The Traveling Dress

I consider myself blessed beyond measure to be part of a small group of lady photographers, moms, career women, wives, creatives, and incredibly hard workers who inspire me daily in this craft. We recognize there’s room for each of our unique gifts and support each other in all ways. We learn, laugh and grow together. One of the fun things we did recently is a “traveling dress.”

While the concept is not new, the only other traveling dress I’ve seen before was an adult dress. Passed from one location and one photographer to the next, it gets a new creative take with each destination. This project was organized for the photographers with daughters about 4-6 years old. I, of course, have 3 boys but wanted to participate so badly that I vowed to find a girl!

The dress started off in Puerto Rico and went on to friends in Arizona and Florida, and it went on family vacations to places like Hawaii. One thing that makes me stand out from the girls in the group is that I live in the country while they are all city girls. Not remote country, but I live in horse-country for sure. I wanted to make certain the dress portrayed this beautiful country life I’m privileged to live.

This is our sweet neighbor. Not only do they have a beautiful and willing daughter, they also have a very petite, sweet horse named SEVEN. They had also just built this gorgeous red barn. If you don’t live in the country, I’ll let you know we spend a lot of time and money admiring and constructing barns and pole buildings.

So we started off with Seven. It was very early in the morning and he’d just been let out of the barn so he set to the business of eating right away. He couldn’t be easily coaxed from this task.

We grabbed a few shots and let him out to pasture and did some dress shots in front of the barn. I had rented a fish eye lens for an event I was shooting that weekend and loved that I got to use it with the dress too. I love how the barn is just peeking out of the corner letting the girl be the focus but giving us more of the surrounding environment. That’s what the fish eye does so well! I’ll bet you that’s my next lens purchase.

And one last set of photos brought us back to our property where we HAD to get some Texas flag! This was not the only Texas session the dress had, but it still seemed appropriate and necessary!

So fun, right? I love things that push my creativity. Plus, I love working with anything girly! I’m so grateful to our sweet neighbors for being helpful and accommodating, as always. Now to be thinking about a little boy version of this project….