WPP: Wrap-up to this week

Ok, these don't seem to be very popular posts, but I'm proud of these photos so I want to get them out for any fans to see. So, instead of continuing to do a separate post for each week as I catch up, here are my submissions from January 28- March 10.

WPP: Week of Jan 21-28

As I mentioned previously, I didn't have anything to submit for the subject of "Doors" for the week of January 14. The winner that week chose the subject "At the Movies" for the following week, and I had a couple of thoughts for shots that I could set up. However, the week started to get away from me, and I found myself in Philadelphia for work. One of my clients is in a building near Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and from their floor you can see this beautiful view of the city. So, my submission for this week was "Philadelphia". The photo was taken on my iPhone through a thick glass window, so all in all I was very pleased with how it came out.

WPP: January 7-13

The theme for Jan 7-13 was "At Your Feet". The point of the topic was to get everyone to stop looking out and away at eye level to take a photo, but instead take a look at what is down by our feet, which we often overlook. Just that week I took this photo of my son on the floor near my feet, so it seemed like a good one to submit.

When I saw the photo that did win, it absolutely blew me away and would have been the one I chose as winner as well. This photo was taken by Gail Metzinger, and it is stunning. I had to share it here. She did an amazing job!

Gail then chose "Doors" as her category for the week of January 14-20; I didn't have anything good to submit for that week, so we'll skip that week here and my next post will show my submission for the week of January 21-27.

WPP: December 31-January 6

For the first week of January (which also happened to be week 52 of the project, so it had been a fully year since the group was started!), the theme was "Warmth". Most people submitted photos of tropical/warm locations, or adorable animals snuggled up on blankets but I didn't have anything I really liked along those lines. Instead, I went for interpersonal warmth and submitted this photo from the NYE wedding I shot (which has been posted here previously).

I received many compliments on the photo, which I very much appreciated. I lost to a ridiculously adorable photo of a kitten sitting in the sun; there was absolutely no way I could fault choosing that one as the winner!

Weekly Photo Project (WPP): My winning photos

I've previously mentioned on here that for about a year now I have participated in a closed group on Facebook called "The Weekly Photo Project". Anyone can be invited in (I was invited by the cousin of the founder of the group, who is a friend of mine, and I've invited at least 4 others in); the premise of the group is to provide a topic to go out and try to shoot that week. You don't  have to have taken the photo that week (we've had people submit photos from years ago when they feel that it meets that week's description), but often members will try to take something new. The person who submits that week's topic gets to choose his/her favorite from all of the submissions (somewhere from 15-20 typically), and that week's winner then gets to pick the topic and favorite for the next week.

Three kids are better than one

Last month I did quite a few kid shoots; I previously posted photos of Ruth and Bailey, as well as my daughter dressed as a bride. Ruth is very good friends with both of my kids, so at the end of her shoot we took some photos of all of the kids together - here are my favorites!

My daughter, the bride

When I received my in-home studio set up (pictured here in my basement), I was of course very excited to try it out! This involved not just putting everything together, but starting to figure out light placement, and really work with lighting. Fortunately, my daughter is always happy to be my model...mostly because it gives her an excuse to dress up for a little while! Since I wanted to photograph her on the black background, we chose her white bride costume and, well...here are the results!

Kid photo shoots

Recently I did two photo shoots for some friends of my daughter - one is her friend from daycare, and the other is a friend from preschool. I have my favorites in albums on Facebook:
Ruth Ellen's photos
Bailey's photos

The K family

Two weeks ago was my second large family photo shoot. The first you can easily access on the right sidebar - the Nicholson/Philips Family. Two adults, 6 kids...big group! This one was very similar - two parents, five kids, and one grandmother. The shoot primarily focused on the children, and I've shared my favorites of the family in an album on Facebook. It was ridiculously cold and windy, but the location was lovely and everyone was a very good sport despite the weather! We had beautiful early morning light, yet many of my favorites were the ones that I edited to be in black and white and/or muted tones, so I'm highlighting those here. Enjoy!

Rivers at Sunset

I previously posted a few photos I took on a trip to NJ/Philadelphia in January. In addition to this beautiful hanging art installation, I also had the pleasure to driving past two rivers as sunset neared and taking some lovely shots. The first three are of the Raritan River in New Brunswick, NJ.

"Tasha"

I wanted to separate this post from the previous one, even though it took place on the same day and at the same location. While hiking around in Balls Bluff Park with my family, we ran into this beauty below (named Tasha) and her owner Nancy.

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!).