And I'm off!

Tomorrow evening at this time, I will be on a plane over the Atlantic Ocean headed to Paris for a week. My husband and I had always talked about going to Paris (or possibly London & Paris) for our 10th anniversary, and somehow, despite many possible impediments, it's happening! Even better, we're going with two of our favorite people on earth, good friends of ours who are also celebrating their 10th anniversary this year (we got married within 3 weeks of each other; she and I were in each other's wedding).

I'm excited for so many things about this trip, but one of the most exciting things will be the photography opportunities! I can't wait to share photos here with everyone. I think I have all of my gear packed; most everything is in my new camera bag (from jototes.com) - I am in love with this bag! It doesn't even look like a camera bag from the outside, which is helpful as I've been told by so many people about the high risk of pick pockets/crime in Paris, so I'm glad to have something that would be difficult to steal (assuming I'm keeping it across my body, as planned).

Winterguard Competition

Throughout high school and college I participated in winterguard - if you don't know what it is, picture a colorguard from a marching band, but indoors with more dance, grace, and performed to a recording, not a marching band. Search youtube for some examples if you're really curious...or if the photos below pique your interest!

American Museum of Natural History: Animals & Bones

As I posted on our family blog, we recently spent an afternoon at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. When not having fun with the kids, I was spending time trying to get the highest quality photos possible in a crowded museum through thick glass, without my external flash (batteries died about 10 minutes in and I had no spares - lesson learned!). Not all of them were winners, but on the whole I'm really happy with these. To prevent the post from getting too long I'm only showing my absolute faves here.

WPP: March 10-17

The theme for this week is "Bridges". I had a few photos from some recent photo expeditions that I were possibilities, but I knew that my ideal photo would be from our trip to Australia in 2009. We spent a couple of days in Sydney, and I have many photos of the Sydney Harbor Bridge (along with the Sydney Opera House, Zoo, and the rest of that beautiful harbor!). Sadly, I had a simple Canon point-and-shoot at the time, so my photos are nowhere near the quality that I like to have now, but despite that I'm still very happy with this photo, and thus it was my submission for the week.

Taken near sunset, April 2009.

WPP: Wrap-up to this week

Ok, these don't seem to be very popular posts, but I'm proud of these photos so I want to get them out for any fans to see. So, instead of continuing to do a separate post for each week as I catch up, here are my submissions from January 28- March 10.

WPP: Week of Jan 21-28

As I mentioned previously, I didn't have anything to submit for the subject of "Doors" for the week of January 14. The winner that week chose the subject "At the Movies" for the following week, and I had a couple of thoughts for shots that I could set up. However, the week started to get away from me, and I found myself in Philadelphia for work. One of my clients is in a building near Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and from their floor you can see this beautiful view of the city. So, my submission for this week was "Philadelphia". The photo was taken on my iPhone through a thick glass window, so all in all I was very pleased with how it came out.

WPP: January 7-13

The theme for Jan 7-13 was "At Your Feet". The point of the topic was to get everyone to stop looking out and away at eye level to take a photo, but instead take a look at what is down by our feet, which we often overlook. Just that week I took this photo of my son on the floor near my feet, so it seemed like a good one to submit.

When I saw the photo that did win, it absolutely blew me away and would have been the one I chose as winner as well. This photo was taken by Gail Metzinger, and it is stunning. I had to share it here. She did an amazing job!

Gail then chose "Doors" as her category for the week of January 14-20; I didn't have anything good to submit for that week, so we'll skip that week here and my next post will show my submission for the week of January 21-27.

WPP: December 31-January 6

For the first week of January (which also happened to be week 52 of the project, so it had been a fully year since the group was started!), the theme was "Warmth". Most people submitted photos of tropical/warm locations, or adorable animals snuggled up on blankets but I didn't have anything I really liked along those lines. Instead, I went for interpersonal warmth and submitted this photo from the NYE wedding I shot (which has been posted here previously).

I received many compliments on the photo, which I very much appreciated. I lost to a ridiculously adorable photo of a kitten sitting in the sun; there was absolutely no way I could fault choosing that one as the winner!

Weekly Photo Project (WPP): My winning photos

I've previously mentioned on here that for about a year now I have participated in a closed group on Facebook called "The Weekly Photo Project". Anyone can be invited in (I was invited by the cousin of the founder of the group, who is a friend of mine, and I've invited at least 4 others in); the premise of the group is to provide a topic to go out and try to shoot that week. You don't  have to have taken the photo that week (we've had people submit photos from years ago when they feel that it meets that week's description), but often members will try to take something new. The person who submits that week's topic gets to choose his/her favorite from all of the submissions (somewhere from 15-20 typically), and that week's winner then gets to pick the topic and favorite for the next week.

Three kids are better than one

Last month I did quite a few kid shoots; I previously posted photos of Ruth and Bailey, as well as my daughter dressed as a bride. Ruth is very good friends with both of my kids, so at the end of her shoot we took some photos of all of the kids together - here are my favorites!