Well, today was the big day. It was the Blessing of the Animals to benefit the rescue we work with, and we took family/pet portraits. As you can see, we went with the simple, no-frills background. Toward the end of the day, we had everyone sit on the floor (amidst the dog hair) and I think it worked out well.
I also bought some fabric that’s similar to the backdrop and made a sort of tablecloth for our coffee table. We hauled the table down to church, where the event was held, and threw the tablecloth over it for people to sit on. That worked pretty well for small pets, but was somewhat problematic with the bigger ones because the humans’ faces were so far away (vertically) from the dogs’ faces.
Rather than set up in the fellowship hall where all the commotion (and fluorescent light) was, we chose the narthex. It was good from a lighting standpoint, and I think the photos turned out better because of it. But we were also away from the traffic, so I think we probably ended up with fewer shots overall. But we still did pretty well—I think we raised around $200 with the portraits, and the other events (raffle, silent auction) raised $500-600. So it was a good event.
After everything was over, we had to rush home so I could turn around and head out the door to meet a friend at the mall. T and I have known each other since we were five. She left Minnesota for college in Washington (state), finished her Ph.D. there, then went to San Diego for her post-doctoral work. Then about three years ago she took a job in Pennsylvania, and now lives about 40 minutes away.
We did a little shopping and then took a break for a long dinner and a couple drinks. Shopping after that was pretty entertaining. Even the sales people at Eddie Bauer thought so. Or maybe they were just pretending to laugh along with us. Not sure, but who cares? We had a good time.
And now? It’s finally time to turn off this computer and rest my weary eyes.
