In Love With Light

Some friends of ours have started the process of building a home and I really enjoy getting updates and talking about home planning and arranging and such. The other day we were talking about bathrooms and things we like or don’t like and I mentioned that we get the most lovely light in our master bath. We have one of those large windows made up of the square blocks of glass and it makes for the most amazing diffused natural light. 

During the summer it can also make it pretty warm but during the cooler months the sunlight just makes it nice and cozy. It’s not unusual for me to find one of the cats hanging out it there soaking up the rays.

Abby woke up and wandered it to pet the cat and enjoy the warmth too.

She didn’t realize she had walked into a photo session but what photographer in their right mind good resist that hazy soft light?

I couldn’t.

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On A Cold Winter Morning Part II

I’ve made no secret that autumn is my favorite season. 

And despite my love of the beach, winter is probably my next favorite. Maybe because my winters are Florida winters and those winters are much different from winters elsewhere.

But it does get cold here and I love the nip of the frost and the brisk feeling of my air in my lungs. 

The light is different this time of year too. It interacts with the world differently and that of course means it does with the camera as well. Or at least I notice that it does 🙂 

Winter is the time for comfort,

for good food and warmth,

for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire:

it is the time for home.

~Edith Sitwell

On A Cold Winter Morning

It’s not unusual after shooting a really large even such as a wedding for me to put my camera down for a few days.

My eyes, physically as well as creatively, need to rest. Clearly, I’d never make it as a full time wedding photog!

Maybe because this wedding came on the heels of the holidays and the kids were just going back to school and Rob was out of town but I just unplugged last week. I left the computer off most days and barely even looked at my phone.

It was quite nice but I found I was having a really hard time motivating myself to do anything much less pick up the camera.

Until yesterday when the world turned cold and was all but encased in ice. Twenty-nine degrees and I get inspired to take pictures…crazy, but there you have it.

I’ll share some more tomorrow but here’s a few from the front yard where the sprinklers still came on and water drops froze and sparkled in the sun and ice crunched under foot.

Poor flowers have been confused over whether or not it’s time to bloom. I think Lady Winter cleared things up!

Frozen tears…

An icy bird bath photographs well but is less than hospitable, don’t you agree?

Beautiful diamond sparkle grass.

And my ornamental peacock looks to have shed a tear.

Hydrangea, how beautiful even in cold sleep.

Jewel crusted monkey grass lined the walkway. No wonder I was inspired to pull out the camera.

The way a crow 

Shook down on me

 The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued

~ Robert Frost 

Flower Power

Last week’s theme for the weekly project I participate in was floral. It’s been a while since I found/picked/bought some flowers for the sole purpose of photographing them so it was really a lot of fun. When I was first getting serious about photography I did a lot of work with flowers…cheap models that I could move easily as I learned about light and shadows and camera settings.

As it usually happens I had several images that I really liked but only one shared with the weekly challenge. These are the “left overs” in no particular order. Enjoy!

Black and white flower portraits are so dramatic, aren’t they?

Flowers…are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I seem to have developed fascination with this window and the light it gives in my bathroom.

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. ~Claude Monet

At The Library

January, it seems, was a good month for me to do various personal shoots.

I love that. Being able to envision something and then working to carry it out. You’d be surprised at how much goes into making that happen…finding the right time, the right subject (which really sometimes means bribing convincing a particular child to go along with my bright ideas) and the right location, outfits, etc. A separate personal project is almost ready after literally months of work with four or five different sessions with the girls. It’s so close to being ready and I cannot wait to share it when it’s ready!

Back to January though. Sometimes I am wanting to try out a new location or different way of post processing and these particular pictures covered both of those bases. Sarah, my child who does not enjoy drawing undo attention to herself, was actually a willing participant. She drug my mother along though and I think that helped.

The main library in downtown Pensacola went through some major rehab work a few years ago. It’s beautiful and since I often find myself shooting downtown, wanted to practice shooting inside in case I ever need an indoor location.

Oscar Wilde said, “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” So even though the main part of the library was super busy we had fun in the children’s section revisiting some old friends from Sarah’s childhood.

“Of all the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books.” ~Thomas Carlyle

A Girl and Her Dog

I’ve never done much in the way of pet photography. Much to our children’s sadness we don’t have any pets so I don’t have a muse on hand to practice that kind of thing. This girl, however, takes the most amazing photos of her dog.

I found her when I was looking for inspiration for doing our friend Kait’s pictures with her Irish Setter puppy, Sherlock. Kait has not only big plans to be a certified dog trainer, but she also wants to train Sherlock to work with special needs people. A noble goal for a pretty girl and her adorable puppy, don’t you think?

This one makes me think of some kind of shampoo commercial 🙂

Told you she’s pretty. Kait is the oldest of nine kids (one of only three girls in the bunch) and is one of Sarah’s dearest friends. She’s also into photography herself which is pretty cool.

How cute is he?

They say that the journey of life is sweeter with a dog and I think Kaity has found that to be true. I’m content to just take cute pictures of her and Sherlock 😉