J&A Wedding: Cumberland, MD

At the end of May I had the honor to attend my aunt's wedding to her partner, and act as the official photographer. The wedding was held in Cumberland, MD, which is only about two hours from where I live and was surprisingly pretty!

Fireworks July 2014

Unlike the past three years, where my family just set off some small fireworks ourselves, this year I went to the beach to watch the town fireworks get set off with my daughter. Prior to those fireworks starting, some other viewers on the beach were setting off some of their own. Before it was fully dark, I was able to do some long-exposure shots (camera on my tripod) and obtained these first few photos. For those who care, here are  the settings that I used: iso 640, f/22, 3.2s

July 4: Sunset on the beach

On July 4, my daughter and I headed over to the beach in Kill Devil Hills, NC to wait for the town's fireworks to start. We arrived during sunset so I had some time to practice with my new Canon 60D and 85mm lens...and what better subject to practice on than my beautiful daughter?

Under the pier, before the storm

As Hurricane Arthur approached the Outer Banks on July 3, I really wanted to head over to the ocean and see how it was looking with the storm on the way. We still had clear blue skies overhead, so I didn't feel we were in much danger.

After seeing the news reporting from Avalon Pier (about 1.5 miles north of my parents' house, on the beach road), I wanted to head there and see if the fog coming off the ocean was as beautiful in person as it was on the news. Turns out, yes it was! Not only that, but the pier itself provided some very cool perspective for photographs.

Wall Street, NYC

About a month ago I spent about 24 hours in NYC for work. I was with a coworker who hadn't really spent a lot of time in NYC before, so we wandered about quite a bit of the city after arrival. I wanted to head down to the financial district to see my old building on Wall Street, and ended up with these few images of these lovely high rises. 

First one: Deutsche Bank headquarters, across from the building I lived in. Love that reflection in the glass windows!

Portraits with my new gear

Last weekend I finally ordered my new camera gear! That's right, it was finally time to upgrade from my "starter" DSLR, the trusty Canon Rebel T2i I've been using since January 2012. I'd saved up for almost a year, and did a lot of research (both on my own, and talking to some of my photographer friends), and ultimately settled on the Canon 60D and 85mm f/1.8 lens . There were many reasons for both, which I'm not really going into here, but let me say that after my first 4 days of working with this combination, I very much feel that I made the right choices! 

Note that these are from the very first time that I used both the camera and lens, so I was getting used to both, particularly the focus on the lens. So the focus is definitely a little off on some of these photos, but I think you can at least see the potential inherent in the gear, and in me as I get better and better!

 

Weekly Photo Project: June 2014

Time to finish catching up on my Weekly Photo Project submissions! This post gets me through June 2014. Let's not wait!
June 2 - 8: "Create a Mood"
For this one, I chose a photo that I took of one of my best friends during her wedding day shoot. I was tagging along as driver for her, her husband-to-be, and their photographer. I was able to snag a couple of shots of my own in between bridesmaid duties, and love how this one came out! Certainly a mood of "Beauty".

Weekly Photo Project: May 2014

I'm a bit behind in posting this, as June is just about ending now, but better late than never! Here's my wrap-up of my photo submissions to my Weekly Photo Project on Facebook for the month of May 2014.
April 28 - May 4: "Food"
I took this photo with my iPhone, and did small editing in Instagram. The food in question were two delicious chicken tacos I purchased from a food truck in Bethesda, MD.

Experimenting with "mattte"

Last week I took my daughter and a few of her friends to the Seven Oaks Lavender Farm in Catlett, Va. I went last year and did a photo shoot with my friends' daughters, so I knew it would be a lovely location for photos. Not only that, but I just purchased a set of matte presets for Lightroom 5, and I wanted to use some of these photos to try out the presets and see what kind of artistic looks I could get in my photos. I'm still tinkering with them, but for the first try, I am happy with the results.

Recital Performance: June 2014

About three weeks ago my daughter had her very last "Rising Stars" dance recital with the Loudoun School of Ballet. I love taking photos of the girls during their dress rehearsal; they look so great up there on the stage! Back in January, the pinks and teals her class wore popped, but I think the green stood out quite nicely as well. Our little jazzy tappers did a great job!