Weekly Photo Project: Another Win!

I've been remiss in keeping the blog updated with my submissions to the Weekly Photo Project, but something happened this week to make me remember - I won! For the week of August 4-11, my submission was chosen as the week's favorite. 

Mother-daughter maternity shoot

About two months ago, I took some photos of my family's photographer (Blaire at Second Avenue Photography) before she gave birth. Blaire was well into her third trimester when she did our 10th anniversary photo shoot (those photos will be up soon as well, including the description of how they came about and our creative collaboration!), and I really wanted some experience with doing maternity shots. When I asked her if she would be willing to be my model for a maternity shoot, she gladly acquiesced and brought her adorable 2.5 year old along with her for the shoot. We went to the same location as our anniversary shoot, Morven Park, as the scenery is beautiful and we knew we'd have enough room for Izzy to run around. I ended up with dozens of shots that I loved, and quickly posted an album of my faves on Facebook here. I just went through these photos again this week, and realized I hadn't written up a post about them yet, so I thought I would rectify that immediately! Some of these were already posted in the FB album (I loved them enough to post them here again), but some are new.

Baby B is 7 months old!

A whole week into August and I have yet to write a blog post here! For shame, AbbeLynn. Things have been a bit busy for me personally in the past couple of weeks, and despite not putting anything up here I've been busily editing photos in the background! I finished up with the photos of my friends' 7 month old daughter, and put a teaser album on FB here. Before I get wrapped up in the many other photos I have to edit, organize, and post, I thought I would highlight the more artistic edits here, as I didn't post these on FB. She was such a good baby; if even half of the baby shoots I hope to do in the future go this well, I will be a very happy photog!

 

 

Geese Part 2: Portraits

 About six weeks ago, our resident flock of geese were having a late dinner just outside of our backyard. This seems to be their preferred place to eat at night, and every on this evening the light was great for some portraits. Even better, none of the babies were around, so the adults weren't as shy (ok, mean) and let me get pretty close to them. With the use of my 70-300mm telephoto lens, I got some pretty great close-ups!

Sunset on the Sound

To bracket my sunrise photos I took over the Atlantic Ocean, I took my family to the west side of the Outer Banks, over the Albemarle Sound, to photograph the sunset. 

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.