The mermaid princess has arrived.
It's always fascinating to see how we humans think of mythical things. Things such as Big Foot, the Loch Ness monster, mermaids, the perfect camera bag....
No one has seen such creatures, or if they have, the evidence is sketchy at best. But every story and legend had to come from somewhere, whether it were actual eye-witness accounts, or found evidence that supports a theory.
Little girls love the idea of mermaids (and even adult women). Swimming in the ocean, exploring the seas, frolicking with sea life. The first recorded accounts of mermaid sightings date back to 1000 B.C. Check it out.
This little mermaid is about to turn 5 years old. Time has flown by. We got her shortly after her 2nd birthday, and here we are nearly 3 years later.
Her love of everything pink and purple has remained, as is her love of princesses, (and her healthy self-esteem that she herself is a princess). Although, that last part may be partly my fault... God have mercy on her first boyfriend. *Maniacal laugh*.
So this princess wanted to be a mermaid for her 5th birthday. I will admit, I usually do these themed birthday shoots a good month or so in advance so we can use the portrait for the invitations. A lot of work goes into those invitations. The time and energy of setting up the shoot, getting costumes, props, etc. Editing the image. Printing the invitations on my photo printer, mailing or handing out said invitations, the list goes on and on.
We decided this time, we'll do digital invites. Faster delivery, save some trees, save some cash (a pack of invitation card stock and envelopes can run $30 or more, not counting stamps.) We are still using the image for the digital invitation, and I'll still print out thank you cards.
If you've ever read some of my other blog posts, you might remember me mentioning (complaining, b*tching, etc.) about how small my house is. Yeah, still living in the same house. Same cramped spaces, but I still manage to make it work.
I setup for this shot in our living room. It's times like these that I really appreciate a semi-wide lens like the Fuji XF 23mm f/1.4 (35mm equivalent focal length). It allows me to still get a full length shot (of a child mind you) in a cramped space.
Teeny right? It's a good thing my daughter is still a short stack. So obviously my living room isn't the beautiful beach scene my daughter is sitting in in the final image. I found that little beauty on unsplash.com. I only recently discovered it, but has a lot of royalty free images for use. The photographer of the image I used is Austin Neill.
Here's the final image. Mind you I haven't been sleeping well, and I only got about 4 hours of sleep the night before. I think the entire shoot, which consisted of maybe a dozen images, took a whopping 5-10 minutes (part of which my wife would step in to fix the princess' hair or tiara). Editing may have taken an hour? I already had the background image, I just needed to make sure my lighting matched.
