Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Merry-go-Round

A few weeks ago we met my parents up in Chattanooga for the weekend.  Went to the IMAX, dinner out on the Chattanooga strip, and all that fun stuff.  On our way out, we stopped at a big community park and found a HUGE carousel that you could ride on for 25cents per person.  Not too shabby!  

So we hopped on, and I played with movement...

Unfortunately, they didn't do the whole brass ring thing anymore.  Well, not unfortunately for me.  I would be the one person to get knocked out cold by a "fun" brass ring.  My hand-eye coordination has never been great...
Dizzy yet?

Monday, November 10, 2008

Sweet baby B

A few months ago my amazing sister-in-law S and I spoke about me taking some shots of my nephew (her son) B for their Christmas cards this year. Well, we finally got together a week or so ago...brought B up to a park near their house and let him ham it up.


Ok, first of all, this kid is absolutely adorable...those baby blues are enough to make my knees go weak. Watch out 4yr old ladies! Second, he just flat out knows how to pose. Just start chatting about some Mickey Mouse or Thomas and the smile comes on full blast. Amazing.



Hello, blue eyes



Thanks again, B! You're a natural :)

Sunday, November 9, 2008

So I'm a week late...

I know I'm late, but now that my technical issues have been solved I thought I could post some fun Halloween shots.  I have Halloween shots because we are lame, and love to carve pumpkins.  Like so:


We like to get a little creative too...no boring jack-o-lanterns here.  But also no crazy I-just-carved-all-4-Beatles-into-a-6-inch-pumpkin either.  I'm not that talented.


I know what you're thinking...you wish you had a pumpkin like ours.  Well I was pretty proud of him too, until I went out on our porch yesterday and saw this:


I'm afraid our poor jack-o-lantern is dead.  Or really close to it.  Funny...jack-o-lantern's teeth cave in kinda like people's.  Too far?  Gross?  Ok.  But true, and you know it.

Happy Halloween ya'll!


Thursday, November 6, 2008

The bloggy god is not shining upon me

So I have been trying to post a new blog (something I am clearly good at) all night long.  Unfortunately, the Bloggy god has chosen not to shine upon me, and absolutely will not let me upload any pictures.  

I keep getting a "Server not responding" message.  Whatever that means.

And, since this is obviously a PHOTO blog, well, there's really no point in blogging.  Except to say that I tried.

I tried!!

Booooo.  I have so much to say - SO MUCH TO SAY!  But don't worry, I saved the post.  And so help me bloggy universe, I will try again tomorrow.

Night ya'll! :)

I am a Roller Coaster

That's right, I said it.  I'm a roller coaster.  Clarification?  Can't read my mind?  Hmm...ok then.


So here I sit, at my computer uploading close to 1500 photos onto my laptop, for the first time in a few weeks.  This is my relationship with photography - I am nonchalant about it for stretches, picking up my camera every few days feeling uninspired by what's around me.  Then all of a sudden, as I've been climbing slowly to the crest of my photography-loving hill, I can't put the darn thing down.  Like, run home mid day when I should be eating just so I can grab my Canon and spend my lunch break at the park across the street taking 350 pictures of TREES.  Or our jack-o-lantern, or some flowers, or my nephew B.  All the excitement of the loopy loops and corkscrews comes rushing in and my shutter finger just won't stop clicking.  


See how I am a roller coaster of photography?  Clear as mud?  Cool.


The downside of my surge of excitement is that now I've got a million photos to put up here but the OCD side of my brain insists on individual posts so that I give the illusion of some sort of organization.  So I need to curb my enthusiasm (ha!) and take my time.  Booooo.  Only children aren't good at that.  


All right then, enough non-sensical chatter.  Let's start with the roses.  (We only children are also slightly pre occupied with ourselves, so it makes sense that I would start with the subject that contains part of my name.  These photos also kicked off my surge in shutter finger love, so it placates the OCD side of my as well.) 







Monday, October 6, 2008

Going to the chapel...or Carmel Beach


It's taken me awhile to get them up, but, well, it's taken me awhile to get them done.  I'm diligent, if nothing else :)  Today I finished putting all of the final cuts on disks and will drop them in the mail first thing in the morning.  

I don't know if I mentioned this, but our AMAZING wedding photographer and his spectacular partner Amanda have agreed to host our shots from this wedding.  They are unbelievable, and everything I could aspire to be.  Check them out: http://www.johnblackphotography.com/

Back to my non-professional meanderings.  As I said before, the wedding was beautiful - bride was
 breathtaking, groom was handsome, and the reception was just plain FUN.  Enough of my nonsensical chatter...
Flower girl holding the rings


Bride and flower girl
Mother and father of the groom during the ceremony
Oh so sweet
And then the party began...and it was a GOOD party
And they finished off the night with some shenanigans 

That's it for now!  I'm sure I'll put more up later, but I'd like to let the Bride and Groom see them first ;)  I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out...it definitely helps to have such beautiful subjects.

Thanks ya'll!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Sneak Peek

Well well well...I realize it's been a while since my last post, but alas, I have no excuse.  Other than the fact that we've been running around like crazy since the moment we got off the plane from CA, and it won't stop until maybe NEXT weekend.  Maybe.  But it's all been fun, so I can't really complain :)

So I've been so wrapped up in editing all of these wedding photos that I completely neglected all of the rest of the (hundreds...eek!) pictures I took during our incredible stay out west.  (Thanks again Richardsons!).  Wedding photos will come soon, but until then, here's a little sneak peek of our trip:

Sometimes it was gorgeous, as seen below.  And then the fog would randomly roll in and the temp would drop 20 degrees in 2 seconds.  NOT a good time, but pretty, none the less.

 Because I can't make it longer than 30 minutes without busting the macro.  I army crawled over to this little guy and was amazed at all of the colors in his skin (coat? scales? whatever)

This bridge was built sometime in the 1930's.  Don't let that scare you when you're driving over that 500 foot drop or anything.  Not scary at all.

Oh!  The spray!  I think if I had begged Josh to pull off the road "so that I can get a picture of the spray" one more time, he would have thrown me off of the aforementioned bridge.

Luckily for me, I know when to stop asking.  And when to give my hubby some wine so he is more likely to give in to my photographic whims. :)

Since said hubby is trying to sleep next to me, I will bring this to a close.  Soon to come (I use this phrase very lightly): wedding pics.  Should be a very good time.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Hello Again

Well hello again.  I know it's been awhile since I posted...and since I CLEARLY have a huge audience, I apologize to all three of you for the delay.  Thank you for your patronage :)

Ok, so I didn't end up going to take pictures of my friend's beautiful daughter (bad weather...hurricanes-n-such).  We did, however, go to the zoo.  It was actually a great day, and I was able to bring home a bunch of fun pictures.  And about 30 bug bites on my legs.  Good times.

Onto the animals....

I love elephants.  I hope I look this good when I'm old and wrinkly

This rhino was going to have nothing to do with the crowd of people willing him to turn around.  You've got to admire that kind of stubbornness 

Ahh the gorillas.  Always a fun stop

And the orangutans...this guy woke up, meandered across this rope thing, and then went right back to sleep.  What a life to live, huh?

Have you ever seen a baby orangutan?  Really, truly, honestly - this little guy was by far the cutest animal we saw all day.

It was lunch time at the petting zoo, which meant they were too busy stepping on each other to get to the food to stop and let us pet them.  

Back to the gorillas.  This guy was having the time of his life inspecting his foot.  It was pretty cute :)

Onto the lions.  This mama just had three little boy cubs - she has obvious reasons to be this tired

One close up - I couldn't resist.  I realize that she could maul me as easily as I flick off a mosquito, but her paws look so sweet and fluffy.  Kinda like my kitties, except a teeeny bit more powerful. 

That's it for now!  Wednesday morning we leave for California to photograph K & A's wedding, and we are SUPER excited.  The wedding isn't until Saturday, so we'll have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to roam all over the coast and Hwy 1 and take an excessive amount of pictures.  What's more fun than that?  

We'll also be bringing the laptop, and I've told J to force me into blogging while we're gone.  So my 3 readers will have something to do while they procrastinate ;)


Thursday, August 21, 2008

For Buddy

This post is for you, buddy, to explain butterfly wings.  Because clearly I'm an expert :)  

I have been looking for a picture that will show you how it's possible for that to only be one butterfly, and I think I've found it:

See how the top wings kind of overlap the lower (brighter blue) wings?  They're actually able to separate, which is why in the picture from before looks like it has 4 separate wings.  So when you look from the side, they look like 2 whole wings, but when they're balancing and you look from the front, it looks like 4 separate wings.

That's about as scientific as I can get.  After all, I got my degree in psychology, not biology (or entomology?).  Anyway, hope that helps buddy! :)

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Butterflies + Bees + Macro = FUN

So here we are.  A brand new, distinctly different and therefore correctly labeled post.  Dedicated just to the butterflies and bees that I could not get enough of this weekend.  Let's be real - these would not have looked good lumped together with the previous landscape post.  Plus, it makes me feel organized and sane, ok?  Ok then.


Clearly these don't need much of an introduction.  They are butterflies and bees, taken with my macro.  Somebody make me put that thing down!

They were beautiful though.  I love the colors nature produces...

And the bees!

I could not get enough of those bees

Don't worry mom, I didn't get too close...

Except when I took this one. (you know I'm a hypochondriac...I had already asked D, a 30+yr ER nurse, all about the symptoms of anaphylactic shock, just in case.  You can never be too careful).  Pretty cool though.  

As much as I love the above picture, I don't want to end on something that could be considered "scary".  

Wimps.  

Just kidding...if it were a spider I would have beaten an Olympic runner in the 100 meter dash to get as far away from the 8-legged creep as possible.  And I don't run.

So here's one that's a little more pleasant.  Cute, even.  
Ok, that's the end of my bugs. 

Saturday I'm taking some pics of another little angel I know, so if you prefer sweet little girls to bees, I suppose you'll enjoy Saturday more than today.  I guess I could understand that :)

I like bugs though.  As long as they don't have 8 legs.  Ew. 

Taking a SHOT at landscapes

First of all, I know you love my play on words.  Don't lie...it made you giggle.  Or maybe that was just me.  Hmm...

Moving on.

I know I said I took pictures of things besides my sweet niece, and I promised to post them, but I can't resist starting with one more sweet shot.  Especially since clearly I need to work on taking pictures of people rather than, I don't know, PLANTS.  For that little wedding in 3 weeks...kinda important.

So here's one more of E, because she's just that dang cute:

OK.  Onto some landscape/non-human shots.  Here's a tree.  If you know me at all, you know that I love plants and the outdoors, so when I saw this scene I just couldn't help myself.

This was an out the window shot at Cades Cove.  I realize it's a little washed out, but it was a little hazy, and I do love me some mountains

On our drive home we got a little distracted on some country roads, especially once we realized we were literally in the middle of a cloud.  Pretty cool feeling to watch fog roll into you

So there you go...some landscape shots.  

Now, while on the foggy mountain I got a little distracted by some butterflies and bees.  Distracted to the point that J actually walked away and when I finally looked up and realized it was 20 minutes later I had a mini panic attack thinking he'd finally ditched me for stopping mid hike for the zillionth time to take random pictures with my beloved macro lens.  Fortunately, he had only wandered a short distance and wasn't (too) frustrated by my little pit stop.  This is why I love him so much...he puts up with all of my nonsense and maybe, perhaps, loves me a little more for it.  

However.  I can't put those in this post because they don't GO with the pictures I've already put up.  And I get a little OCD sometimes about things GOING together.  So those will come later...probably later tonight, because I'm busy and cool like that. :)

Monday, August 18, 2008

Weekend with the family

We just got back from a weekend at a cabin up in Sevierville with most of the Pinchok clan, and we had a great time.  It was my FIL's 60th, and since he, J, Big J (no pun intended ya'll...he's the oldest!) and I all have birthdays within 2 months of each other, we thought we'd do a weekend away.

I don't think I put my camera down the entire time we were there...so many things to shoot!  Now, as much fun as nature is, NOTHING beats an adorable 3 year old.  And I had one at my fingertips.  E is not only as cute as can be, but she's also a HAM for the camera!  She clearly loves to have her picture taken (and loves seeing every shot after you've taken it).

Since she was so much fun, I thought I'd do a post just for her.  Plus, I know that her mamma is going to call her in to look and she will positively squeal when she realizes that all of the pictures are of her :)

This speaks for itself.  I mean, the girl is just plain cute

And look at these little toes!  They tell her she got Uncle J's chubby toes...I would definitely agree.

She loves her daddy too.  What more could you ask for?

You are looking at a little artist right here.  This girl can color in the lines better than I can, and she chooses perfect colors every time.  Look at that concentration!

She does let Mamma help sometimes though.  Good job M...you're a great "colorer" too!

I did take a *few* (read: hundreds) of other pictures.  But I'm tired tonight, and I have to go back to work tomorrow, so those will have to come another day.

Love you E!  Thanks for being such a fun subject!