A Stunning Photo Shoot with Nora Murphy

 A quick recap from where I left off~ Nora Murphy asked to shoot my house for her

new book, Nora Murphy Country House Style (not exactly the title) which is featuring

her amazing house and four others thrown in for a dose of varying country styles.

(Read more here)

Weeks followed of preparing, editing, tossing, editing some more, painting, gardening, 

fretting, daydreaming of the end result.... the time had finally come!

The photo shoot was a two day affair over the weekend, and I prayed for good weather,

and I was happily rewarded with perhaps the nicest days in the summer thus far.

The last thing I had to do was to buy flowers for the shoot.  Flowers are the jewelry of a

photo shoot, and these had to be above and beyond the basics.  So I headed to Mahoney's Garden Center and visited their florist department to select whatever struck my fancy.  

Giant pink hydrangeas, pink and white Cantebury bells, purple Pincushions and one amazing

heirloom rose that resembled a peony came home with me for their big moment.

 A large clear glass cylinder vase showed off the pink hydrangeas to perfection.

The other blooms were mixed with some white hydrangeas I picked up at a supermarket.

Their effect was glorious.  

A last minute vacuum and a goodnight's sleep was all that remained.

 Oh, and one more thing...move the darn grill and add some more pretty pillows outside.

 Nora arrived bright and early and as I was fixing the curtains I heard a knock at my front door.

NORA!!!! (I yelled through the closed front door)

I ran to open it and give her a big hug.  

She and her crew came inside and I gave them the tour 

so they could figure out where they wanted to being.  Nora came with an art director, 

a photographer and her charming son, Conor, who helped do the needful.

Just like that, we were underway.  They started in the bedroom and went on from there. 

 I can't share many photos, but I snuck in a few.  Nora gifted me one of her beautiful candles, 

in Pink Peony, as she said that seemed right for me.  

The first day of shooting, there were no dogs or fancy clothes to distract from the business of getting the shots.  The second day was another story.  Nora and I had to have our portraits done, and I kept Piper at home, while my husband took Colby off on a road trip, just the two of them.  Turned out, Piper was so good at posing, she had many "star turns" as she stole everyone's hearts.  Apparently she is a natural as a dog model.  Who knew?  Still, its not easy to catch her in a still position, and with the fancy camera settings, you have to be like a statue.  Piper handled herself as professionally just as Nora did, with amazing poses and an overall likability factor of 10.0!

 Look at how cute Piper is posing in the hallway in her dog bed.  

I am standing out of view holding her kong filled with peanut butter. 

 The tricks we had to pull to get her to do her thing were silly 

and made for light hearted moments, especially when the photographer made her "kooky" noises. 

We learned that if you called Piper to look at you, she would just run to you. Which was bad. 

But if you made a noise, she would often look at you without moving, 

wondering what the heck you were doing.  

Lots of "noises" were made, and we got the pics we needed. 

Here is the camera set up to capture the dining table.  

And this is the result.  Pretty amazing, right?  

I snapped a few screen shots off of the computer monitor

so I could share with you on my blog, which is why it looks grainy,

but you get the general idea. 

The monitor is set up tethered to the camera and is always close by, but out of the shot.

This was a closeup of the place settings.  So many beautiful shots were taken, I can't

imagine how Nora will pare it down to just a fraction of those taken.

After two full days, it was all over.  I could relax and let the dogs play with their toys,

and let Mr. Maison Decor take his boots off by the door and throw his stuff on 

the table.  No more worries for keeping things perfect, it was finally a WRAP!!

A big hug goodbye to Nora and her amazing crew, and it was time to celebrate

being part of the Nora Murphy Country House Book.

No better place than our courtyard.  Hubs had his wife back, so he was smiling ear to ear. 

 I was smiling because I had pulled it off, and Nora and her team brought out the best in my personal decorating style that would be forever saved in a beautiful book.  

So many times Nora would say to me when she wanted something a little bit more from the shot:

 "We need something to Amy-ize this " or 

"It needs some Amy added to this shot, what do you have that we could add?"

I had become a NOUN!!! 

Now that truly is something, isn't it?