Miss Lauren - dance portraits | Dance Photographer

A couple of months ago I was commissioned to take some dance portraits of one of the Interns at the LSoB. Miss Lauren, as our kids call her, has helped out in classes for both of my kids, and is such a beautiful and talented young lady. I was very excited when she reached out to me to take some posed dance portraits for auditions she had coming up. Lauren and her mother came to my home to pose in my studio, and we ran through the poses she needed. This first one couldn't be use for her audition photos, but I really liked it, enough to show it here!

Getting "The Shot"

Sometimes, the shot that  you set out to get isn't the shot that you end up with...but the one you get ends up being so much better than anything you ever could have planned!

Tonight I headed out to our pond to take some photos of the geese for a 30 day photo challenge (the theme today was "Animals"). The light was fading quickly, and unfortunately the location of the geese just wasn't thrilling me. The photos I shot were ok

Spring at the pond

As we've all noticed, our extended winter has led to a later spring this year. April has been a truly beautiful month, particularly this last half. I previously posted photos of the spring blooms on my street, but hadn't yet had a chance to capture the new growth around the pond. On a walk with my family on Easter Sunday I got the first of my spring pond photos to share with you here.

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.

A snowy birthday

Two weeks ago today was my daughter's birthday. We woke up to gray skies and heavy snow falling, but were able to go outside twice that day despite the weather! Later in the afternoon, when the sun came out, I headed outside to take photos. She wanted to take photos with me, so of course I took the chance to grab some unique photos of the birthday girl in the snow. It doesn't hurt that they are also photos of her being a photographer!

 

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!

Pink Sunset

The first couple of weeks of the month produced some absolutely gorgeous sunsets in our neighborhood. I've been reading about how "cliche" sunset photos are, and how hard it is to take good ones. So, I've been trying not to take too many unless they provide something visually different or interesting. When the sky turned a beautiful shade of pink a couple of weeks ago, I just couldn't resist. So, I grabbed my Powershot and quickly snapped a few to capture that color.

My daughter, the model

It's really wonderful that I have a daughter who loves having her picture taken, and isn't too bothered by posing for me now and again. I try not to only use her as a model (and I do have to remember that she's only 5, and her patience for me to try new things is limited), but every now and again she gives me priceless photos like these. She had her haircut last night, and I wanted to enjoy the beautiful light at sunset in July, so it was a perfect match.

Sunset over the pond

I discovered today that I purchased a piece of photography equipment and then promptly forgot about it: a polarizing filter that fits my 18-55mm and 70-300mm lenses. I can't believe I put this in my camera bag and then forgot about it! This filter is perfect for bright sunny days, as it eliminates quite a bit of the harsh sun's glare. It made for nice levels of brightness on photos I took today of our kids at the park (I definitely had much less post-editing to do than I would have otherwise on these photos!), and when I was struck by the beauty of our pond at sunset, I took these also using the filter, and again very little editing was needed in post. The colors just POP!

Setting sun: backlighting

Our new house backs onto a beautiful (man-made) pond, which looks especially lovely as the sun is setting at night.