Ellison

Ok, no joke - Ellison is the *HAPPIEST* baby I have ever met. Her radiating smile just melts me. Lisa, Ellison's mom, and I are friends/classmates from CDIA, but I hadn't gotten a chance to meet Ellison until last week. She is about five months old now. Lisa is a fabulous photographer AND mom and I was so excited to catch up with her for a few hours, talk shop, and meet her beautiful creation. Enjoy the images of this gorgeous girl!

What a beauty!! I love those blue eyes.

Mom's so funny!

Mmm, tasty. :)

Had to get a feet shot! I love those little details!!

18 July 2009 Wedding

On July 18th, I again joined Muriel for another of the weddings she was photographing. This wedding was at the Hillsborough Vineyards in Virginia. It was a gorgeous day in a beautiful setting. I am going to have to drag my husband out there for some wine tasting one of these weekends! The owner of the vineyard is a photographer himself - if you go, look for his photos on the wall when you walk in - they're beautiful! Below are some of my shots from the day.

12 July 2009 Wedding

Muriel Silva photographed an Indian wedding earlier this month and asked me to be the second photographer for the day. I had never been to or photographed an Indian wedding before - it was so rich in both color and tradition! Everyone was having such a wonderful time throughout the celebration and I'm so glad I was able to capture some special moments alongside Muriel for the day.

The below image shows the bride's mother helping her daughter with her gown. It has to be just right, so it takes some time. But it was well worth it in the end, because she looked stunning!

I noticed the bride's friend chatting on the phone while the bride was getting ready and took advantage of lucky good composition for this next shot.

The jewelry was amazing...I don't know how else to describe it!

Here is the mother of the bride enjoying herself at the reception. She looks so happy!

Beach Vacation

The past few weeks have been super crazy, which is great, but because of that, I have completely neglected my blog (not so great!). I did want to finally post some images I shot while on vacation with my family in North Carolina. We've been going down to the Outer Banks for about twenty years and we all love it. I took the time to just totally relax and play around with my camera a bit.

This first image here is from our first night, which was also July 4th. Believe me, I took many shots before I got this one, which is the "cleanest" of them all. I was really happy that the colors came through in the image!

The next two images are from the next night. We had a full moon and my sister wanted me to capture it. (Yes, that's a moon, not the sun! I kept the shutter open for 30 seconds and the aperture was open to f/4 for the first shot and f/5.6 for the second to allow more light to come in - using a tripod, of course!)

My now brother-in-law proposed to my sister on that same beach a couple years ago (wow, time flies!!), so when I noticed the absolutely gorgeous light just before sunset, I wanted to snap a quick portrait so they would have a photograph of themselves in a place that is so special to them. Believe it or not, about ten minutes later, it started storming! This was my favorite image from the three I was able to shoot. It captures the moment in between my light-testing shot and the more posed shot I was directing them towards. I find that the best shots happen in those in-between moments when people forget someone is right in front of them, pointing a camera towards them. I hope this will be a good memory for them to look back on for years to come.

And I got a self-portrait in there, too, with the help of my husband's sunglasses! :)

Berry Picking!

Sunday was my husband's birthday. He never wants to make a big to-do out of anything, but I had heard great reviews for Butler's Orchard from Jan (who I worked with a couple weeks ago on Lauren and John's wedding), so we decided to make a fun morning of berry picking and invited our friends Jenny and Wes and their adorable son, Ben (10 months). Butler's Orchard grows different produce throughout the year and right now, blueberries are in season. We also got a chance to get what was left of the tart cherries, though one guy we saw leaving seemed to have gotten them all (he had an enormous container full of them - I'm talking at least a couple feet wide, and several inches deep!). Needless to say, we had a great time and the weather was absolutely ideal - it was actually a little cool out! Here are some images from the outing and of some of our blueberries afterwards...

I love Wes's expression in this one!

Chris is showing off one of our particularly plump picks!

This was Ben's first berry picking experience. He just could not get enough of the blueberries - absolutely LOVED them!

We left the cherry picking to the men for the most part since the cherries were too high in the trees for us.

A happy little camper after he got his lunch.

Playing around with my macro lens - love that thing.

Now I just need to make those blueberry muffins again!