Beach Portraits

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I had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend...

memorable because I was in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico

just north of Cancun for my nephew Andy's wedding

to beautiful Sabrina.

Of course, this meant BEACH PORTRAITS,

and since my own kids couldn't be with us,

I was tickled to photograph my nieces.

I even brought along a bag of my hair flowers and

Joanna's favorite color is blue.

She's so lovely!

I really like to use my 50 mm lens for portraits,

and especially like to crank it open to f1.4.

But, I was really blowing out the details

with all that beach brightness.

Here is my niece Megan.

She is majoring in fashion merchandising in college,

so she brought along some flirty skirts that caught the wind.

You KNOW I love wind!

She understood my need for MOVEMENT in portraits

and was excellent at posing.

Fortunately, most young gals love to pose...YES!!

I have the prettiest nieces.

Joanna was missing her boyfriend Alex, so I suggested

she write him a sand love note.

This is where I totally blew out the details and

thought these photos were a bust:

In my camera, the sand heart was a white blob.

Fortunately, I always shoot in RAW, so I was

able to recapture the LOVE.

My sister did not really want to wear the hair flower...

But, I'm so glad she DID!

The flowers just add a nice pop of color.

Here's my sister Sally with her husband Joe

and daughter Megan.

Her best friend from high school flew in from California

to attend Sally's son's wedding.

Colette is like my sister, too!

My only photography assignment was to photograph

the gals getting ready for the wedding.

Sabrina was a beautiful bride!

Unfortunately, my camera is BAD in low light.

I had to crank the ISO to 400 which created lots of GRAIN.

But after a bit of editing, I love the photos.

It was fun being with all the gals and feeling

the wedding excitement!

It rained on the wedding day, so the ceremony

was moved to the gazebo which was just

as beautiful.

I was so happy to see Andy and Sabrina

saying their I DOs.

Here they are the day after the fun:

As we were gathering in the lobby to leave paradise and catch

our plane home, I realized...AS USUAL...I has NO photos of

my hubby and me.

That's because nobody can ever work my camera.

I had my brother snap this quick shot by the pool,

and, of course, we are NOT in focus.

Now I'm home with a sun tan and a big pile of laundry.

Mother's Day Portraits

 

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Every year on my April birthday...the gift I ask from my

two children is to pose for portraits...

WITHOUT COMPLAINING!

This year, they were both home for Mother's Day weekend.

I checked the weather the night before and it looked beautiful.

Perfect time to fulfill my birthday gift.

That's when the groaning started.

GRRRRRRRR!!!

I had to remind them

NO CRABBING ALLOWED!

Fortunately, they shaped up during the photo shoot.

As I've said many times in my blog...my kids like to

PILE on each other.

Mark is 20 and Lindsay is 22.

I love them SOOOOO much!

I like to convert a few to black and white.

They made my Mother's Day

HAPPY!

They even agreed to climb our local sled hill so I could

test shot these photos:

They were practice for an evening shoot I had booked

to try doing sunset silhouettes.

I LOVE how these turned out and hope you'll try it too!

Jaymi shared her tips about silhouettes

here. and I wanted to try it myself.

What FUN!!

I ended up having THREE photo shoots on Mother's Day.

We went over to visit my dear Mother-in-law

and my grand niece Fiona was visiting.

I ran home to get my camera and a couple cute outfits

I picked up recently at thrift stores and photographed

this adorable baby in Mom's backyard.

Mom's neighbor saw me with the camera and offered

up her amazing backyard with flowers and

white iron furniture.

Holy HECK!  I was in portrait heaven!

Neighbor Jackie said I could come back any time to use

her backyard.

I WILL be back!

I love how when we stood Fiona in the ivy,

she thought it felt strange and kept lifting her feet....

SOOOOOO CUTE! 

Yep, I was a bit pooped after three photo shoots in one day,

but I was pampered with pancakes for breakfast...my daughter's

world famous recipe.

I tried to make them once, but they didn't taste as yummy.

"That's because I add a special secret ingredient," Lindsay said.

On Mother's Day she finally shared the secret ingredient.

"I add LOVE, Mom," she said. "Love ALWAYS makes things better!"

Hope all the moms had a wonderful Mother's Day like I did!

 

Second Birthday Portrait

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Happy 2nd birthday to Genevieve...better known as Gigi!

C'mon, we all know how difficult it is to photograph toddlers.

Gigi's mom Lisa brought her to me for a

Christmas portrait back in December.

Doesn't she look adorable?  You would never

know she was stark naked!

Yep, I dressed her in this adorable Christmas tutu and she pulled

it right DOWN...  (BLUR!)

Then, to Lisa's horror, Gigi ditched her diaper, too and

bounced around my basement studio in the buff.

With toddlers, you can rarely pose them. 

I prefer them natural anyway.

So I gave her this red velvet box and she

was precious in pearls...hee hee!

Lisa threw this blanket around her trying to

hide Ms. Nakey girl.

You can never predict toddlers, so it's

best to just go with their flow and capture...

Natural expressions....yep, two-year-old NATURAL!

So, I kinda knew what to expect for her two-year-old shoot.

I always set up a posed situation first and usually

get a VERY limited window of "posing".

Soon, Gigi was off the pretty chair...

Next, the hair flower was off...

And, this was the last we saw of the tutu.

She ripped it off and Lisa was aghast when

Gigi ran around in her bloomers.

I did manage to charm her into wearing butterfly wings

and hang onto her birthday balloons.

I love when they are oblivious to the camera

and I can work on capturing their true spirit.

She quickly started acting up...so we drove back to

my house and Lisa talked her into a wardrobe change

while I set up the little white wicker chair in my backyard.

I LOVED how the NOON sun was playing with us!

Forget the chair...she was off and running.

I just sat on the back porch and photographed

unobtrusively from afar.

Lisa was disappointed, thinking we didn't

capture ANYTHING.

But I knew I had some wonderful, natural portraits

that show Gigi at the age of two.

The toddlers are always difficult, but the

rewards are worth it!