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.

Baby Geese!

Stratford pond (just behind our house) is home to a lot of wildlife, but the most obvious are the many geese that make a home here. In particular are a mated pair that we knew would be having babies at some point. Two weeks ago we finally spotted the babies, as the family came out of the water to eat not far from our backyard. As I didn't want to provoke the parents, or scare the babies, I used my 75-300mm telephoto lens to shoot these guys through the trees from our backyard.

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.

"Tasha"

I wanted to separate this post from the previous one, even though it took place on the same day and at the same location. While hiking around in Balls Bluff Park with my family, we ran into this beauty below (named Tasha) and her owner Nancy.

Calla illuminated

My dog is particularly difficult to take photos of, due to her black coat. Unless the illumination is JUST right, she ends up looking like an undefined black mass of fur with big brown eyes peeking out. And if I use a flash, then her eyes are just a red reflection back at me. A few weeks ago I was home during the day and she was lying quietly in the sun, and I suddenly had the perfect submission for my Weekly Photo Project submission that week: "Illuminated".

I submitted this photo on the left.
Sadly, it didn't win but I still felt like it was a pretty good submission.

I ended up with about 15 favorites from shooting her - here are a couple of those; to prevent this post from being ridiculously long you can see the rest on AbbeLynn Photography on Facebook (while you're there, please "like" my page!).

Geese

These photos were taken of geese at a lake in Crump Park, Richmond, VA on the day after Thanksgiving. All were shot using my 75-300mm telephoto lens; however, we were still pretty close to these geese!

Rizzo

My parents' dog Rizzo is extremely photogenic; her coloring just makes her so easy to photograph. She was sitting quietly over Thanksgiving and let me grab these couple of photos of her with my 50mm lens. Of the 10 or so that I took, these three were my favorite.

Charlie

Despite his not being a dog person, my boss has been really great lately about letting us all bring or dogs into the office (provided they aren't smelly and don't bark). My colleague brought in her French bulldog Charlie, and I had to get some photos of him - he's so darn cute! 

Outer Banks beach photos II

Last month we returned once again to the Outer Banks. Just before our trip I received my present to myself for having a good year at work - this lens, recommended by a friend. I hadn't really had a chance to play with it before the trip, so of course a couple of hours on the beach was a perfect opportunity to take some photos.

Great Country Farms

Welcome back! Sorry for the long time in between posts, but I've been rather busy with some other things this month. Because of that, I haven't really taken many photos that would work on here. However, I do have some of the trip I took with my kids to Great Country Farms in Bluemont, VA; I posted earlier this week on my family blog the photos I took of the kids and the things we did. Here, I've got some of the more landscape/artistic ones that I took.

Elephants!

A couple of weeks ago we went to see a small circus that was in town for a few days. I'd been wanting to take the kids for the past couple of years, but we weren't sure if their ages were ok. This year we decided to go for it, and despite the size I'm really glad we went! 

My favorite part was the "grand finale" with two trained elephants. They were beautiful, and did some pretty great tricks. I decided to highlight my favorite photos I took of them here.

Spaniel love

My parents have a cocker spaniel named Rizzo who is exceptionally photogenic. Her coat color, her face, her expressions - she makes taking her photo very easy! I love when I have the opportunity to photograph her. This photo was not edited at all - she doesn't really need it!

Some local fauna

While on my walk through our neighborhood two weeks ago, I was lamenting my inability to take decent photos of all of the beautiful birds I saw. Cardinals, blue jays, robins...all rapidly flew away upon my approach, and I unfortunately did not have the ability to lie in wait with my telephoto lens just hoping for a bird to appear. Turns out karma is a bitch, as in my visit to the Paxton campus I stumbled across two rather large birds!

Welcome!

Welcome to my new photography blog! While I have always loved taking photographs (starting with disposable cameras in high school, through my first very bulky, small-screen digital camera in 2001, and now with my digital SLR), it's only recently that I've taken it up as a hobby. As I just mentioned, for this past Christmas I received a new camera: Canon Rebel t2i. I immediately had a lot to learn, and I think over the past 4 months my skills have vastly improved. I've been trying to cram in my "photography" pictures on my family blog, but that hasn't been working so well, so I decided to start another blog, dedicated to honing my photography skills and showing my favorite shots to the world (or, probably more accurately, my friends and family). 

My goal here is to showcase the realm of possibilities with photography, and highlight those photos that I think really stand out. I've even entertained the idea of this becoming a side-business for me, possibly selling photos I take that people really enjoy, or even (cheaply) hiring myself out for kids parties, taking photos of people's pets, etc, but I don't really think I'm there yet (and honestly, I don't know if I have the time to do something like that with working full time and having two kids at home). For now, this will be the place where I display my photos, and I hope that everyone enjoys seeing them as much as I've enjoyed taking them!