Our little dancer

About five weeks ago my daughter had her second dance recital. Her teacher had organized professional photo shoots for all of the dancers, but unfortunately I was unable to make it to either of the designated dates so we couldn't take part. I figured - why not try to take some shots of her in her costume myself? And as I love using natural light, I thought that doing it outdoors would be a lot of fun.

After the rain

Last week a very large thunderstorm came through Leesburg. It didn't last very long, but we were hopeful that it would break the awful heat and humidity we had for the previous few days (for the most part it did). When the storm broke, I could see the sun shining through the clouds into our backyard and didn't want to miss the opportunity to snap a few pictures. 

In the woods

On the first Saturday in June, I took the kids over to what we call the "dinosaur park" in Ashburn, VA. I think the real name is just Ashburn Park, but as all of the playground equipment is shaped like various dinosaurs, we like our name better. One of the coolest things about the park is that it's not just a playground - there's a very nice walking path that extends quite far through the woods, as we discovered that day!

Clouds

The weather here in VA (and I think around most of the East coast, if not the country as a whole) has been pretty all over the place this June - cold like March/April one day, burning hot the next. We've had some pretty big storms come through as well. One plus of this crazy weather is that the clouds have been absolutely breathtaking. What's even more impressive is that all of these photos except one were taken with my iPhone (Camera+ app). I guess that goes to show that you don't absolutely need a digital SLR to take a good photo - just a good eye and interesting subject!

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.