Inspired { Harry Potter session }

I don’t know about all of you but sometimes I have trouble getting my kids to go along with some of my ingenious ideas…especially when it involves my camera.  But this time I had two things going in my favor.  1)  They encouraged me to sign up for this class (which I am so grateful for) and promised they would help with the assignments and 2)  this week’s homework involved picking something that inspires me and organizing a themed shoot around it (it helps that I picked something they love almost as much as I do).  If you are at all familiar with the goings on at our house, you can probably guess what inspires us the most at the moment (at least the girl portion of our household).  If you can’t guess, you should check out this link to the entire category devoted to it on the blog (there are actually ELEVEN blog posts already in this category and that doesn’t include this one or the next one).  OK, so maybe that party was a little over the top (that is not the norm around here) but that’s nothing compared to how we will be spending someone’s 11th birthday this year….we will actually be stopping by the Wizarding World of Harry Potter on her birthday on the way to visit family.  Know how much she loves that?  She actually agreed to skip her fifth grade graduation ceremony for it (thank you snow days for messing with the school calendar after we already had tickets).  Anyway, we can find a way to tie Harry Potter into anything around here….science homework = Forbidden Forest themed marble roller coaster,  Christmas = golden snitch ornaments, Halloween is a given, birthdays, knitting projects (currently house-colored bookmarks are being knitted by short people and the Ultimate Knitter has a whole book with HP themed knitting patterns…some to be showcased here today and some in a future post), well, just about anything!  Therefore, not only was it relatively easy to persuade them to help me out, but we already have any and all props you  might ever want at a Harry Potter themed shoot….hooray!  I had a master vision, a big plan, of what I wanted, but you all know what happens to your best laid plans.  My plan involved a misty, gloomy Forbidden Forest and a gorgeous, light filled trip to the amazing graduate reading room at the University of Washington since it is the closest thing to Hogwarts we’ve got around here.  Well guess what?  The library was closed for Spring Break last weekend and this weekend.  Hmpf.  Will have to try that part later.  And the weather around here lately?  So completely unpredictable that we just had to go for it when it wasn’t actively blizzarding/pouring/thunder & lightning etc, etc…so we opted for a different and closer Forbidden Forest location than the original plan called for BUT I am so happy with how these turned out that I don’t even mind that they aren’t what was in my master plan.  And the best part?  We all had a ton of fun and will have some cool images to document this crazy-fun phase of our lives.

 

This shot was totally inspired by .  I wanted something similar to that so we attempted a bunch of different things last summer but I didn’t like what we got and scrapped them all.  This one, I LOVE!  It is exactly what I was hoping for.  And how much do you love their house sweaters?  Thanks to the Ultimate Knitter (my mom) for those!  I adore the sweater/tie/jeans combo and especially that we’ve got multiple houses represented!!  (I realize if you are not a Potter-head most of this will mean nothing to you and I’m sorry for that, but really, only sorry for you because you are really missing out…go read the books now, you won’t regret it.)

I love this one.  Can’t exactly say why, I just do.

 

 

This couldn’t be more “her”.  (Did I say I wanted gloomy and misty?  We couldn’t have asked for more beautiful light.)

 

A little dueling is critical to a successful HP shoot.  Come back Monday for the outtakes and to learn exactly what kind of spells they know how to perform and what kind of a patronus this one can conjure.

 

Not a wizard you want to mess with on the dark streets of Knockturn Alley.

She’s the good kind of Slytherin, I promise.  Like Snape, except without the greasy, black hair and Alan Rickman’s perfect Snape voice.  (Sidenote:  Draco Malfoy is her favorite character.  He’s not a particularly appealing character.  So what does she see in him?  Do you suppose it is possible that my 8 year old can see past the excessive amount of hair product and the creepy personality of the character and realizes that, in fact, Tom Felton (the actor who plays Draco) is unquestionably adorable in real life?)

 

 

Lest you think my girls only know how to scowl and throw around curses, jinxes, and hexes….here they are, out of character, as their lovely selves.  (Talk about unquestionably adorable!)