Black and white NYC

On Memorial Day weekend, my family spent a day in NYC. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had taken a number of black & white photos that weekend due to that being the subject of my weekly photo project on Facebook. When I got home and went through the photos, I realized how many B&W photos I truly had taken! As I think it makes for a unique way of looking at modern Manhattan, I thought I'd add put my favorites here.

In the ferns

The "woods" behind Evan's parents' house have a section that looks a bit like a sea of fern fronds. While we were outside playing there a couple of weeks ago, Natalie looked so beautiful walking around in them that I just had to snap a couple of photos!

Toronto at night

Can I say how nice it is to have a camera that can take photographs at night without a flash? I love it so much! It's really letting me take advantage of situations where I would not have been able to get good photos before. Case in point: about 3 weeks ago I went to Toronto for a conference for work. I already posted a number of photos from my trip on my family blog, but I wanted to highlight my night time photography here.

Great Country Farms

Welcome back! Sorry for the long time in between posts, but I've been rather busy with some other things this month. Because of that, I haven't really taken many photos that would work on here. However, I do have some of the trip I took with my kids to Great Country Farms in Bluemont, VA; I posted earlier this week on my family blog the photos I took of the kids and the things we did. Here, I've got some of the more landscape/artistic ones that I took.

Flowering bushes

My next door neighbor has two beautiful rhododendrons. They purple flowers are lovely, and the bushes themselves are exceptionally tall - we actually had a landscape architect come by last year to talk to us about our front yard, and she said that they were the largest she'd ever seen! They are almost taking over his front yard. But when they make flowers like this, it's hard to want to cut them back!

Elephants!

A couple of weeks ago we went to see a small circus that was in town for a few days. I'd been wanting to take the kids for the past couple of years, but we weren't sure if their ages were ok. This year we decided to go for it, and despite the size I'm really glad we went! 

My favorite part was the "grand finale" with two trained elephants. They were beautiful, and did some pretty great tricks. I decided to highlight my favorite photos I took of them here.

Hotel decoration

Last Sunday, Evan and I attended the Fairfax County Democrat Committee Roosevelt Dinner at the Hilton in McLean, Va. Prior to the actual dinner was a cocktail hour, and I found a few interesting things in the reception area to photograph.

Anniversary surprise

So, I discovered something tonight: taking quality photographs of jewelry is VERY difficult! Today is our 9 year anniversary, and after going out to lunch, my husband surprised me with something: a new ring!

Fancy photoshoot

I recently saw an idea on Pinterest to have your daughter dress up in your wedding gown, and give her that photo on her wedding day. Wonderful idea! However, my wedding dress is still wrapped up from when it was cleaned and pressed after the wedding, and I haven't had the guts to take it out and risk messing it up yet. So instead, I had the idea to let Natalie dress up in my sister's maid of honor dress from my wedding (which I had shortened a couple of years ago to wear to another event) and take some photos. I am SO happy with how they came out!

Beautiful eyes

I don't really plan to post many photos of my children on here, as I have my family blog for that. However, I do occasionally take artistic photos of them, and I feel that they belong more here than there. While playing this week, I grabbed these two shots of their beautiful eyes.