Macro photography: Plants in the snow

On Sunday, I ventured out to take some macro photos of some of the plant life peeking through the snow. As the theme for the Weekly Photo Project was "Controlled Focus", which I thought worked quite well with macro photos like these. The first was my favorite, and was my submission for the week.

Blue Ridge Mountains: Wintergreen

In January my husband and I spent a weekend at Wintergreen Ski Resort in Nelson County, VA. Sitting at the top of one of the mountains in the Blue Ridge, it's quite a gorgeous location (and I'm only partially saying that because I grew up there!). On our second morning there the sunrise was too beautiful to miss, and luckily our balcony was facing in just the right direction.

Macro photography: Trees

For a photo project this week, I needed to photograph "something from a tree". While walking the dog early one morning, I saw drops of water hanging from the nearly bare tree branches and had to go back with my camera. Using my 85mm lens, set at the widest aperture (f/1.8) I captured a few macro shots; these proved to be my favorites.

State Arboretum of Virginia | Nature Photography

On Saturday I did a photo shoot at a new location: the State Arboretum of Virginia. The shoot went really well, partially because of the amazing location. The setting was stunning, and on my way out I encountered these beauties who were good enough to pose for me!

Flower farm

Here's Part II of summer photos!
Back in December 2013 I posted photos that I took at Great Falls National Park, as I felt like with the cold weather and snow we could use some summery photos. As we're now even further into the depths of winter, I think these bright, beautiful flowers are just what is needed!

Macro photography: Ice Storm

Last night we were hit by an ice storm, along with most of the rest of the Mid-Atlantic and North East. Leesburg was right on the edge of the ice/rain, and what started as rain last night quickly turned to ice and led to cancelled school and everything glowing white this morning from the coating of ice. After (carefully) walking the dog, I went back outside to grab a few photos before work. I couldn't walk too far from the house for fear of slipping, so I took these shots in front of our house.

 

Blue heron at sunset

About 2.5 weeks ago I spotted a great blue heron walking through the pond during "golden hour". As it wasn't ridiculously cold that night (unlike right now!), I grabbed my 70-300mm telephoto lens and headed out to grab a few shots.

Sun on Snow

About 3 weeks ago I posted photos of the "winter wonderland" around our house from the first snow of the season. These photos were taken during the snow fall in the morning, but by mid afternoon the clouds had gone away, the sun came out, and I had to take more photos. I've posted a few of these, focusing on my daughter as it was her birthday, but wanted to show my favorites of the rest that I took, as the sun on the snow was just beautiful.

Winter Wonderland

Two weeks ago today, we had the first real snow of the season. It started Monday night (exactly two weeks ago), and when we woke up Tuesday (which also happened to be my daughter's birthday) the snow was thickly coming down. It was too snowy to risk going outside with my camera, but I grabbed a few shots of the snow on the pond with the geese from the safety of my kitchen (using my 70-300mm lens). So beautiful!

Great Falls National Park

There are so many winter and holiday photos that I want to share here, and plan to, but I know if I don't get around to sharing some from this past summer/fall I will never get them up! So, before I dive into my snow photos from this week, here are some I took in August at Great Falls National Park. I'm sure it looks absolutely stunning now with the snow and ice, but it's also nice to remember how it looks in the warm sun!

The weather was beautiful - I went hiking there with two friends (who also wanted a photography adventure) and we spent a couple of hours just shooting the Falls from various angles and vantage points. I hope to be able to go back in all seasons to see how it changes over the year! I also hope to be able to hike some of the trails, as we really only stayed near the Falls/Potomac River.

Autumn in Vermont: Part 3

For the final part of my photo excursion in Vermont, I headed into the local town of Waitsfield. The (nearly) duplicate photos I took there begged for different edits, evoking different feels for the same view.

 

Autumn in Vermont: Part 2

These photos were taken after the ones I posted in Vermont: Part 1. This lovely river (the Mad River) wound its way through the area where we were staying, and made for beautiful landscape photography.

Autumn in Vermont: Part 1

When in Vermont for my brother-in-law's wedding, we had some time to kill on Friday before the rehearsal dinner. Given the beautiful autumn foliage everywhere, I really wanted to get out and take some photos. So we drove around the nearby town and I had the opportunity to capture these shots. The first is of the oldest covered bridge in Vermont.

A day in Richmond

About a month ago I spent a couple of days in Richmond for work. I had some time one afternoon between appointments, and found myself in the downtown area, so I headed over to Maymont Park, as I hadn't been there in a very long time. I actually did not go where I had intended to, but instead found a lovely man-made lake with this beauty sitting in the middle. Time for the 70-300mm lens!

Geese Part 2: Portraits

 About six weeks ago, our resident flock of geese were having a late dinner just outside of our backyard. This seems to be their preferred place to eat at night, and every on this evening the light was great for some portraits. Even better, none of the babies were around, so the adults weren't as shy (ok, mean) and let me get pretty close to them. With the use of my 70-300mm telephoto lens, I got some pretty great close-ups!

Sunset on the Sound

To bracket my sunrise photos I took over the Atlantic Ocean, I took my family to the west side of the Outer Banks, over the Albemarle Sound, to photograph the sunset. 

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean

Every year when we go to the beach, I have grand plans to photograph the sunrise, and every year I never do, as vacation is a time for sleeping in! This year, I swore would be different, and woke up very early one morning, heading over with my dad. It was stunningly beautiful.

Ospreys at the Outer Banks

The three most recent posts on my family blog have included photos I took on my new point-and-shoot camera, the Canon Powershot SX500. For such a small camera, it packs a lot of punch! I have been very happy with the photos taken with it in the past week or so...so much so, that I'm going to show off a few of them here! Of course, the quality isn't what I get on my Canon Rebel DSLR, but I had no expectation it would be. I think you'll agree, however, that the results are still pretty great!

As I mentioned in one of these earlier posts, I went for a walk with my mom and aunt by Kill Devil Bay, part of the Albemarle Sound in the Outer Banks. When we walked out onto a pier, there was an osprey nest nearby that had quite a bit of activity. Note: the pier we were standing on was about 30 yards away from the nest.

Super Moon 2013

In case you hadn't heard, last night (June 23) was the "Super Moon" - the moon was the closest to the Earth that it will be for all of 2013, and according to one report I read it was actually the closest it had been to Earth since 2011. I was worried I wouldn't have a chance to take any photos, but after returning home last night from a friend's house I saw how beautiful it looked and ran outside around 11pm with my camera and tripod to see what I could get.

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.