The power of the squinch

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Once upon a time, I used to do a lot more photo shoots. Then . . . well, things got a little more complicated (wonderfully so) with the advent of a baby now turned toddler. But this past weekend, I had the opportunity to photograph the lovely Amie, who wanted some updated head shots for her portfolio. Her friend Christina did her hair and also wanted some shots showcasing the awesome hair color she had done.

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If you’ve been around my blog for a long time, you may remember I took some pics of Amie a long time ago–like in 2011–you can click here to see those.

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Right before going over to her place on Saturday afternoon, I perused the internet for some inspiration. I’m so glad I did, because I came across this little video about the squinch.

Peter Hurley, portrait photographer extraordinaire, thank you.

Basically, the squinch saves the person in front of the camera from having a “deer in the headlights” look. It takes you from wide-eyed and awkward to confident and sexy-lookin’. It involves something headed towards a squint, but from the bottom up. You use the muscle right under your eye (instead of lowering your upper lid) to slightly narrow your eyes. And it works! I explained the squinch to Amie, and that is exactly what is going on in this picture . . .

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. . . and this one . . .

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. . . and this one.

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Plus, being a photogenically challenged person myself, I plan on squinching from here til the grave.

Anyway, the photo shoot was so much fun. I love the shot below–maybe not for a professional looking head shot because the composition is a little weird for that  (sorry Amie)–but just because the focus is so crisp and her expression is so calmly happy.

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And it was fun to showcase her hair!

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Also, I need to learn how to do a braid like that.

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It’s just so adorable.

Amie was such a pleasure to photograph. She’s beautiful, fun, lively–the whole package.

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I love my life, and I love my routine of going to work and taking care of Alice . . . but the creative side of me has been a little less central during the past year or so. So this felt like a breath of fresh air. I felt so alive after the whole thing, and I can’t wait for the next opportunity to come up.

Canvas print giveaway for my readers!–WINNER ANNOUNCED

Giveaway is now closed!

I used the random number generator to pick a number. I did not count duplicate comments from people, or my own replies, so it was between 1 and 20.

Random.org results

 

And the 12th (different) commenter was (badoom badoom) . . .

. . . Jenny from Words on Wendhurst!

Congrats, my sweet red-headed friend. I’ll be emailing you the code to redeem the print shortly.

Love you all and thanks for participating!

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Hey guys!

So . . . I don’t think I’ve ever hosted a giveaway. And considering I’ve been blogging for going on 4 years (!?), that’s kind of . . . a crime. So when the folks at Printcopia offered to send me a canvas print in exchange for a product review, and also offered to give my readers the chance to win a free canvas print, I was really excited. I had actually been thinking about getting some family pictures printed anyway, so the timing was perfect.

For my canvas print, I decided to order one of the family pictures that our good friend Zane took of us last November, right after Alice turned 1. Their website is pretty easy to use–basically I just uploaded the image I wanted and chose a color for the wraparound part of the canvas.

It just arrived, and I am super pleased.

Alice helped me investigate.

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She was quite thorough.

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Hey . . . it’s Dada!

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Here’s how it looks on our bookshelf . . .

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. . . and a living room shelf. I’m not sure where to put it yet.

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By the way, I love the brick color I picked for the wraparound part of the canvas.

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I made the decision to veer away from black or white without being sure if I’d like the results, but I love how it turned out.

The only thing I didn’t like was that I did have to pay extra to include wall mounts. So I paid $1.60 to have that included . . . and then it turns out that they come in a little baggie instead of being already attached to the canvas. I guess not the biggest tragedy in my life. But there you have it.

So now on to the good stuff! Printcopia will give one of you lucky people (U.S. only–sorry to my internationally located friends) a free canvas print the same size as mine, 8×10 (or 10×8–you can change the orientation, as I did). In order to enter, just answer the following question in the comments below:

What do you do to combat the post-Christmas blues? Or do you even get them? If not, what makes you so awesome?

See, I managed to elude the blues until now. I had a trip to Arizona last week to visit my sister Erica after the birth of her new little one, Joshua Richard, and then I was on a women’s retreat for church, so those two big events kept me emotionally propelled forward after the New Year. But now that the excitement is dying down I’m like, “um . . . what? Life? Work? Cooking meals on a regular basis? Huh.”

But enough about my emotional blahitty-blah and back to the giveaway thingy. On Monday I will use a random method (TBD) to determine the winner. I will announce the winner here and also contact them by email with the code to redeem their print.

Good luck, my peeps!