Portrait of a daughter

Good morning my dear ones,

How is everyone? Thanks for joining me. I have something a little different for you today, and I hope you enjoy it. Let’s take a walk through an old cemetery. 

As I mentioned last week, I recently did a photo shoot with one of my daughters in a very old (and very cool) cemetery near our home. We had been planning it for months and needed the right weather conditions to shoot. With rainy days expected for most of the week I decided to bite the bullet and go ahead in these perfect photography conditions. Having so many creative ideas continually buzzing around in my overactive imagination, I was pretty excited about actually getting to fulfil one of them.  

The idea was to have the cake as the hero and sweet daughter as the supporting actress, getting cool shots with her holding my brilliant cake. I had been saving up my black cocoa to make delectable black buttercream and wanted to fancy the cake up a bit with gold stencilling. We were going for an elegant, yet moody aesthetic with a touch of romantic goth.

Sometimes the best laid plans do not work out as expected, and unfortunately this was one of those times, with my failure to anticipate one debilitating factor. Humidity. In the two minute drive from our house to the cemetery, my brilliant six layer chocolate cake decided to get attitude and start melting, despite the air con blasting through the car. As soon as I set it up on the vintage trolley, I could see the flowers starting to fall out. I couldn’t believe it.

The darned weather!!! I swear one day I am going to chase Winter around the world so I can permanently escape my nemesis arch enemy….Summer. I absolutely loathe it and I fail to see how anyone with a rational mind can enjoy sweating all day and having life energy sucked right out of them by constant suffocating humidity. 

Apologies, I digress. 

Where was I? Yes, the cake. I stared, dumbfounded (although hardly surprised… humidity is always out to get me and my cakes, and no,I don’t have issues). I stood there watching my beautiful, elegant cake literally falling apart right before my eyes. Not one to wallow, I leapt into action taking as many photos of my treasure as I could, from every possible unaffected angle. Knowing I was racing against the clock, my only hope was to get at least one good shot and somehow fake the rest.

What started out as a glamorous cake shoot, quickly turned into a (rather delightful as it turned out) portrait session with the real shining star, my beautiful daughter.

Knowing she has what it takes, I gave my daughter the brief – give me sass, give me the death stare, show me some attitude. Let’s just say she didn’t need to dig too deep.

She was perfect. Absolutely nailed it.

We had so much fun together creating different looks and moods and dare I say it, I think we were both in our element. It’s not very often we get to sidestep the mundane and put one foot into the imaginative. I was so inspired by the cemetery and could see how much potential it had to draw out our creativity. I wanted to enter another world and for half a day we did just that.

Ahh, the cup runneth over. How indulgent for us to take the time to let our imaginations run a little wild. There should be more of it I say. Next time though, I might have to ditch the cake until winter and just photograph the girls. They are already lining up for the next shoot. Stay tuned.

Until next week,

Love Anna xx

4 thoughts on “Portrait of a daughter

  1. This is just so fabulous! I showed the girls and they loved it too. It’s a shame about the cake. I too loathe humidity and summer. ❤

    1. Hi Lisa, thanks so much for your comment and even showing your daughters my post! Glad to hear I am not alone in the Summer loathing!! Ha! Anna xx

  2. Hi Anna, The photos are amazing and so beautiful. Your poor cake!! Damn the humidity!! Lol, I still cant stand summers here in Queensland, even after 20 years.Chris and I still dream of running away to Tasmania. I have crocheted a stockpile of beanies, scarfs etc for cold weather, so we have to go to get some use out of them

    Leanne xx

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