Lemons + Milk Bath = Matti's 11th Month DIY Pictorial

Today, my baby boy turns 11 months. And as a tradition, my husband and I did a DIY or Do It Yourself Photoshoot. Last month, we went to the beach, if you have not checked that article yet, you can click the link below:

Matti's 10th Monthsary DIY Pictorial

This month, we both decided to do a milk bath. And it was fun and challenging as well because my mother who was usually with us every single pictorial was busy with her nails. She had it home serviced and since the manicurist only had a few hours to spare, she agreed to just have her nails done and sacrificed Matti's pictorial. I was okay with it though but it was challenging.

Anyway, let me explain every single detail of this pictorial as how I do with the previous months.

Concept

I had again ditched the camera concept, it has been three months I guess that I brushed that and I guess we might end up not having a camera studio concept for Matti's monthly update as he will be turning one by the next month.

Why did I choose a milk bath concept? Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was bathing Matti and while doing so, he was very busy with the toys which were in his bathtub. Looking at him being so innocent, I reckon that I needed to keep a memory of this - Matti being so dependent on us in bathing. Also, as his age increments, soon, he would already feel shy if we'd take photos of him. 

I also felt that it was a good idea because Matti is now able to sit well without any assistance, he would even stand on his own plus, he can be entertained by the water and anything that floats in it.

I opened my very friend, Pinterest for inspiration, and boy, there are so many and I felt they are easy to recreate, plus we would only need a few accessories or materials for this to be done.

Accessories

I made a specific document on paper.dropbox just so I won't be missing anything. Have you used that web application already? It's a great collaboration tool. I use it in every single collaboration that I do with my husband.

So, the accessories needed were:

• lemons

• lemon leaves or whatever is available

• basin

• milk

• white backdrop

These can easily be acquired. For the lemons, I initially thought to use the lemons my father has in his backyard garden but they are still green, those lemons are also not that bright yellow so I asked my mother who went to the city to buy me a kilo at the mall's supermarket. I am glad she bought pretty ones. She even added three oranges!

My mother has been very involved in every pictorial. This time, she lent me her aluminum basin. I thought of using the white one but we don't have that and our local stores as well do not sell them anymore so we stick with what we have.

The lemon leaves were from my father's lemon tree in our backyard. This tree has already grown so much, it isn't that tall though but it bears a lot of fruit! These branches have thorns in them, I had to cut the thorns too before laying them there on the carpet. I also washed them first, there were spiders in some branches.

Cake

I used to order a cake from a local bakeshop that caters to minimalistic designs but because I got over their cake flavors, I decided not to order from them anymore. Still, it was my mother whom I asked to buy me a carrot cake from Estrella Bakeshop in Alta Citta, Tagbilaran City.

The whole cake was worth Php 800. The only case was that the writing on the cake states "11 Month", I said it should be 11 months. So, before we did the shoot, I used a kreme stick chocolate and added the letter "s". That's the reason why the "s" look different. 

Studio?

On the dropbox document, I asked my husband if we should do an outdoor shoot or indoor for this one and he said, either way, he is okay. I really thought he was not concerned but then when we talked about it the day before the shoot, he said we'll do indoor instead as he doesn't want Matti to be exposed outside. That was a good point.

And so, he did prepare the set up inside our room. He placed the carpet, added a shower curtain to cover the colored wall, and made it white. He also placed some lights together with our tiny reflector. We only have one Godox umbrella and we thought we need another one, so it will be our next project.

As for the basin with milk, we just used an unbranded milk powder, it was a bad choice though because the powder one created some lumps in the water. Fresh milk might have been better!

He prepared the set before Matti woke up. We planned to do the shoot once he wakes up from his afternoon nap but he woke up very early, normally, he wakes by four but that day, he woke up at three! He only had an hour of sleep! I bet he was excited!

Photoshoot

After making sure the room's not that cold anymore after turning off the air conditioning, we strip Matti and got him into the basin with the milk and lemon slices.

Of course, Matti was curious about the floating lemons so he took some by the hand and started squeezing them. He got super busy about it that he won't even care to look to the camera when we call his name out.

He eventually looked at the camera after we showed him some more lemons. It was like that the entire time, we asked him to do some peekaboo and other things but after about ten minutes, he was already over it.

James gave him a clean sliced lemon and had him try it. His face turned sour and threw it at once! We both laughed about that.

I wish Matti could have stayed longer in the milk bath but he was already grumpy, I guess he was feeling cold already at that time so we took him out and called it a day!

Postprocessing

As for the postprocessing, I did it on Adobe Lightroom. It has been a month since I used the software! 

I bumped the shadows, increased the highlights and whites to give this bright vibe. The contrast as well was lessened and added sharpness to the images.

I realized there were several blurry shots but that's fine. Can you believe that I took around 400 pictures for this DIY shoot? I had to curate each one after editing! I know that sounds a lot but it was okay actually. 

Aside from Lightroom, I also used Photoshop to fix some photos using the mask tool and the healing brush. Can you spot which photos had been treated?

I also made some layouts of these images so they won't be too boring in my social media posts.

Summing up

I enjoyed this set, I can consider it as one of my favorites! I am glad that we were able to pull it off successfully! Matti was again cooperative until he got over it.

Next month, Matti will be turning one year old and I am super pressured on what theme or concept would it be again. Anyway, that will be our last monthly update so I have to make sure it will be a good one. 

Can you suggest a concept that we can do for Matti's first birthday?

xoxo,

mommy jean of momentswithmatti

Love harder than any pain you've ever felt.