heaven

You guys, it's that time of year again. I am leaving tomorrow to spend a week in heaven. I am a truly lucky woman.

See you in August!

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knuffle bunny

As a mother of two little ones, I spend a fair amount of time reading (and re-reading and re-reading) children's books. I admire many authors and illustrators and I have long planned a blog series on awesomely illustrated and designed children's books. Today it begins with Mo Willems and his 3-book Knuffle Bunny series. (For a funny and simultaneously academic look at the danger of reading children's books be sure to check out my friend's hilarious, insightful, and intelligent blog.)

The Knuffle Bunny books were a gift for my daughter from my brother and his wife. The first book involves a pre-verbal Trixie losing her precious bunny at the laundromat - dramatics ensue. The second book examines what happens when Trixie brings Knuffle Bunny to school and another girl has the exact same bunny - a crisis we can all relate to. The series ends with an overseas trip to visit grandparents in Holland. I won't give anything away but I may or may not have gotten choked up at the ending.

These books are great. I truly don't mind reading them over and over and over and over again. Mostly because I'm totally absorbed in the illustrations while I read them. Mo Willems (author and illustrator) uses photography as a backdrop for his simple, colorful, and funny illustrations. I love the dynamic between the page background, the photographs, and the illustrated people. There is so much attention to detail - the photographs are manipulated to create a simple aesthetic for the background (no wires, no A/C units), shadows are added in under the illustrated characters, and the characters can walk right out of the frame of the photographs making them come to life.

Enjoy!

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yum

I have a soft spot for beautiful food photography. I'm not sure I'll ever actually make strawberry, quinoa, and feta salad but wow does it look spectacular.

This photograph and recipe is from Love and Lemons, which I recently discovered, and below are more photographs from their various recipes. I could have grabbed all of their images. Maybe because they're all so elegantly styled and delicious-looking? Also, it's almost time for lunch. Enjoy!

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the good

The art of photographing interior spaces to help sell a home is a very difficult one. Lighting is key. Composition is key. Color is key. Hiding most (but not all!) of your stuff is key.

I already highlighted the bad and the ugly. Please enjoy the good.

Beautiful, right? I can't wait to find our future home. 

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the bad and the ugly

Right now I am fully immersed in the house-selling and house-buying process and when I think of things to blog about, all I can think about is how hard it is to nicely photograph a home for sale. I have seen it all - good, bad, and ugly. The photos we posted when our apartment was listed were somewhere in the middle - certainly not award-winning but hopefully not distractingly bad. Here are some that are, in fact, distractingly bad.

Usually it's a problem of having too much stuff. Furniture can be hard to move for a photo but a miscellaneous empty fish tank and a plant? Also, please don't use flash. Find a way to use natural lighting.

Here we have a situation where the sellers were very good about removing a lot of their stuff. And they used natural lighting. However, all I see in this photo is the place where they stored all their junk piles so the pictures would look uncluttered. Oh wait.

And, if at all possible, please don't zoom in to show close-ups. Do I need to see the ceiling here? No. If you could show the whole room I bet I would understand that there is natural light coming from skylights.

These are all from houses we looked at - online or in person. It's amazing what an effect photos can have on a buyer's perception of a home. Sometimes we found places that were so well staged and photographed that they were disappointing in person. I will follow up shortly with beautiful photographs so you can scrub these out of your mind.

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