Monday 29 June 2015

Paddling pool fun

by Bex

I bought a cheap paddling pool for the babies recently and added the balls I got at an NCT nearly new sale.  We had 2 big bags of balls but the pool was too big for them to be effective as a ball pit.  Priya was the first to try it out and we just piled the balls onto her in the dry pool.  She was a bit confused at first but soon started enjoying it.


Friday 26 June 2015

7 months

by Bex

This little series, taken on the twins' 7 month birthday, shows you part of the personalities of the twins.  Priya wants anything Kalyan wants or has.  She takes it from him and he (so far) doesn't seem too bothered.  He'll take it back only to be thwarted by his determined sister.  Usually it's a toy she's trying to claim but here it's the milestone card which I placed in front of them to try to get a photo - they were too quick for me!












Wish me luck for these two being toddlers!!

Monday 22 June 2015

Underwater photo shoot with Little Dolphin

by Bex

I mentioned in my post with my underwater snaps of the twins that we had a professional shoot booked at Oaklands pool where we take the babies for swimming lessons.  We had a great time with Zac, the photographer from Little Dolphin Images and the 'baby handler' for the day, Roz from Swim2me.

Obviously the set up was much better than when I hired the pool with Mum & Dad to assist me with the babies and my little G11 compact in it's housing.  Zac had a blue backdrop to hide the tiles on the side of the pool and of course the full underwater set up with an SLR housing and two strobes as well as off camera lighting.  My Dad took some photos of the shoot, (with permission from Zac) since we were the only ones in that time slot, so we got some behind the scenes pictures of us in the pool too.

We saw some of the photos as the shoot progressed and we loved them!  I was so excited to see them all and select the ones we wanted to buy.  They are fantastic and we ended up with a great selection!


It was very relaxed and went so quickly as we had fun trying a few different shots including a surprisingly successful attempt to capture both twins together underwater!


Luckily the babies are quite relaxed underwater (particularly Priya) thanks to our fantastic lessons with Rebecca from Love Baby Swim School.  We've now completed two terms over the last 3 months and the babies have made some great progress.



We also got some with flowing fabric, I think the one of Priya looks like she has wings:




And we got a family shot (where I was more of an issue as I hate opening my eyes underwater and water going up my nose but I managed to suffer for the art and put on a smile!)



As far as professional photography goes, Zac's prices are very reasonable, especially for a specialist shoot like underwater.  The shoot itself was £40 (per child so pricier for us with the twins at £80) and there was a choice afterwards of how many images you want instead of having to buy a package.  For just one image it was £69 but we opted for the package of 10 for £119 and paid an extra £10 for black & white conversions.  I thought about doing that part myself as we get high res digital images but given I am already struggling to find time to edit my own images of the twins and it was only £10 extra, we thought it was worth it, plus Zac does a better job than I could anyway!

In total it cost £210 which is about the same as our other professional shoots of the bump and newborn images we had done by Lauren, Laura and Jude.  Again, this was something I would have regretted if we didn't do it, plus I picked up some tips for having another go myself too ;)  It's just as well we're good at finding bargains for everything else since I keep spending so much on photos!







Wednesday 10 June 2015

Pin it do it - Baby collage

by Bex

I always liked the idea of taking lots of close up pictures of the twins to keep a record of all those little details.  I saw these collages on Pinterest (one 3 years ago and one 5 weeks ago) and wanted to make one myself for each baby.  I think they look great in classic black & white and will be great to look back on as my babies grow up, it's happening so fast!  I'm having trouble keeping up with my own photos, editing and printing, never mind plans such as photo books!  This is a small, easy project I could manage with fewer precious hours.


I've finally managed it after almost 7 months ;)  I took most of the photos when Priya took a nap the other day while I had 3 grandparents around helping out which let me finally find my macro lens and get arty.  I plan to try to get more photos (e.g. of her belly button and teeth) but for now, I've just used what I have.  I made it without looking back at Pinterest first and didn't think to get a shot of her fluffy hair as well so I'll be adding that in too.

Here is Priya's:


Kalyan's is still unfinished as I had even fewer suitable ones of him since he napped in a more tricky position.  I need to get some of his hands as well as his belly button (they were both dressed).  Naps are useful for this project since they are SO active now and apparently hate to keep still for even a second!  It would definitely be easier to do for a newborn but then there wouldn't be the fun expressive pictures in the centre.

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