Winter at Balls Bluff Park

Yesterday I posted photos on my family blog of us hiking in Balls Bluff Park. In addition to those photos, I took some artistic shots - first of the snow in the woods (this screamed out to be converted to B&W)

New Year's Eve Wedding

As I posted here previously, and have mentioned on Facebook, on New Year's Eve I did my first wedding shoot! It was for a very good friend of ours; she is practically family, and I was more than happy to be their official photographer. The wedding was very small, but very beautiful, and having it on NYE was such a unique idea. I have far too many photos to post all of my favorites here, but I have narrowed it down to my "top 10" and put those here for you all to see. They aren't all perfect, and it was definitely a learning experience, but when the bride and groom are happy with the results, so am I. Enjoy!

Portrait idea a la Pinterest

For anyone who has spent any time on Pinterest, you know how easy it is to get sucked down into the ridiculous amount of amazing ideas that abound there, whether it be ideas for craft projects, home decorating, art, photography, recipes...there's just so much. Often when I go there, it's to look for something in specific and then I quickly close the window, as I just don't have the hours and hours to spend there! This post is my take on an idea I saw floating around on both Pinterest and other websites over the holiday season (this photo is just one of many examples that exist of creating the "bokeh" effect, as it's called, with Christmas lights). I thought that with a relatively simple set up (a solid backdrop and some white Christmas lights), I should be able to replicate this idea fairly easily.

Baby B.

At the beginning of January I visited some friends of mine who had recently had a baby (she was 6 weeks old when I photographed her). She was so good - didn't fuss at all when I undressed her for the shoot, and she was so fascinated by the light from the camera that she made a wonderful subject. Here are my faves from the shoot:

Hanging art

Last week I traveled for work to Philadelphia, and despite the cold was lucky to have some beautiful weather in which to do so (unlike what we're seeing outside today!). I'm always on the look out whenever I go somewhere different for interesting photo opportunities; unfortunately often they occur while I'm driving solo and don't have a chance to stop and get out of the car to make the shot. Fortunately this opportunity presented while I was in the client's building, and lighting was good enough that my iPhone was sufficient to capture this beautiful hanging art display.

Self-portraits: All dressed up

As most of you know, last weekend I attended the Virginia Democrats Inaugural Ball in Arlington, VA. I have not been this dressed up in a long time (hair done by a good friend, spent a lot longer on my makeup than I typically do), so I didn't want to waste the opportunity to take some self portraits. If you're friends with me on Facebook, then you've already seen this first photo below - after taking this off of my camera, it had to become my new profile pic! I don't think I could ask for a better one.

White House holiday tour

Earlier this month I posted some photos on my family blog detailing our visit to the White House for a holiday tour. I'm very happy with the photos posted there (I find many of them to be more artistic than I normally post on that blog), but I had some additional photos that I wanted to share with everyone, and I think this venue is far more appropriate in which to do so. I feel quite lucky that we were able to get tickets to the White House during the holiday season to see the beautiful decorations!

I actually edited the above photo on my iPad in Camera+, and I really like the blurred effect!

 This photo isn't my favorite, but I do like the color scheme of these decorations quite a bit.

This photo was also edited in Camera+ on my iPad...I like the edited version far better than the original!

Expanding my photography

I'm sure many of you are aware of the changes I've been making lately regarding my photography.
1. If you've seen this blog more than once or twice, you'll note the change in layout. I think it's cleaner and simpler now, particularly with the "short" intro to each post, so you can more easily see all recent posts without having to do a lot of scrolling.
2. I've rolled out a Facebook page for my photography; there's a link to it where you can "like" it on the upper right hand of this blog. Within the first 5 days, I've gotten almost 60 likes...and not all of them are from my Facebook friends! That means my "reach" (as FB calls it) is spreading, which is really exciting.
3. I photographed my first wedding (favorite pics will be going on here and the FB site soon, I promise!), and have generated some buzz from that. I'm really happy with how the photos turned out, and more importantly so are the bride and groom!
4. Since then, I've done head shots for one friend, and will soon be doing them for a second. I also photographed the 6 week old daughter of two friends of mine, and came up with a really great idea for Valentine's Day photos for kids. All of those photos will be on here shortly too, I promise!
5. Just today, I booked my first two paying jobs! I'm so excited to do these family shoots.

I cannot thank you all enough for supporting me as I start making this photography thing into more than just a hobby. I'm constantly working to get better at this (I've got two separate sets of lessons coming up, one private and one group, and I can't wait!), and I'm really enjoying the process. I hope you're enjoying watching as much as I enjoy doing!

Calla illuminated

My dog is particularly difficult to take photos of, due to her black coat. Unless the illumination is JUST right, she ends up looking like an undefined black mass of fur with big brown eyes peeking out. And if I use a flash, then her eyes are just a red reflection back at me. A few weeks ago I was home during the day and she was lying quietly in the sun, and I suddenly had the perfect submission for my Weekly Photo Project submission that week: "Illuminated".

I submitted this photo on the left.
Sadly, it didn't win but I still felt like it was a pretty good submission.

I ended up with about 15 favorites from shooting her - here are a couple of those; to prevent this post from being ridiculously long you can see the rest on AbbeLynn Photography on Facebook (while you're there, please "like" my page!).

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.