Dolphin boat tour

Just before we went to the Outer Banks at the beginning of July, I purchased a neutral density filter and dug out the polarizing filter that I bought and promptly forgot about. On one afternoon, we purchased tickets to go on a dolphin boat tour and I knew this would be the perfect place to try out the ND filter to cut the bright summer afternoon light.

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean

Every year when we go to the beach, I have grand plans to photograph the sunrise, and every year I never do, as vacation is a time for sleeping in! This year, I swore would be different, and woke up very early one morning, heading over with my dad. It was stunningly beautiful.

4th of July fireworks

We didn't watch any town-run fireworks this year, choosing instead to set off our own small ones and sparklers. 

Ospreys at the Outer Banks

The three most recent posts on my family blog have included photos I took on my new point-and-shoot camera, the Canon Powershot SX500. For such a small camera, it packs a lot of punch! I have been very happy with the photos taken with it in the past week or so...so much so, that I'm going to show off a few of them here! Of course, the quality isn't what I get on my Canon Rebel DSLR, but I had no expectation it would be. I think you'll agree, however, that the results are still pretty great!

As I mentioned in one of these earlier posts, I went for a walk with my mom and aunt by Kill Devil Bay, part of the Albemarle Sound in the Outer Banks. When we walked out onto a pier, there was an osprey nest nearby that had quite a bit of activity. Note: the pier we were standing on was about 30 yards away from the nest.

Photo shoot at a lavender farm

My previous post were photos of the beautiful flora (and a few fauna!) at the Seven Oaks Lavender Farm. The real reason I went there, however, was to photograph two beautiful young ladies. I've wanted practice with more girls around their teen years, as I'd really like to do senior portraits next year, and our wonderful daycare provider was generous enough to let me use two of her daughters. The girls even volunteered to babysit the night before in exchange for dinner, then spent the night, and we headed out to the lavender farm early Saturday morning (after the appropriate hair and makeup time, of course!).

I wanted to catch the nice morning light; however, even at 9am the sun was quite strong. This was also good practice for me to work with that kind of light, and practice with my reflector to eliminate unwanted shadows. There's still a lot of practice to be done, but I'm very happy with these shots. The first ones are all from within the lavender bushes.

Lavender

A little over 2 weeks ago, I went to Seven Oaks Lavender Farm for a photo shoot with two girls (our babysitters!). I'd purchased a Living Social deal to the farm for 4 people, and thought it would be a beautiful location for a photo shoot. I've got another post coming up with my favorite photos of the girls, but wanted to show the photos of the flora and fauna that I shot as well.

My daughter, the model

It's really wonderful that I have a daughter who loves having her picture taken, and isn't too bothered by posing for me now and again. I try not to only use her as a model (and I do have to remember that she's only 5, and her patience for me to try new things is limited), but every now and again she gives me priceless photos like these. She had her haircut last night, and I wanted to enjoy the beautiful light at sunset in July, so it was a perfect match.

Sunset over the pond

I discovered today that I purchased a piece of photography equipment and then promptly forgot about it: a polarizing filter that fits my 18-55mm and 70-300mm lenses. I can't believe I put this in my camera bag and then forgot about it! This filter is perfect for bright sunny days, as it eliminates quite a bit of the harsh sun's glare. It made for nice levels of brightness on photos I took today of our kids at the park (I definitely had much less post-editing to do than I would have otherwise on these photos!), and when I was struck by the beauty of our pond at sunset, I took these also using the filter, and again very little editing was needed in post. The colors just POP!

Girls in Tutus

A few weeks ago, my friend Blaire at Second Avenue Photography put a call out over Facebook for some girls to be models for her. She does a number of product shoots for people she "meets" on Etsy, and was doing a trade shoot for a tutu designer (she gets sent the items to photograph on girls, and gets to keep the products). A few of us volunteered, and all met up at a local park to take the photos. Blaire was generous enough to allow me to take a few photos during the shoot, but I stayed out of her way as it was her shoot!

Blaire posted her few favorites here on her blog (there is an embedded link there to even more photos on Facebook from this shoot). 

My shots of course focused primarily on my daughter. The tutus were *just* large enough to fit her, and she had a thoroughly wonderful time modeling various combinations.

Super Moon 2013

In case you hadn't heard, last night (June 23) was the "Super Moon" - the moon was the closest to the Earth that it will be for all of 2013, and according to one report I read it was actually the closest it had been to Earth since 2011. I was worried I wouldn't have a chance to take any photos, but after returning home last night from a friend's house I saw how beautiful it looked and ran outside around 11pm with my camera and tripod to see what I could get.