Julie and the squirrel :: An American Girl Doll photo story

Julie made friends with a squirrel one day while taking photos.

All taken on the D200 with Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens.

Shot in JPEG.

Story series shot for Scouts Photography Badge.

More American Girl doll photos from the last few months

Now with the new girl, Saige!
I just love her hair color and eyes!

I was excited to see that a few people have found my images and clearly liked them enough to share them. Please make sure that if you do that, you credit me as the photographer and send people back here to look at the original pictures!

Saige fits right in with Julie and Harper.

Thank you!

There will be more photos in the next few days. I finally got all the photos off my memory card!

-Gemma

The Queens Treasure AGCDJ Doll Clothes for 18 in. American Girl Dolls (Google Affiliate Ad)

The Queens Treasure AGHU Furniture Scaled to Fit American Girl Dolls - (Google Affiliate Ad)

Making doll furniture for American Girl Dolls with my mom!

Since there are not many places in Australia that sell furniture for American Girl sized dolls and it is too much money to send things from America, my mom and I are making stuff. This is our first project. It is a school desk and chairs. I even made the rubbish bin. The book that Harper is holding came with an American Girl backpack set. 

My mom bought a pink hot glue gun. She made the desk by glueing the lid of a pretty (cardboard) storage box on to the box it came with. (We turned the box on its side so the bottom of the box became the back of the desk.) My mom made the chairs out of post-it note holders (turned upside down as the base) and bookends glued to them (as the seat and seat back). If you need more information, just leave a comment and we can answer your questions there!

The photo storage box was $2.00. The Post-It note holders were $2.00 each and the bookends were $2.00 for a set of two. This whole project was only $8.00!

The next project we are going to work on is a clubhouse for the American Girl Dolls. She says that it will take a bit longer for that one.

The notes in italics were made by my mom.

American Girl Doll Photographer

I am opening a little photography business. I will take some portraits of your American Girl Doll. I am starting with my friends' dolls, if you want we can put the pictures of your doll on here. E-mail my mom if you are interested in having your dolls photographed. 

These pictures are of my doll, Julie, in the garden. The light was really pretty at the point of day that we were taking the pictures and the weeds need to be pulled. Though they were really pretty photos with the long grass. My mom taught me to focus on the eye when I want other things out of focus. When I took the first photo I knew it was too bright, my mom helped me change the settings. These pictures were my favorites. It was really fun doing this and I think you should try it with your doll/dolls if you have a big fancy camera or not. We will be doing a doll portrait series as part of littleSIDEKLICK.

Photo Info: D200 with Tamron's 17-50mm f/2.8 lens

Dusting Off Her Interest and Her Point and Shoot Camera

Gemma came to me and said that she wanted to take pictures again, so we are keeping the battery charged and she is responsible for her own camera.  We have passed on the old family point and shoot with a beautiful kid length (handmade for her by a wonderful friend) camera strap and a small case.  As her mom, I get asked a lot for camera recommendations for kids.  My answer for now is "nothing fancy" when they are this young.  Gemma enjoys capturing what she sees and while I am teaching her about exposure and photography theory, she is really only interested in pointing and shooting.  She is five.  We did move into the "scene" modes, so she is picking the correct settings for the situation.  She is learning in the process, what the camera is doing and why those choices are appropriate for action or portraits or macro etc...

I think the first lesson for kids who want to take pictures is how to care for a camera and then how to hold it while shooting.  We work on making sure the lens is clean, finger placement, support and protection of the camera.  The kid sized camera strap keeps the camera at a good position on her little body...if the strap is too long, the camera will swing around and knock into things.

Life around here lately in pictures according to Gemma.

You need to feed unicorns glitter.

Bears like the sun.

Dad likes bikes. (that is mom's new bike, dad's bikes are fancier)

The twins do not like their bike ride.

Our family portrait before the bike ride. (she had to use a substitute helmet for alec's since he had his and she would not do the photo without "all of us there")

The leaves are all brown now...it happened in just a few days.

And finally, what she named her best shot.  She was so proud of this one as she took it through the small hole in the fence where the gate handle is.  We have olive trees (lots of olive trees) surrounding the area where we will be starting our "urban farm" / square foot garden. 

What I found most interesting about looking at her shots now as opposed to the ones that were on the card from ages ago...there are not as many people shots.  In fact, this time around, there were none.  There are some people shots since this batch, but there is a real effort on her part to putting together scenes and capturing the "things" around her.