Geese Part 2: Portraits

 About six weeks ago, our resident flock of geese were having a late dinner just outside of our backyard. This seems to be their preferred place to eat at night, and every on this evening the light was great for some portraits. Even better, none of the babies were around, so the adults weren't as shy (ok, mean) and let me get pretty close to them. With the use of my 70-300mm telephoto lens, I got some pretty great close-ups!

Sunset on the Sound

To bracket my sunrise photos I took over the Atlantic Ocean, I took my family to the west side of the Outer Banks, over the Albemarle Sound, to photograph the sunset. 

Dolphin boat tour

Just before we went to the Outer Banks at the beginning of July, I purchased a neutral density filter and dug out the polarizing filter that I bought and promptly forgot about. On one afternoon, we purchased tickets to go on a dolphin boat tour and I knew this would be the perfect place to try out the ND filter to cut the bright summer afternoon light.

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean

Every year when we go to the beach, I have grand plans to photograph the sunrise, and every year I never do, as vacation is a time for sleeping in! This year, I swore would be different, and woke up very early one morning, heading over with my dad. It was stunningly beautiful.

4th of July fireworks

We didn't watch any town-run fireworks this year, choosing instead to set off our own small ones and sparklers. 

Ospreys at the Outer Banks

The three most recent posts on my family blog have included photos I took on my new point-and-shoot camera, the Canon Powershot SX500. For such a small camera, it packs a lot of punch! I have been very happy with the photos taken with it in the past week or so...so much so, that I'm going to show off a few of them here! Of course, the quality isn't what I get on my Canon Rebel DSLR, but I had no expectation it would be. I think you'll agree, however, that the results are still pretty great!

As I mentioned in one of these earlier posts, I went for a walk with my mom and aunt by Kill Devil Bay, part of the Albemarle Sound in the Outer Banks. When we walked out onto a pier, there was an osprey nest nearby that had quite a bit of activity. Note: the pier we were standing on was about 30 yards away from the nest.

Photo shoot at a lavender farm

My previous post were photos of the beautiful flora (and a few fauna!) at the Seven Oaks Lavender Farm. The real reason I went there, however, was to photograph two beautiful young ladies. I've wanted practice with more girls around their teen years, as I'd really like to do senior portraits next year, and our wonderful daycare provider was generous enough to let me use two of her daughters. The girls even volunteered to babysit the night before in exchange for dinner, then spent the night, and we headed out to the lavender farm early Saturday morning (after the appropriate hair and makeup time, of course!).

I wanted to catch the nice morning light; however, even at 9am the sun was quite strong. This was also good practice for me to work with that kind of light, and practice with my reflector to eliminate unwanted shadows. There's still a lot of practice to be done, but I'm very happy with these shots. The first ones are all from within the lavender bushes.

Lavender

A little over 2 weeks ago, I went to Seven Oaks Lavender Farm for a photo shoot with two girls (our babysitters!). I'd purchased a Living Social deal to the farm for 4 people, and thought it would be a beautiful location for a photo shoot. I've got another post coming up with my favorite photos of the girls, but wanted to show the photos of the flora and fauna that I shot as well.

My daughter, the model

It's really wonderful that I have a daughter who loves having her picture taken, and isn't too bothered by posing for me now and again. I try not to only use her as a model (and I do have to remember that she's only 5, and her patience for me to try new things is limited), but every now and again she gives me priceless photos like these. She had her haircut last night, and I wanted to enjoy the beautiful light at sunset in July, so it was a perfect match.