Tina Elkins Photography and Styling: February 2013

Saturday, February 23, 2013

My Greenhouse Cottage Fantasy

I grabbed this shot this past week at a location shoot. We shot at a little B&B -a lovely little white on white shabby chic farmhouse located in the middle of the rolling countryside outside of Mt Vernon, Ohio. I spent an unbelievable amount of time working late on my props and getting my sets ready for my photographer! I know we got some great stuff, but I was too busy to even snapshot my sets on my phone- out of nearly 20 setups I think I snapped 3 pictures!

The is one I set up on a whim late in the evening. I was trying to get my sets ready for our second day of shooting when it struck me that if I was going to shoot anything at night it had to be right then and there. I started setting it up intending to shoot it myself, but thankfully my photographer Mark stayed up late to shoot it for me. His shot is better than my Instagram snap, but I still think it is lovely shot of candles in and around a vintage style birdcage surrounded by Norfolk pines and lemon cypress.

I found this little house to be really inspiring; it indulges a fantasy that I have about living in a greenhouse cottage. Although styles come and go, the shabby chic thing has had real staying power because it is adaptable, comfortable, and easy to work with on any budget. You don't have to be a designer or stylist to understand the appeal of white on white or chippy paint. 20 years ago it looked all lacey and Victorian, but recently the look has been reinvented with a more sophisticated French farmhouse/Scandinavian vibe. Check out the terrific hardbound book The New French Decor; Living with Timeless Objects by Michele Lalande. I have been drawing much inspiration from this book over the last 4 years or so. If only my real life looked anything like this!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Winter Photography

My job has kept me super busy this past month! We haven't had a lot of good snowy winters here along the south shore of Lake Erie for awhile, but this year has seen something of a return to the kind of winters that I remember before global warming. As you can imagine, the demand for snow scenes for Christmas cards at American Greetings is huge, and we haven't been able to shoot very much outside for the last several years. So, given the snowfall this year, I decided to concentrate on outdoor scenes for awhile.

I have been wanting to shoot at Hale Farm and Village now for many years, and this year turned out to be my opportunity. Hale Farm and Village is an open air historic village of early 19th century buildings from the northeast counties of Ohio (known as the Western Reserve). It is a splendid collection of classic New England style early Ohio architecture, and the setting includes wonderful gate posts and a variety of fences. So I hung wreaths, tied bows, swagged fences with garland and set candle lanterns around the village in some seriously cold but snowy weather (the first day we shot the temperatures barely hit 17 degrees F- mighty chilly when you are out in it for 8 or 9 hours!). We had a tough day on day 1, but crazily the weather broke, so I revised some of my decorations while traipsing through the rain and mud in 60 degree weather the following week! Day 2 of shooting was back to winter in 20 degree weather but with more lovely fluffy snow- just perfect for Christmas cards.

I worked so hard that I took very few phone pictures to document what we did, but wait for the cards to come out- I think they will be wonderful. This is one of several lantern shots that I staged.

This image of a lantern on a stone gate post was taken strictly as a reference on the first shooting day so that I could tweak it for a final photo on the second shooting day. It is actually pretty similar to our final shot so I have put a big "red flag" message on it, but I think it illustrates how being in a unique environment (like an historic village) can give you that instant "magic" that makes a shot a greeting card shot. I know that there are places out in the big world where scenes like this can still be found, but they sure don't fall into your lap! There are fewer and fewer views like this one, so I dearly cherish these places when I find them.