How the pictures for Kadi and Babies came to life

I have always been quite peculiar about who I work with and so I put in a lot of time to find the right photographer who I would trust with the task of taking pictures for my page Kadi and Babies.

Quite a while ago I saw wedding photos of one of my acquaintances and so I dropped a quick e-mail to their photographer – after a month and a half we had an agreement with photographer Anneli Leinemann. I had an idea that I would like to have some pictures taken for my page and maybe to have them taken with massage dummies used for learning.

My biggest concern was that I have actually never been to a photographer before and my confidence before the camera was nonexistent. To my surprise Anneli offered, ‘Hey, would you like to have my twins for this?’. My heart started beating faster and there was probably an excited glint in my eyes as I quickly replied that of course I would.

Working with children and families I know exactly what it means to have a plan and what actually happens. And so it ended up that by the agreed date the twin girls were a little sick. Also it was raining and it just didn’t seem to end. Then we agreed that even if it starts raining snakes and thunderbolts the next time, we will do the photoshoot on the evening of 5th September.

While planning my outfit I remembered that I have a beautiful green dress I haven’t been able to wear much, but luckily enough I had enough brains to ask Anneli what kind of colour to wear. And imagine the answer I got- she said everything else is fine apart from green! This was because we were doing an outside photoshoot and green reflects to the face, and of course the grass is green as well…so all colours would be fine apart from green.

When visiting Estonia I’m always very busy and this time was no exception as I didn’t even have time to do my makeup or hair. I washed it in the morning and went to the hairdresser’s in the afternoon to get it trimmed and that was it!

We met in the Kadriorg Park and the energy coming off from Anneli was so wonderful, sincere and warm. She unpacked her camera and the objective looked like something used to photograph wild animals! I was obviously nervous and my heart beat a lot more faster than usual. By how Anneli carried herself and her voice, she vaguely reminded me of Liisi Koikson, who in my opinion is a very sympathetic and well-balanced person.

We took a walk around the park and Anneli started taking pictures to get the lights set (or something like that). In between the shots she showed me some photos from her camera and I was so happy that I actually gave her a big hug… she made me look so alive on the photos, even if she said that’s just who I was and she had no part to play in it.

I received the first patch quite fast and these you can see as a profile picture on Kadi and Babies. I will definitely share all these pictures with you later on as well. The little twins, Nora and Lenna, who usually cry a lot and easily let their vocal chords loose, actually found that it was quite fun to play with me, and imagine their curiosity when they found how much hair I have for grabbing and how many teeth I have for them to count!

Amazingly big thanks to Anneli and to her wonderful family who lasted through the whole chilly autumn evening! https://www.facebook.com/Anneli.Leinemann.Photography

I left the park with great happiness in my soul, not caring a bit of the cold pinching my cheeks!