Christmas Portrait (otherwise known as a Pinterest fail)

About a month or so ago, I started looking around for Christmas portrait ideas. I wanted to take one of Austin myself. I have a good camera, and I only needed one or two photos, and given Austin's inability to sit still, I didn't want to do a full session at a photographer's studio.

I found this article about an easy DIY Christmas lights background (this came after looking for a Christmas light photography backdrop) and wanted to give it a go.

Here was my setup:

The backdrop is a roll of bulletin board paper with a whitewashed wood pattern, found at Michaels for about $7. I think I even used a coupon so it was cheaper than that. It works wonderfully as a backdrop, and is a heck of a lot cheaper than a true photography backdrop. The "bench" I sat Austin on is really just a laundry basket flipped over with a white tablecloth on top. I probably didn't need to cover it, but I wasn't sure how much of him I'd have in the photo.

I hung two strings of icicle lights across the backdrop so that I could fill the background with lights. And I used natural light with no flash.

First, I practiced my camera settings with a doll borrowed from my mom:

This looked nice so I figured, hey, we're in business. Bring in the kiddo.

Yeah. Right.

He refused to sit for more than the first 10 seconds, so I managed two decent photos. They're not perfect, but they'll do.

I definitely consider this one a Pinterest failure. Maybe not of epic proportions but this isn't the result I was hoping to get in my mind. Ah well, there's always next year!