Welcome to the world, Baby L!

About a month after our sunset maternity shoot, baby L entered the world! I photographed him around one week old, and he was a fantastic little subject...who did not want to miss a thing during his shoot. Look at those bright eyes!

Supermoon Eclipse 2015

Despite cloudy skies on Sunday night, I was able to sit on my back patio with my husband and watch the Supermoon/blood moon eclipse. We had a clear view of the moon before the eclipse started.

St. Louis Zoo | Animal Photographer

I absolutely adore taking photos of animals. So when I spent two days at the St. Louis Zoo for work, I could not pass up the opportunity to explore the zoo and capture the animals there. It was difficult to weed out my favorite animal photos here, and not post too many of the elephants, sea lions, and penguins (all of which I took many photos of!), but I did my best.

 I was so excited to find out that they have a red panda, as those are my absolute favorite zoo animals!

Love is Good | Leesburg Child Photographer

During Valentine's week, the theme for the Weekly Photo Project was "Love is Good". I had a couple of ideas for photos, including setting something up similar with the kids to what I did last year. Ultimately, I decided to shoot my children with a few of the things they love the most: their "lovies". I did see this as an idea on some photography site (I can no longer remember which!), and I was so happy with how it came out. I instructed the kids on where to lie, and then captured moments as they presented. Love these faces!

Boston Museum of Science: Butterflies | Nature Photographer

Over the weekend I visited the Boston Museum of Science with my family. We thoroughly enjoyed the trip there, and I took quite a few photos and videos. One of the highlights for me was our visit to the indoor butterfly garden. My daughter and I had a wonderful time there, watching the butterflies all around us!

Disney's Frozen on Ice

In October 2014 I took my family to see Disney's Frozen on Ice. I've previously taken them to see Disney's Celebration  and Disney's Princess Stories; of all three shows, I think we all agreed that this was our favorite. We had excellent seats, and with my 75-300mm telephoto lens, I was able to capture some beautiful moments!

Beauty and the Beast

It's not often that you are able to go to a Broadway-style show and take photos during, but that's exactly what I was able to do at Disney World. While at Hollywood Studios, we saw a shortened version of Beauty and the Beast in a beautiful outdoor amphitheater. It was wonderfully done, and made for some beautiful shots!

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!

Day and night in the Magic Kingdom: Part 1

At the beginning of October we spent 3.5 days at Disney, with the first 1.5 days in the Magic Kingdom. I went through my photos from the first day we spent there and pulled out a few of my favorites, highlighting my favorite shots taken during the afternoon (with quite cloudy skies, and some sun later on), as well as later that night.

 

Practicing with a macro lens

At the end of August I was invited to one of my client's sites for a one-day meeting. I didn't have too much to do that day, just listen to the talks and see the facility. It turns out that the man who put the meeting together also enjoys photography, and had seen my site. He brought all of his gear with him, and gave me full license to play! He's got my dream camera (the Canon 5D Mark III), and wow was that fun to get to use! He also had a 100mm macro lens (the one that I really want to buy next), and in addition to taking photos on his camera, I put the macro lens on my camera to see how well it worked. I am definitely a  fan of this lens now, and wanted to share a couple of my favorite shots that I took while messing around.

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.

 

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!

Fireworks July 2014

Unlike the past three years, where my family just set off some small fireworks ourselves, this year I went to the beach to watch the town fireworks get set off with my daughter. Prior to those fireworks starting, some other viewers on the beach were setting off some of their own. Before it was fully dark, I was able to do some long-exposure shots (camera on my tripod) and obtained these first few photos. For those who care, here are  the settings that I used: iso 640, f/22, 3.2s

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.

The little mermaid

I spotted this mermaid statue at my parents' house; with the lovely afternoon light streaming in through her windows, I had to photograph her!

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.

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!

First birthday fun!

In a recent post, I showed photos I took of the Allen family. As we became friendly afterwards, I was invited to their daughter Zoe's 1st birthday party just a few weeks later. I volunteered to take some cake smash photos there, so her mother didn't have to worry about it. But before the smashing I was able to photograph the beautiful cupcakes, decorated by Zoe's mom!