Instagram Photo Shoot

Happy Saturday, Everyone!  I don't usually publish posts on Saturday but, I wanted to get this one out before the end of October and I didn't want it to compete with Halloween on Monday. October is almost over and I thought I would share an Instagram photo shoot I did for #ShowMeYourHoliday a few weeks ago.  I am relatively new to Instagram and for those of you who know me, I am not very tech-savvy but, I have really been trying to learn.  Instagram has been a joy, so far, for me.  So, when an invitation came from pnwgirlsdesigns on Instagram for me to join in a contest of sorts, I was pretty excited.

 The invitation asked every participant to show them a favorite October fall/Halloween decor photo. I, unfortunately, didn't see the invitation until Friday and the entry needed to be posted by midnight Sunday!  So, I thought I would simply look for an old (good) photo of mine and enter it.  My daughter, Brittany, would have none of that!  She told me I needed to start fresh and include fresh flowers in the design since I was a floral designer after all!  She was right.  I was being lazy :). She volunteered to help me but, the only time we had available was Sunday.  I asked her to bring whatever she thought would work well for our vision, which was of a rustic tablescape, and I would look for some items of my own, as well.  On Saturday, I ran to a local farmstand to purchase some fresh flowers and started designing in my head.

Brittany and I thought using my new shed for the photo shoot was a good idea and I was thrilled to include my grandfather's old dining table.

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Since everything was so rushed, which often seems to be the case for me when taking such photos, especially with fresh flowers, I didn't take photo shots with my blog in mind.  Our mission was to find ONE great photo to submit and that was it!  It didn't think of blogging about it until later. I did manage to take a few side photos, however, that might give you an idea of the day and our process.

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I had these cream plates from Pottery Barn and some mini boo pumpkins.  I love those pumpkins! The greenery came from the farmstand.  We cut little pieces of burlap to add more texture to the placesetting and Brittany added the cotton ball stems to the mix. The cotton stems really added so much to the overall look. I was glad she had brought them along.

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We played around with the placement of the items for a while; quite a while! 

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We even played around with the location of the little floral arrangement I made.  It started on top of the candlestick holder but as the day wore on even that got moved around.

We used these blue/green cinderella pumpkins, as well.  I love those!  I think I may have mentioned that before in another post ;).

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Brittany yanked this sign of of the wall of her new home and we included it in the design.  Nothing was off limits when it came to taking things out of our houses!  I thought the sign added a nice touch.

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More blue/green pumpkins.  I guess the only thing off limits was orange and orange pumpkins.  We thought it would take away from the design.

I added Indian corn, a green pumpkin and ornamental cabbage from the farmstand.

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At this point, the floral arrangement was still sitting on top of the candlestick holder.

We eventually placed it on top of the blue pumpkin.  We weren't sure we liked how everything was photographing at this point so, we continued to change things up.

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More finagling around

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We decided we liked the flowers and the mini pumpkins together and went with that look.

This was the photo we submitted.  It was hard to choose just one and, in the end, I am wondering if we should have...

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gone with this photo instead.  What do you think?

As it turned out, I didn't win the contest.  I never heard from anyone again but, it was a really neat experience and I am hoping they will invite me to join in on the fun next month.  I will have to start thinking "Thanksgiving".  I assume that will be the next contest subject.  I also need to get more Instagram savvy and, perhaps, find some other "contests" in which to enter.

[As a side note, I think Brittany thought we would whip through this whole process lickety-split.  I knew it would take quite a bit longer since I had done some of these photo shoots on my own for this blog and other social media outlets.  It ended up taking us hours! We were both exhausted and ready for a meal by the time we were done but, we had fun too!  Even though I didn't win, I continue to learn about lighting, item placement and colors.  So, the next time I will be even more ready for the task!]

Now it's time to move onto November!

Joining the Parties at:

Silver Pennies Sundays

Sundays at Home
Inspiration Monday
Dishing It Digging It
The Scoop

*Please note that these photos are my property and cannot be used without my permission.  Thank you for your consideration.