Behind The Scenes Of Our BHG Photo Shoot

02 Aug Behind The Scenes Of Our BHG Photo Shoot

Have you ever wondered… “How do they get those magazine photos soooooo perfect?” Well, I learned a few tips and tricks while the team from Better Homes & Gardens was here shooting for the August 2017 issue. Read on for all of the behind-the scenes info.

 1. Furniture too short? Raise it up!

In the magazine, you see something similar to this shot of our bedroom.

David Tsay – Photographer

But that vintage desk chair is not really that tall. A few books did the trick! 🙂

2. How in the world are those pillow flanges soooo perky?!

I don’t know about y’all, but when I am photographing a bedroom, it is really hard to get the bedding to look right. In fact, there are people in this world that actually have the job of “Bed Stylist”. Yup, you read that right. As much as I love a linen sham with a flange, those suckers are hard to get to look perfect in a photo.

Note the flange fabulousness in this photo.

David Tsay – Photographer

How DID they do that?

With Scotch-taped bamboo skewers, of course! 😉

One of the stylists, Mike Grady, zhushed the pillows.

Tackling one floppy flange at a time…

Voila!   

3. When lighting is in the way of the perfect image, just move it!

This picture of my Dining Room did not make it in the magazine, but I really liked this one!

To get this shot, the chandelier had to be moved out of the way.

You can see the photographer, David Tsay, and his assistant working on this image.

4. Cameras do funny things to the placement of furniture.

When you are taking photographs, sometimes you have to angle furniture a certain way for it to look right in the image.

In the magazine, you see a similar picture to this one of our Dining Room where it all looks perfectly centered and put together.

David Tsay, Photographer

But in reality, the table was way off center to make it look right in the photo.

Camera angles are a funny thing.

One of the elements I appreciated about our shoot was that minus a few plants and food props, plus a sprinkling of extra decor, what you see in the pictures is really what our house looks like. Well, I mean decor wise. Let’s get real, we have a house full of kids and their friends, and it is not normally that clean. 🙂 I think the room that changed the most was our Master Bedroom. When we renovated that room, it was the Fall/Winter season, so the bedding was really cozy and warm. Since our home tour was for the August issue, the bedding needed to be a little more light and airy. The pillows on the bed are mine (minus the pink one, which was my favorite, and I wish I could have kept), but the rest of the bedding was brought in. All of my flea marketing and estate saling was beneficial in that I had a variety of props for the talented stylist, Jessica, to use.

You can see the prop table in this picture. The kids were super pumped about the cheese balls! Haha!

If you’re wondering how we got the kids to do so well with all of these pictures, the answer is ice cream. Always ice cream! 😉

Thank you, Ice Cream Truck!

It was really so fun to have these people in our home, and I will always look back at this time with fondness. Really, this past six months have been such an adventure. More on that to come! 🙂

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Until the next story.

xo, G