Christmas Decorations 2014

Last year I posted up quite a few Christmas-related photos, including bokeh, portraits, ornaments, and lights. This year, I didn't take quite as many photos of these holiday-related items this year, but I did spend some time during the week before Christmas practicing a couple of techniques. The first was something that I saw on a photography site and thought I'd give a try. 

With this first one, the idea is to start zoomed in on the object, and during a long exposure s-l-o-w-l-y zoom out to the maximum distance. That creates this cool light trail effect!

Little Miss S: Newborn Portraits

Because this little one spent New Year's Eve at my house tonight, and she's no longer quite so little (5 months already!), AND because what's cuter to share on New Year's Day than an adorable newborn...here are my photos of the adorable Little Miss S!

Little Miss E: Newborn photos

During the last week of July, a good friend of mine here in Leesburg gave birth to a beautiful baby girl! Not only did I get a chance to visit with them in the hospital, but a few days later after mom and baby had returned home, I went to their house for a newborn photo shoot of the beautiful girl. This is the third shoot I've done with this family, and I'm so happy that they continue to ask me to photograph their life! Especially with this adorable new addition.

We started off with some "lifestyle" photos in her nursery.

Puppy love

During a newborn photo shoot at a good friend's house last weekend, I captured these photos of my daughter with their dog. The light coming through this window was stunning, and the two of them together were just so sweet.

 

Still life with tulips

For a photo challenge this week I chose as my subject a bouquet of tulips that have been on my kitchen table for a while. I moved them in front of my living room window, with the evening light coming through, and experimented with shallow focus. Since these flowers only lasted another day after this, I'm glad I was able to capture them. And what beautiful colors!

 

Lego Castle

A couple of months ago I received an interesting request from my boss: a photo shoot not for a person but for a still-life session. What was the subject? A 4-foot tall Lego castle!

J&A Wedding: Cumberland, MD

At the end of May I had the honor to attend my aunt's wedding to her partner, and act as the official photographer. The wedding was held in Cumberland, MD, which is only about two hours from where I live and was surprisingly pretty!

Recital Performance: June 2014

About three weeks ago my daughter had her very last "Rising Stars" dance recital with the Loudoun School of Ballet. I love taking photos of the girls during their dress rehearsal; they look so great up there on the stage! Back in January, the pinks and teals her class wore popped, but I think the green stood out quite nicely as well. Our little jazzy tappers did a great job!

Seussical Dancers

Just over a week ago was the Rising Stars recital for the Loudoun School of Ballet. For the first time this year, the teachers and interns (older students who assist the younger ones) did an opening number together. This year's theme was "Happy birthday Dr. Seuss", and the opening number was "Oh the thinks you can think" from Seussical the Musical. It was really great, and choreographed by my friend Danielle (the head of the program). The girls did such a fantastic job!

Mommy & Me Spa Day

For Mother's Day this year, my daughter and I attended a "mommy and me" spa day in Vienna, Va. While there were a few hiccups with the event, she and I had a lovely time together and the setting was truly lovely!

Sweet Justice Concert: Petersburg, VA

About six weeks ago I once again had the pleasure to see the Richmond-based band Sweet Justice. Previously I posted some photos I had taken of them at my sister's boyfriend's house, which was an outdoor event. Because that was done on his backyard stage, there was not a full lighting rig set up, just what he has at his house. This time, they played at a roadhouse near Petersburg, VA, on my sister's birthday. It was a great night, but to my photographer's eye, the best part was the lighting! It led to some really fantastic shots.

En Brussels

Two months ago I went to The Netherlands for work. My colleagues and I spent the weekend before our work trip in Brussels: despite two of them having been there before, we all agreed due to the many things to see and the city's proximity to The Netherlands, it was the ideal location for us to spend two days.

Upon our arrival, we began walking around the city center. We started in the Grand Place (Palace), where there was some sort of ceremony taking place (we never did find out exactly what was going on). The buildings and grandeur of the ceremony were simply beautiful.

Planes, Shuttles, and...more planes

The first weekend in February we went with my brother- and sister-in-law to the Udvar-Hazy space museum at Dulles Airport. We actually went back just yesterday with some friends; can you tell it's one of my favorite museums in the DC metro area? Each time we find something new and thrilling to get excited about. It's especially fun for me to go there with people who have never been there before, as there really is so much to see.

Korean figurines

I'm hoping to take a night off from the photo editing, as I anticipate being home for the next couple of days and should have lots of time to get some editing done! So, as I just finished paying bills, and I had this post all set to go, I thought tonight would be a nice night to share it.

Last month while I was doing my 30 day photo challenge, one of the subjects was "Close Up". I used some macro filters that my husband gave me last year, screwed onto my 70-300mm lens, to take a few photos of these adorable Korean figurines given to me by an old colleague who got them for me in Korea. So very cute!

Self Portraits

This month, I participated in a 30 day photo challenge, which I had previously posted about so I won't go into tons of details again. As you can see on the description, the month starts and ends with a self-portrait, and has two self portraits (of a different type) in the middle of the month. I tried to do something different for each self portrait, and wanted to summarize the results here.

Self Portrait Day 1: This is the one I submitted to the challenge.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Hands

I'm currently taking part in a 30 day photography "challenge". It's through a photography group I've been a part of for a while now (well over a year), but this challenge is new. I like the daily topics and really enjoy the people who are doing this with me. There's a different topic each day, and you're supposed to take the photo for the topic that day. It's a really great way to force me to pick up a camera every day (even if it's just using one of the apps on my iPhone), and it makes me take photos of things I might ordinarily miss/ignore.

If you're interested in seeing all of my photos for this project, take a look at the Facebook album I created on my photography page: CLICK HERE.

Craft project: Jewelry Box

I'm kind of tired tonight, so here's a quick post of photos I took after helping my daughter put together a mosaic jewelry box over the weekend. She and I had a wonderful time doing this project together, and I really like how it came out!

Light "Painting"

As you've likely seen on Facebook, I'm taking part in a 30 day photo "challenge" - there's no winner or loser, but it's a challenge to take a photo a day for 30 days, with each day having a different theme. So far, I've managed to keep up with the first 8 days and submit a photo taken that day. 

3 days ago, the challenge was "A view from above". I didn't know what I would shoot, and then when I was standing in the hallway of our second floor, looking down into the foyer, I had an idea to shoot my daughter from above. Originally I was going to do a more traditional shot (well lit, her posing, etc), but then when she started playing with her flashlight, I got an idea. And thus, my shot was born!

Christmas Light Bokeh: Let's make shapes!

 One of my photography-related Christmas presents this year is a Bokeh kit. I've wanted one of these for a while now, but didn't really have any reason for it - that's what Christmas is for! I've posted previously some shots I took using Christmas lights to get that nice bokeh effect, but there's only so much you can do about the shape of the bokeh, as it's based a lot on the sensor for your camera. In order to alter the shape of the lights, you need to place something over the front of the camera lens. You can create your own cut outs in different shapes to alter the light, but I've never really had the patience to do that. So, bring on the kit! It comes with over 20 differently shaped cut outs that I can place over the lens and change the shape of the light. It was then just a matter of finding a subject and the right cut out...and here's what I came up with!

Christmas Light Bokeh

This year is the first time that I've had the physical space, equipment, and time to truly try to capture Christmas light bokeh. For those of you who may not know, "bokeh" is a Japanese term for how the lens renders the out of focus part of a photo - for example, the light in the background. By positioning objects in different locations in the foreground, you can make some very interesting effects! I've had a lot of fun this week experimenting with bokeh, and will have more to share! For now, here are the Christmas-y subjects I used earlier in the week.