This winter I’m embracing the principles of Hygge living
I love December, with its dark evenings, late night shopping, glitter, excitement, parties, friends, family and the anticipation of Christmas. By the time January comes, however, the excitement is well and truly over, and I start longing for spring to come.
Hygge, pronounced “hoo-ga’, is a Danish concept which encompasses a feeling of cosy contentment and wellbeing through enjoying the simple things in life … reading a book, drinking a cup of hot chocolate (or hot Ribena) and generally wrapping up in warm, cosy clothes.
My plan for this January is to embrace the cold and dark winter nights, spend cosy evenings in, and enjoy crisp morning walks, and do more of what makes me happy.
So when the theme for this week was Winter, I decided to combine my new found love for Hygge with my desire to do a flatlay photo to create an image worthy of a Pinterest post.
I chose an admin day to do this, when I knew I wouldn’t have many interruptions and I could really get into a Hygge mood. I started by making some cupcakes. Baking is a huge passion of mine, I love making cakes, and trying out new recipes.
As it’s usually the case after Christmas, there’s always lots of alcohol left over, so much so that there is not enough room in my alcohol cupboard for all of it! I know … I know … I should get a bigger alcohol cupboard! But for the time being I thought it would be a good idea to use some of it up some cupcakes.
So I decided to make these amazing Asti cupcakes. They are delicious! If you’d like the recipe, leave me a comment below and I’ll send it to you.
And now that my house smelled amazing and I had cupcakes to eat, it was time to take some photos.
I have done flatlay photos before, but always for clients who wanted product photography, and never just for a bit of fun. So, I was pretty excited!
Flatlay photography is the latest craze in Pinterest and Instagram images and for all product photography in general. Flatlay is essentially what it says on the box … you lay everything you wish photographed flat on a surface and then you photograph it from directly above! A bit like this …
It was important to me that the photograph looked cosy, but not Christmassy and I also wanted to use the colours on my new website colour scheme. My newly baked cupcakes fitted perfectly, as did my gloves and scarf. Candles and beautiful smells are an essential part of Hygge, so I used some of the items from my pot pourri and of course, my lovely candle from Marber which smells of pine and pink pepper … divine!
A little while ago I bought some backgrounds from Amazon, and they have been fabulous. I have used them so many times. It was a tough decision between the dark or the white wood, so I had to try both to see which one looked best. Which one do you prefer?
What made my shoot slightly more difficult was that I wanted to use my own hands in the picture. Obviously, I could have borrowed someone else’s hands, but for the purpose of this exercise I liked my own. Which meant I had to set up my tripod … I love my tripod, but I don’t use it anywhere near as much as I should. It’s very rarely needed in portrait photography so whenever I happen to use it, I always feel like I’m doing something creative, something outside my comfort zone.
And yes, while you are wondering, I was home alone at the time of this shoot, so I had to set up my phone on its own little tripod to take a photo of me using a tripod to take a photo! I am aware of the ridiculousness of this situation!
So here it is … my behind the scenes shot, and my vision for my second photo challenge of the year.
If you are looking for a photographer to capture your product, in a stylish flatlay way … give me a call or send me an email. Meanwhile, I’m going to do some pinteresting, and some reading, and some blog planning, and some cupcake eating. Happy January everyone!
Until next week when the theme is Time!
