Country Sample Magazine came and did a photo shoot at our home on September 17th - what an experiece.
I'll try and tell you and show you how the day went.

Michael the lighting person and Pilar Simon the stylist/photographer got here at 9 a.m. and it was CONTINUOUS from that moment until 7 p.m.

Michael brought all of his equipment into our screen room which was a blessing to have so they didn't have to have fill all the corners of the house with it - it was very easy for them to find what they wanted.

I took a few pictures when I could when they weren't behind the camera....we tried to stay out of the way although they were very nice letting us get as close as possible to watch and we would run for this or that if they needed a prop or something different in place of something.There was a lot of take from here, put there.

The only break they took was lunch, which I went out for and brought it back for all of us. We all had a nice leisurly time sitting around the dining room table just chatting. This was the only break either of them took - and they were just so nice.

It was an amazing day and I was so surprised at all the tricks used like this one - the sun was gone from the kitchen side of the house by the time they got to this room so Michael put a tall light outside just beyond the kitchen window and when we viewed the picture on their computer there was the sun shining in and leaving sun light on the cupboard and floor! There was no way to tell this wasn't real sun flowing in the window...cool huh?


You can see the light set up between our lamp post and the chair.....

  
Michael setting up lighting in hallway....

Pilar setting up a closeup...

 

 
You see so many times these cute little setups in groupings and think, how do they get these to look just right, well, many items were propped up with anything they could use which won't show in the pictures - like the little foot stool sitting on two Candy Land games for height. I went searching for the right things Pilar could use and walla - the games worked.

  
 

Getting filtered light into the den from the hallway....   

It is hard to believe with so many of our things moved here or there and cords and lights and boxes of props, that they didn't show up in the pictures. 

Many, many things were moved just a bit forward or angled differently to catch the light or to see the entire object....such as a loveseat moved out only on the one end so that when the picture was taken you saw the entire back but didn't know it was angled...oh I could go on and on! I was intrigued.

 

They started in the family room and den and at 1:00 when I left get lunch and bring it back, they had finished the rooms and were heading for the bedroom shots. After lunch they did the dining room and then the kitchen.

I don't know how many shots they took till they got the ones they wanted but the editor wanted 14 pictures total in the end...so for each of those 14 had approx 6-8 different shots to get the one they were going to use....lots of playing with light, positions, etc.

Pilar was so taken with the kitties she kept trying to get them in the pictures but they weren't going to cooperate until around 6:30 when they were wrapping up - she saw Lola sitting on a table in the screen room and so she took several pictures of her - I was told one will end up in the magazine article.

I could have taken many photos but they would have been very similar.
I know how tired we were just being here watching and helping in very small ways, I imagine they were quite ready to drop by the time they left as well.

I hope you had a good glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes of a photo shoot...lots more than I have shown here!