Outside Christmas Ornaments

We decorated the tree in our front yard with some oversize ornaments; my plan is to slowly accumulate more of these over the years until the tree is fully decorated! While enjoying the beautiful weather this week over Christmas, I grabbed a few photos of the ornaments in the daylight.

Making Art

On Black Friday we took our children to the Crayola Experience in Pennsylvania. I've posted details about the trip on my family blog here; while there, we were surrounded by so much creativity that I had to get a few artistic shots of my own to share here!

Disney on Ice

Back in October, my family and I attended Disney on Ice: Celebration! At the Patriot Center. We were up fairly high, but that's ok - it let me put my telephoto lens to good use!

Nutcracker Audition

Last month my daughter auditioned for a local production of The Nutcracker. I wasn't sure what the situation would be in regards to taking photos during the audition, but I was able to sit in on it and use my 70-300mm zoom lens to snap a few photos. The lighting was difficult, and I of course could not use a flash, but I think I was able to make do with the situation at hand.

The role her age group tried out for is "gift bearer", so during the party each of them would come forward with a gift to the front of the stage, curtsy, and return to the back. The older girls (chosen to play the main role of Clara) helped them out with their nervousness on the first run through (they each did it 3 times).

 

NJ Grounds for Sculpture

In August, I took a trip to NJ and had time in my schedule to visit the New Jersey Grounds for Sculpture. I'd heard about this place from a fellow photographer I met on a Facebook group, and was excited to have a chance to go and shoot. Unfortunately, I did not have my DSLR with me, but good photography isn't about the gear, it's about the eye, right?

The first thing I encountered was this sculpture of American Gothic. It was about 2.5 times taller than life size

Political Event: Office Opening

**Disclaimer: This post is not an endorsement of any candidate, simply noting some photos I took at a local political event.

A friend of my husband is running for Delegate in the state of Virginia. We don't live in her district, so we can't vote for her, but he wanted to support her so we went to her office opening in Berryville over Labor Day weekend. She had asked if I would take some photos of the event; these are my favorites.

Her office is in the old Berryville Pharmacy building (the whole town is so quaint!).

Street Photography: Old Town Alexandria

A couple of weeks ago I headed into Old Town Alexandria for dinner and a show at Medieval Madness with a group of friends. I arrived in Old Town about an hour early, as I hardly ever get out there, and I wanted to explore the area. I'm glad I did - it's absolutely beautiful, and it gave me an opportunity to try out some street photography, which I very rarely do.

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. 

Changes are happening!

So, lots going on here at AbbeLynn Photography! I've had a busy couple of months, in both life and photography. The life stuff has mostly been detailed on my family blog and FB (Paris, moving, Foxfield, 10th anniversary, work travel, time with kids, time with family, time with friends...the list goes on, as it does for everyone!), but I realized this week that I'd had so much going on photography-wise that I wanted to get it all down in one place! I like to use my family blog as a way of getting down "on paper" a timeline of events that I can go back and refer to later, and I can see the utility in using this blog the same, to chronicle events as my business continues to grow! So periodically (when a lot has happened), I plan to try and get a summary out here - thanks for reading :) Let's see...where to start??

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.

Hanging art

Last week I traveled for work to Philadelphia, and despite the cold was lucky to have some beautiful weather in which to do so (unlike what we're seeing outside today!). I'm always on the look out whenever I go somewhere different for interesting photo opportunities; unfortunately often they occur while I'm driving solo and don't have a chance to stop and get out of the car to make the shot. Fortunately this opportunity presented while I was in the client's building, and lighting was good enough that my iPhone was sufficient to capture this beautiful hanging art display.

Expanding my photography

I'm sure many of you are aware of the changes I've been making lately regarding my photography.
1. If you've seen this blog more than once or twice, you'll note the change in layout. I think it's cleaner and simpler now, particularly with the "short" intro to each post, so you can more easily see all recent posts without having to do a lot of scrolling.
2. I've rolled out a Facebook page for my photography; there's a link to it where you can "like" it on the upper right hand of this blog. Within the first 5 days, I've gotten almost 60 likes...and not all of them are from my Facebook friends! That means my "reach" (as FB calls it) is spreading, which is really exciting.
3. I photographed my first wedding (favorite pics will be going on here and the FB site soon, I promise!), and have generated some buzz from that. I'm really happy with how the photos turned out, and more importantly so are the bride and groom!
4. Since then, I've done head shots for one friend, and will soon be doing them for a second. I also photographed the 6 week old daughter of two friends of mine, and came up with a really great idea for Valentine's Day photos for kids. All of those photos will be on here shortly too, I promise!
5. Just today, I booked my first two paying jobs! I'm so excited to do these family shoots.

I cannot thank you all enough for supporting me as I start making this photography thing into more than just a hobby. I'm constantly working to get better at this (I've got two separate sets of lessons coming up, one private and one group, and I can't wait!), and I'm really enjoying the process. I hope you're enjoying watching as much as I enjoy doing!

Richmond capital building

Last month my husband and I spent some time in the Capital building in Richmond, VA. The building is beautiful, and while I was waiting for our event to begin I took a few shots of the decorations inside of the state legislature room.

Nutcracker ballerinas

In early December my daughter was an angel in the South Riding Dance Academy's rendition of The Nutcracker. I've posted photos of her already on my family blog, but here I wanted to highlight some of my favorites that I took of the older girls during their performance.

Disney on Ice

Back in October, I took my daughter to Disney on Ice at the Patriot Center. I have to admit, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would! They did four stories: The Little Mermaid (Ariel), Tangled (Rapunzel), Beauty & the Beast (Belle), and Brave (Merida). Natalie absolutely loved it, and I had a lot of fun using my telephoto lens to capture the ice dancers. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of photos I was able to get given that I was using a telelphoto for many of them, and the skaters were moving. I thought I'd finally get around to sharing them here!

Tiny Toes Dance Shop

A couple of weeks ago I was at my daughter's dance class and realized that I'd forgotten my book, my iPad, and my phone was about to die...which left me with only my camera to entertain myself. As parents aren't allowed in for most of class, I couldn't take photos of her, so I occupied myself instead with things I found in the dance gift shop.

Light trails

My kids have colored flashlights that they enjoy playing with while the lights are out. I wanted to play with long exposure times, and thought that having the kids move these lights around in the darkened living room could make for some cool shots.

Very Victorian

At the end of September we went to NJ for Evan's grandmother's funeral. The service was lovely, and afterwards we went to the Milleridge Restaurant on Long Island. Lynn had gone there with her parents for years growing up, so she felt it was the appropriate place to have a family gathering to remember Gram. It's a fascinating place - room upon room filled with neat old decorations (and neat old people!).

"Old" things

I think I've mentioned before on here that I'm part of a group on Facebook called "The Weekly Photo Project". I was invited in by a friend back in the spring; when I joined, there were only about 10 people in the group, and now with everyone inviting others in, we're up to about 70 people. The idea is that each week there's a new topic, and everyone submits a photo that they feel fits that topic. The person who chooses the topic picks their winner (based on whatever personal criteria they're looking for), and then that winner chooses the topic & winner for the next week. I've been participating since week 5; we're now on week 35. I've only failed to submit twice (once because I ran out of time, and once because I had no inspiration) - it's a lot of fun to see what everyone comes up with!


While at my parents in August, the theme for that week was "Old Fashioned".