Isn’t this a lovely fall photo? I think I made it look quite warm and cozy. It might even make you want to grab a cup of Pumpkin Spice Latte or a jump in freshly raked pile of leaves.

So do you want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? The scene is set up on my kitchen counter and actually looks like this…

Yes, I am admitting my dark dirty secret!! I totally staged this photo to look pretty and I do it for almost all the décor photos you see on this site! I won’t lie! Dirty towels, dishes, trash, and stuff needing to be put away. This pretty much sums up my house! Thank goodness I have a camera that has a short depth of field that hides a lot of the background!

And another thing? I took 131 photos of this scene. Yes 131! And it took me about 15-20 minutes to photograph. I moved several candles, pumpkins, sparkly fabric (for that light bokeh effect), and knick knacks around to make the scene. Honestly, I’m still not 100% sold on the final image, but I got tired and thought I probably had something to work with. Here’s just some of the many photos I took that I uploaded to iPhoto.

After a few minutes of color correction and maybe a little cropping, I have the finished project ready to upload to Flickr, then post on my blog.

I know I am not the only one that does this! An old roommate of mine had a neighbor who was featured in Better Homes and Gardens. They came into her house, ransacked the home for props, moved the furniture, and put stuff with stuff that you would never really combine together in your décor. They even put an unflattering photo of the neighbor in the photo spread that the neighbor despised. Sometimes, like me, they just have to go with what they got to make it work and tell the story!

Here’s some more photos from my shoot. This glitter pumpkin is actually what the black and white pumpkin I featured yesterday evolved into. Very grungy and distressd. I was hoping to leave the letter impressions, but it didn’t work out as planned. Still makes for a pretty photo though!!

OK, admit it, do you do this too?

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa