Richmond capital building

Last month my husband and I spent some time in the Capital building in Richmond, VA. The building is beautiful, and while I was waiting for our event to begin I took a few shots of the decorations inside of the state legislature room.

Reindeer in Richmond

A week before Christmas, my husband and I spent the night in Richmond so that he could cast his Electoral College vote. While having dinner downtown, we stumbled upon a town light display and I wanted to grab a few pics. Lit deer everywhere!

Nutcracker ballerinas

In early December my daughter was an angel in the South Riding Dance Academy's rendition of The Nutcracker. I've posted photos of her already on my family blog, but here I wanted to highlight some of my favorites that I took of the older girls during their performance.

Disney on Ice

Back in October, I took my daughter to Disney on Ice at the Patriot Center. I have to admit, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would! They did four stories: The Little Mermaid (Ariel), Tangled (Rapunzel), Beauty & the Beast (Belle), and Brave (Merida). Natalie absolutely loved it, and I had a lot of fun using my telephoto lens to capture the ice dancers. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of photos I was able to get given that I was using a telelphoto for many of them, and the skaters were moving. I thought I'd finally get around to sharing them here!

Tiny Toes Dance Shop

A couple of weeks ago I was at my daughter's dance class and realized that I'd forgotten my book, my iPad, and my phone was about to die...which left me with only my camera to entertain myself. As parents aren't allowed in for most of class, I couldn't take photos of her, so I occupied myself instead with things I found in the dance gift shop.

Geese

These photos were taken of geese at a lake in Crump Park, Richmond, VA on the day after Thanksgiving. All were shot using my 75-300mm telephoto lens; however, we were still pretty close to these geese!

Rizzo

My parents' dog Rizzo is extremely photogenic; her coloring just makes her so easy to photograph. She was sitting quietly over Thanksgiving and let me grab these couple of photos of her with my 50mm lens. Of the 10 or so that I took, these three were my favorite.

Paxton Manor in the Fall

The weekend before Thanksgiving I took the kids out for a walk around our neighborhood, and we headed up to Paxton Manor. I previously took photos of Paxton Manor in the spring...on the whole, I think I like how it looked in the fall much better. The colors in the area were gorgeous, peaking right around that time.

Light trails

My kids have colored flashlights that they enjoy playing with while the lights are out. I wanted to play with long exposure times, and thought that having the kids move these lights around in the darkened living room could make for some cool shots.

Fall photos 2: Guest photographer!

In my previous post, I showed some of my favorite photos from touring through Leesburg this fall to capture the foliage. My daughter came with me and used my Canon point-and-shoot; she's getting pretty good and I really like some of her captures! It's fun for me to see what she pays attention to and wants to shoot.
Note that I did not make any changes to these photos - they are just as she shot them.

Fall in Leesburg

Exactly one month ago today I headed out locally in Leesburg to take some photos of the beautiful fall foliage before it disappeared.

Nicholson-Phillips family: Portraits

I have a few more favorites from my photo shoot from earlier this month to share here.

The Nicholson-Phillips family

Earlier this week I did my first-ever commissioned photo shoot for a friend of mine! I was so excited to finally do this - and to start with a family of 8 was quite the experience! We shot at the entrance to Red Rocks Wilderness Overlook in Leesburg, and despite missing the best setting sunlight, I captured some beautiful shots of their family.

In the pumpkin fields

About 3 weeks ago my sister and I took my kids to a farm in Ashland, Va for some fun fall activities. The farm included a tractor ride out to pumpkin fields, and the scenery was too beautiful too ignore.

Portraits of children

I took a large amount of photos at my friend's daughter's baptism. Many were of course of my friend's family and the baptism itself, but I also snagged a few photos of the other kids that were present.

Roses

When I returned from a conference in mid-October, I was greeted at the airport by my husband and kiddos, and these beautiful flowers. One afternoon the light was so pretty in our house I had to get some photos of them, and practice on focusing using my 50mm prime lens.

Charlie

Despite his not being a dog person, my boss has been really great lately about letting us all bring or dogs into the office (provided they aren't smelly and don't bark). My colleague brought in her French bulldog Charlie, and I had to get some photos of him - he's so darn cute! 

Photography lesson in Charlottesville

About 3 weeks ago I spent two days in Charlottesville, VA - the weather was stunningly beautiful while there, and I took my camera with me in hopes of being able to get some photos taken. Luckily I was able to shoot at both UVA and on the Downtown Mall.

Enchanted Forest

While in Wageningen, NL we stayed at the hotel pictured below - the Nol in't Bosch. The decorations inside were very pseudo-Victorian, but not where it mattered (e.g. bathrooms, which were quite modern). I didn't get many photos of the inside, but managed to get a couple of neat shots of the outside.

Canals in Amsterdam

I posted previously on my family blog a few photos from my two days in Amsterdam, and some explanations  for the places we went are there. I thought here I'd just show my favorite photos of the canals in Amsterdam (and a few other sites)...enjoy!