A Compliment From My Nephew

Last fall my nephew came to me and asked me to take pictures of him playing football. I took that as a great compliment. My nephew thinks I'm a good enough photographer to capture him playing the sport he loves. How could I say no to that?

As a sophomore my nephew (#52) played his first year of varsity football! To say I'm a proud aunt would probably be understating things a bit. :)

Turns out sports photography is a lot of fun! There is a lot of energy, running up and down the field and the thrill of catching my nephew sacking the quarterback! I hope he asks me to photograph his next football season. :) 

                                         This is what happens when you ask your photographer aunt to take football pictures . . . artsy football shots!

                                                                               These 3 pictures are of my nephew's first quarterback sack!

                                                                                                   My nephew is a beast! LOL! :)

                                                                                                           Another quarterback sack!

 This is one of my favorite tackles. In the top picture you can see my nephew wrapped himself around the guy and threw him to the ground. In the bottom picture my nephew is getting back up while the guy he threw to the ground is still falling. I find that very amusing!

Holloway Family

Last fall a good friend asked me to take her family pictures. A couple years ago I had to take a step back from doing portrait work, because with all that was going on in my life I just didn't have the energy for it anymore. So when Marci asked me to take her family photos, I made sure she knew I was out of practice. 

In October we drove to the Oregon Coast to take photos on the beach. To say I was excited was an understatement. I've been wanting to do beach portraits for a long time. I had so much fun crawling around in the sand getting pictures of them jumping off sand dunes. They played with the driftwood and in the surf. It was such a fun afternoon. We took a break to eat some dinner and then rushed back for some sunset shots. By this time the family had changed out of their "portrait" outfits and back into their comfortable clothes. They look great being themselves in front of a gorgeous sunset backdrop.

Thank you Marci for putting your faith in this out of practice photographer and reminding me how much I love taking pictures of people. 

Milky Way Galaxy and Light Painting

Dawson loved all things space. Because of that, I have been wanting to take pictures of the Milky Way galaxy for a couple of years now. I finally had an opportunity when my friend Jeff was in town on business. (You can check out his amazing work here). It was a bit late in the year to get the entire galaxy, so I was only able to get the tail of it. But now that I know how to shoot it, I'll be sure to go out next summer to get the whole thing.

                                                                  And this is what happens when Jeff is in town! Light painting is so much fun!!

   

An Evening at Multnomah Falls

A couple weeks ago one of my photography friends was in town on business. I was very excited to show him, one of my favorite locations, The Columbia River Gorge. We stopped at the Women's Forum for a view of the Vista House against the backdrop of the Columbia River Gorge. We arrived just before sunset, and were treated to a wonderful view.                                  

                   We also stopped at the Vista House. I don't usually shoot the building. However I found the clouds behind the building intriguing.

 By the time we got to Multnomah Falls, the sun had set. We spent some time shooting the falls using the fading light in the sky and the flood light that's aimed at the lower half of the falls. The lower photo is an 8 second exposure. I have to say I really like it, especially the purple/blue of the sky.

                                                                          Since it was dark out, we decided to do a little bit of light painting.

                                                         Light painting is so much fun! Especially when you can do it at a nationally known landmark. :)

 The 430 second photo below was taken in the pitch dark. We were going to try light painting here, but as soon as we got our exposure figured out, it started raining.

World of Tulips

A few weeks ago my Uncle sent me this question: "Jaden (my cousin) would like to know why you take such pretty pictures of flowers and why they make you feel so good?". I wasn't quite sure how how to respond, but this is what I came up with: "I don't know why they make me feel so good. I think it has to do with the process of taking the picture. And then seeing the results of crawling around in the dirt and mud. Plus they are pretty and full of bright colors. The world doesn't always look that way but it should"