packed with the Hollywood Wax Museum, House of Mirrors, Titanic Museum, mini golf, and trying out new and fun restaurants. The final day was more go-karts and riding the Ducks (which by the way is TERRIFYING! This may sounds stupid and in retrospect is obvious, but I had no idea they took those things in the water...I.hate.water. I spent the entire time trying not to hyperventilate). The hotel we stayed in had an indoor waterpark, but because of how busy stayed, we only went once for about an hour. I only took photos with my iphone and put them together in a slideshow.

Moving on to the first day of school! Now that we're a already a couple of weeks in, both kids seem to be loving it and doing great. Ozzie is really the one having the hardest time - he misses his brother and sister during the day. 

And then there was one....... :)

And last but not least, my photo project. I've kept up with it each week, but haven't been all that great about documenting. I'm just going to post several weeks worth of themes and you can muddle through them. 

Green

I had two submissions for that week. The apple photo just sort of happened since we were taking school photos anyway and the other was because of a green princess dress Paige has. I also altered her eye color to green in the photo. She actually has blue eyes.

Rich

This was taken the night before Ozzie turned 3 and just looking at this little guy, I am rich beyond all measure. <3

Intense

Her eyes.


Thanks for making it all the way through! 

She's A Vision

My littlest boy turned 3 last week. I'm officially slacking since he didn't even get his own birthday blog post, instead getting thrown in with last week's photo shoot. I thought it was hard watching the two older kids grow up and hit milestones, but it's definitely the most bittersweet with the youngest. You know you won't ever get another chance to watch your child take their first steps or say "mama". Even in the past few months, Ozzie has gone from baby-talking toddler to a full blown threenager, with an attitude to match. Someone told me once that how a child acts at three is how they will be as an adult. In that case, we.are.in.trouble. He seems to have gotten his Daddy's "take no prisoners" approach to life. As a 40 year old businessman, that works well. As a 3 year old little boy, I have no words lol. He is truly the sweetest little boy and tells me he loves me 100 times a day (I think it's really because he likes to start a "who loves who more" argument that can then go on for hours). He's big on kisses and hugs. And loves his brudder and sissy and his dog, Harry (Hee-wee), to death.

Now on to this week's theme: Vision.

I have two kids in glasses, so my mind immediately jumped there, but I couldn't come up with anything I liked, so back to the drawing board. Vision to me is having an idea and then putting it into effect. I do that quite often in photography and it's often hit or miss, but when it lands, it lands beautifully. So this week, I went with a "vision" of mine, if you will. I had wanted some summer-esque photos of one or more of the kids holding a mason jar and looking at a butterfly they'd caught. Well, Cole, my oldest, immediately took himself out of the game, with a nope nope nope. He'll suck it up and pose once in a while for me, but he prefers to be with me behind the camera. Ozzie was just bouncing off walls and wouldn't stay still for anything, so as always...the job falls to my lovely Paige. She would rather be somewhere else herself, but she is SO much easier to bribe than the other two! :)

The first photo was the project submission, but you know me and I never stop at just one....

VISION

Carousel and (soon to be) 3rd Birthday

This is a strange blog post combo, but since the pictures were taken at the same time and cross over, I couldn't figure out any other way to do it. I had ordered Paige a new dress that I'd wanted since last year, but they'd been sold out. Some kind soul on facebook that knew I'd been desperately wanting one let me know the same morning they were re released on their site (click here for Dollcake Website). My favorite color is red and I'd been drooling over this dress for 12 long months. I knew it was too fabulous to just be photographed in a field or sitting on a couch. I've had an idea flopping around my brain for ages of shooting in a circus or carnival or fair, but living in a small town doesn't leave many options. We do however, have a carousel! The nice gentleman (Keeper of the Carousel Keys) that I contacted was more than happy to meet us out there for an hour when it was normally closed down. I'd been watching the weather and thought it was supposed to be a little cooler (low 90s) and cloudy the day we shot. It was very cloudy all morning and within an hour of getting there the sun was shining brightly and I'm not sure of the temp, but the heat index was well over 100°. Let me tell you something - that dress is HEAVY. It may look light and airy, but it's multi-layered and weighs as much as Paige (only a slight exaggeration). As always, she was a professional...albeit a sweaty one. Most of the pictures that I chose for editing and posting were taken in the first 5 minutes because after that, her hair was drenched. We shot her and then brought the boys out of the nice air-conditioned car and did another quick few minutes. I mostly focused on Ozzie this time around, since I'd planned for these to be his 3 year old pictures. There are so many photos between Paige and the red dress, Ozzie's 3 year old individuals, and then all 3 kids, that I'll just post a few of my favorite and then the rest will be at the bottom of this post on a sideshow. 

When Life Give you Lemons - take pictures!

This week's theme was "taste". I wasn't very excited about the theme, so I guess it's good it just kind of fell into place without much effort. For Ozzie's two-year old pictures, we did a lemonade stand and it was then we discovered he loved lemons. Not sugared up - just face screwingly sour. I'm preparing for his three year photos now (birthday in 2 weeks *gasp!*), but my Mom reminded me of last year and the funny faces he'd make eating the lemons. Yay for easy! Plus, this might be the last chance I'll get of him with his curly hair....my husband has been wanting it cut for a long time now and I've been putting it off (or should I just say, dragging my feet?). We've now had like 5 people in two days tell us what a beautiful little girl he is (including at church on Sunday when he was wearing a bow tie!....a BOW TIE PEOPLE!!!). I even had a lady at Walmart call him a little beauty this morning. So I realize the time for a cut draws near (unless when my darling, loving, wonderful husband reads this blog and realizes that it would break his poor wife's heart and that there is (almost) nothing inherently wrong with the man-bun on a 3 year old. *wink wink* *kiss kiss*). If anyone wants his email address or phone number, let me know...I'll pass it along and you can cuss him out kindly ask the wee babe's hair to be left alone. On to the theme. I took a regular shot before the lemon eating began (again, the curls!) and then a series of screwy-face shots (I do feel the need to say that we did not force him in any way to eat these. They were just sliced up on a plate and he chowed down).

TASTE

....and a gorgeous black and white....

Since my blog didn't exist last year, I am sharing a slideshow of the lemonade stand from Ozzie's 2 year pictures. Amazing how much the little dude has grown. <3

Mornings Like This...

This week's theme was "morning". Mornings around my house aren't pretty. During the summer, 3 kids with droopy eyes and the smell of sleep on them stumble around the house and either drop unmoving in front of the tv or attempt a bowl of cereal. By the time I get to the kitchen, there is usually a puddle of milk and the dog is having the time of his life with his head shoved up the Froot Loop bag, crunching merrily. Instead of taking a picture of our hair sticking up and raggedy pajamas, I dressed the kids up and took them to the Carthage Deli for a pancake breakfast. In other words, I faked our morning. See how cute my kids are in their bow ties and perfectly coiffed hair? Why yes, that's exactly how we wake up. ;) 

4th of July

Happy Independence Day! I've been busy lately and haven't had the time to keep up with my blog. In the next few days, I'll try to play catch up with my weekly picture submissions. This week's theme was magic. I was going in a different direction with the photo choice, but at the last minute decided to use the fireworks picture I'd taken of the kids. So my official submission was this:

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. 

Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

-Roald Dahl

I took the kids out to the Carthage Golf Course and went to the general area we usually sit. It was mid-evening and I had the kids look up toward the sky and pretend to see fireworks. Then I came home and added the fireworks in post-processing. And because I am incapable of just taking one photo, I have a few more to share. 

Our family will be taking it easy today. Jon may take the kids fishing this morning and then we'll probably grill burgers for dinner. Of course we'll be going back out to the Carthage Golf Course this evening for REAL fireworks! 

Happy 4th to all our friends and family!