Family Graves

Back in October before our trip to Ireland I went up to NY to pick up my sister to house sit for us. While I was up there Mom, Val, two of my new cousins Wendy and Tammy and I went to see some family graves we had found online. It was interesting to finally see some family history on Mom's side.

 

 

Beach Film

Remember our trip to the beach with Mike's family back in July?  I finally got around to getting roll of film I shot developed, scanned, edited and uploaded!  I think these are totally out of order but that's okay.




This is my favorite shot. 

Rehoboth Beach - July 2012

Back in July we took a week long vacation to the beach in Delaware with Mike's parents, Brother, our Sister-in-Law and our niece.  Of course it was nice to get away from work for a week and sit on the beach.  It was also great to spend time with family and see how much Chloe ADORES her uncle Mike!   Who can blame her really. 

Most of my photos were of Chloe but I am not going to put those up in a public blog post so you have to live with the ones that she wasn't in. 





I will post photos of Mike though.

And myself, if you ignore my crazy hair.










I am ready to go back right now!

Test Photo

I took some photos today for my sister in law and before we took my niece out in the chill we went and scouted out some locations and lighting (it gave me a chance to test out my settings too. I love when "test" shots end up being keepers. How great does Tacha look?

Longwood: Do I have a Dahlia problem?

Maybe it is just the time of year, and the fact that there aren't a lot of flowers left outside but I have been taking a ton of dahlia pictures lately! Saturday my sister-in-law Tacha and I went to Longwood and we met up with Amanda. The weather was perfect and the sun is starting to come up late enough that the outside light was lovely when we got there, so we started with some outdoor shooting.






(this one ended up a little posterized again, darn pinks, I really need to do some reading on how to fix that.)

In my Mom's Garden

On Sunday while we were home for our niece's baptism we stopped by my parents house for Father's Day lunch. We had a nice big family meal outside, chicken and steak on the grill, salad, chips, and toasted marshmallows! While the meat was cooking I wandered around the yard a bit with my macro lens of course!





Anyone know what these two are? I think they are the same flower, just different colors.

Maternity A Little Late

As of yesterday afternoon I have a niece! I can't wait to go meet her!

Back in December when Dan and Tacha came down and Tacha went to Longwood with me we did a few maternity pictures for her. You all know that portraiture isn't my thing really (posing especially) but we tried. I should have shared them earlier but honestly I barely got them edited in time to give Tacha the disc of images at Christmas (darn job).

First we went to Monocacy Creek Park, it was COLD outside and there were some guys with a big fire in the picnic area, and several other people out fishing. There were also lots of benches and trees and cold rock steps.

All shot with 5DM2 and 50mm 1.2L









Sunday we took a couple at our house with Dan as well, this was my favorite.


It was really hard to figure out how to highlight her belly and where she should place her arms. I am sure with practice I would get better at all that but I don't know anyone else who is pregnant.

Tacha's Baby Shower

I have been waiting to post about my sister-in-law Tacha's baby shower until she received the disc of photos that I mailed. I just wanted her to see them first.

It was a great shower. I was lucky enough to help plan it with two of her friends. We had a ton of food, great people, yucky weather (pouring rain) and Dan and Tacha received many generous gifts to help welcome their little girl in January.


beautiful gifts


The mom to be with her lovely Mom


A little emotional


Tacha's LOVES penguins.


So many cute clothes!


Opening the baby tub from my other sister in law and her husband.


Looking through the tub


Opening the card for the gift from me and Michael

I rented the 85mm 1.2L for the shower, it was a really nice lens. Most of these were shot with that lens, other than the first two, which were with my 50mm f/1.2L.

Its Ours!

I didn't take my camera to closing, well I did, but it stayed in my purse. Michael thought it was too weird to break out the camera while we were signing papers. It all went really well, not nearly as bad as everyone made it sound.

We spent the whole afternoon yesterday stripping wallpaper and shopping at Lowe's. After the weekend is over (the family is coming down today to help) I will post some shots of our progress. For now I will leave you with the beauty of the two dogwood trees in our front yard.

All with 5DM2, 24-70L Lens

Flashback Friday 27-Mar

I haven't been out shooting much the past two weeks because I have been trying to scan in a bunch of old 35mm negatives that my Dad left with me last summer. I don't know if I have ever mentioned it on here but one of the main reasons I picked photography as a hobby (other than it being technical which I knew would suit me) is because my Dad has always been into it and I love looking at the pictures he took before he married Mom and when Val and I were kids. Well usually, unless they are embarrassing pictures of me. Expect to see more of these as I edit them, and I am sure there will be more to scan.

Maybe the least embarrasing photo of me from when I was nine, though still . . .

I tried out the gradient filters in LR on this one to bring back the sky.

And just so I am not alone in this embarrassment, my sister


I am not sure exactly when or where these were taken, just that they were developed in April 1988.

Bathroom Status

Do you remember back in November 2007 when I was home for a week between the wedding of a college friend of Mike's and his sister's baby shower and I helped my parents rip up their bathroom?

I know you have all been dying for an update on how that is going, so while I was home to photograph by best friend's baby on the 13th of this month I thought I would get you an updated picture:


I know you are blown away right? Listen that is how Dad works, it took him nearly 20 years to get the bathroom he put in the basement fully functioning no reason this should be different. That toilet didn't go in until this December (ie 13 months after the previous toilet was ripped out.

I hope Mike and I are faster at home renos when we get a house.

Dice

Michael loves dice, mostly when playing craps but this past weekend his brother Dan and his wife Tacha came down for a visit (we were supposed to go snow tubing but it was freaking COLD outside!) and brought a little dice game. I don't know the name of it but you had ten dice and you had to roll them to make different combinations, each turn the combination changed. Mike of course won.



Too bad the dice at the casinos don't always like him that much

Christmas at My Parents House

Christmas night at the in-laws focused on Lucas (of course) as you can guess from my previous post. However we started out the morning at my parents house for breakfast and gifts.


Their tree


My mom


me posing again, why do I feel the need to strike a silly pose when Mike has the camera in his hands?


Dad of course playing around with his camera. One of these days we will have to have a shoot off, it will be like a dance off but with cameras.


Val cleaning up after I shot her with a little silly string that she put in my stocking.

Then she got lippy:

That will show her!


sigh, hi husband!


Val gave us a painting! I love it when she gives us paintings! Now I need to go get the three small ones we have framed!