Portraits in the snow

Yesterday morning I took the kids out in the snow for some playtime in the falling snow. This time, I took my DSLR camera and used my rain shield for the first time to protect it. The shield worked beautifully, and I'm so glad to have these portraits of them enjoying the snow!

My daughter, the dancer

 About three weeks ago my daughter had her second dance recital with the Loudoun School of Ballet. On my personal blog, I've already posted photos I took at the dress rehearsal. When we arrived home after the recital, she of course didn't want to take off her costume, and we had some really nice light coming in through my living room window. So, I figured why not set up for a costume photo shoot? As she gets older, she gets better and better at listening when I tell her posing suggestions...maybe we've got a future model on our hands!

Be My Valentine!

I'm not really a Valentine's Day girl - my husband and I don't do anything for the "holiday", and it's always seemed a little silly to me. However, I have to admit that I do love the color combinations (red, pink, and silver? bring it on!), and with having a girly-girl in my house I thought why not set up a shoot for Valentine's Day? I knew she'd be a fantastic model, and I wanted to try out the new backdrop that I purchased over the weekend. I could not be happier with the results!

 In fact, I'm running a Valentine's Day special - $50 for a 30 minute session, getting 10 photos of your little Valentines! Please contact me if you'd like to schedule a shoot this week.

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.

Sun + snow + dog = adorable

Yesterday I took my dog for a walk in the snow, which she absolutely loves. It's so much fun to watch her run around in it, and even better she is a good enough dog to pose for me (without a treat in my hand, even!) in the sun. Love this dog.

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.

Key West Wedding: Portraits

I wrote a post here earlier this month showing some photos I took at a very good friend's wedding in Key West. (Side note: thank you all for making that post the second highest viewed of all time!). In addition to the photos I took with my phone, I was able to take some "real" portraits of the bride and groom as I drove them around Key West. These were all taken at the Key West wildlife refuge - such a novel and lovely place to take wedding photos, and so fitting for the two of them!

Note: I was NOT the wedding photographer for this wedding; he was amazing, and posing all of these shots. I was simply fortunate enough to grab some of my own from the side! 

Christmas Portraits

 The holidays provides a lot of opportunities for adorable photos of the kids, and this year was no different. I was only able to get a few of the more traditional shots that I wanted to get, as my son would not cooperate. But that's ok  - my daughter made up for her lack of brother by bringing on the cuteness!

 

Two family photo shoots

In November I had the pleasure to do two separate family photo shoots - it made for a busy month! I put full sneak peeks of both families on Facebook, but wanted to show my favorite shots from each shoot here. Both shoots were at Morven Park, but ended up so different from each other! That's one of the things that I love most: finding a beautiful location and then personalizing it for each person/family.

Wedding Part 3: Portraits

The last set of Vermont wedding photos! When going through these, I found so many that I had taken of my kids, as well as the other flower girl, that I put them together into a single post here. I just can't get enough of these beautiful faces!

Little Miss M

My previous post was of the photos that I took of my colleague's daughter for her back-to-school photos. A former colleague of ours tagged along on the shoot with her adorable 2 year old; I couldn't help but take some photos of her, as she is a fantastic model and absolutely gorgeous!

Back-to-school High School shoot

About two months ago I had the pleasure of doing my first back-to-school shoot of the year, and my first ever of someone in high school! She is the lovely daughter of one of my colleagues, and I had a fantastic time shooting her. We headed over to Morven Park to take advantage of the beautiful setting.

All Dressed Up

 About two months ago, we had a neighborhood yard sale and picked up a dress for my daughter. She jumped at the chance to put it on with some makeup for an impromptu photo shoot. I jumped at the chance to have a willing model on which to practice using my external flashes and lights. I love the different looks that I can get just by moving around the lights.

Headshot Practice

Late last spring, I purchased a new studio lighting set. Previously, I had purchased a very basic lighting setup comprised of two lights with umbrellas for shooting through. I've done a couple of boudoir and child shoots with these and I've been happy with how they worked. However, after talking to some photographer friends, reading online, and learning more how to shoot indoors, I felt that the best way to move forward with studio lighting would be with off-camera flash. So, I purchased two higher-power off-camera flashes than the one that I had (a simple Canon Speedlite; the new ones are Yongnuo, and came highly recommended by a couple of photographers I know), and a wireless trigger/sync system to get them off camera. Then it was just a matter of practice! Luckily, my sister was visiting and was willing to sit for me while I figured out the triggering and light placement. For a first try, I think they came out quite well, and I love the effects that I can create with the flashes.

Preschool Photos

My son does not permit me to take his photo as easily as my daughter does; at 3.5, standing still and posing nicely for photos just isn't in his DNA! However, he started preschool this week, so I was able to convince him to take a few photos before (and during) his first day of preschool. 

 I cannot resist close-ups of his beautiful little face. And his eyelashes should be outlawed (as one of his teachers noted)!

Happy first day of preschool, big guy! Can't wait to see what this adventure holds for you.

Dogs deserve portraits too

My dog is incredibly difficult to photograph - not because she won't hold still (she's actually quite good at posing), but because of her color. So much shiny black fur is very hard to capture well! She's very patient when I take the camera out in front of her, and I'm very happy with some earlier shots that I took of her lying in the sun. Once a month we get her groomed, and last month she came home looking absolutely adorable. I already had my light kit out for another job, so I was able to convince her to pose for me on our couch while I practiced taking her photo. The black on brown was maybe not ideal, but I think I managed to get a decent separation of her from the background. 

They grow up so fast

Today was my daughter's first day of kindergarten. I of course took photos of her this morning while waiting for the bus, but I also wanted to do a mini photo tonight shoot celebrating her first day.

Portraits at Sunset

In my previous post, I shared my favorite photos from a recent sunset excursion in our neighborhood. When we were "done", my daughter asked if I would take a few of her in front of the sunset. I of course said yes, as I love photographing her...it also gave me the chance to use my remote flash to highlight her and the sunset at the same time!

 

Back-2-School Promo

I've recently posted on Facebook about the Back-to-School promo that I'm doing: $30 for a 30 minute session for your kids, to capture them as they start their new academic year. Photos taken by the professional company at the school are not only cheesy, and impersonal, but they are prohibitively expensive; while I know the school uses them as a fundraiser, I'd rather donate money in other ways to help! I'd really love to help parents capture these memories of their children in a much more fun, personalized session, so please contact me (abbelynnphotography@gmail.com) to set up a session today!

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.