Lightning Struck Old Pine

The air is warm and moist today with 89% humidity and the temperature hovering around 80 degrees. The cloud cover from an approaching storm is easing some of the heat away leaving the air foggy and thick. About 2 hours ago I took a picture of the old pine in our backyard. The sun diffused by the clouds and moisture made everything outside brilliantly colored yet mystical and eerie. The Pine has been hit by lightening and portions of the tree remain brown. I love this tree - thankfully it's survived through several harsh summer storms and has been hit by lightning more than once. Hopefully the old pine keeps hanging on...

Vintage Effects

My Seattle trip is rapidly approaching, I'm so not organized and we leave Wednesday morning! I have been focused on packing, trying to get organized, and of course doing photography any free moment in between (which hasn't been near enough time). I've been playing with textures trying to achieve a vintage, scratched, old photograph look and a vintage, canvas textured look for the second one. So fun!

Brielle picture, pre-conversion...

Siblings

What a beautiful night! The sun was setting and the air was warm, dry and comfortable, not a typical Southern summer night. The kids were barefoot playing in the backyard and hardly dressed...a common theme these days. They were being very affectionate so I had to capture some of their sweetness as I never know when it will turn sour ;-) Luckily they were loving most of the night so it gave a few opportunities to capture these moments. I used my long lens so I could be sitting far in the distance while they played in the distance.

Tyler was showing off his cool new spider-man tattoo! I focused on his tattoo making his face out of focus for a bit of artsy look.

Brielle was fascinated by the bright pink bell shaped petals that were falling off the Crepe Mrytle in our front yard. She kept touching the flower so petals would fall. Then she would bend down and analyze each one. She ran across a beetle while she was looking at the fallen petals. She instantly grew attached and kept saying 'oh, spidey', 'oh, spidey'. After I convinced her it was the beetles bedtime and that we needed to say good-night to him, we headed in the house for bath time and book reading.

Jumping Game

Just before dinner the kids and I went on a nature walk behind our house. It was an overcast day and nearing dusk - welcomed change from the bright sun. Tyler found a branch that had fallen off a tree in our backyard at the start of our walk. He told me to take more pictures of Brielle - he was nicely saying, 'I'm not in the mood for your camera right now'. Tyler was so sweet with Brielle today... he helped her put on her cherry boots (which she loves) and he ran to grab his bug boots and then they were off and running looking for fire ant hills - ugg...

Brielle is so into jumping right now. She does everything jumping... gets out of the bath runs & jumps, gets out of her crib in the morning and shows me her jumps, brushes her teeth, then shows me her oh so high jumps - or so she thinks... Actually, she is getting higher off the ground the more she practices. Practice makes perfect!

Water Play

It was a hot and humid day in South Carolina. After picking up Tyler from camp the kids needed a cool down- begging for the pool I convinced them that the hose was just as fun. I selfishly wanted to be in the shade and not at the pool where there is only one cabana providing very little shade. Thankfully the kids were thrilled! And once I saw that they were happily playing 'together' I ran into to get my camera.

These pictures were shot at 5pm. 6pm would've been ideal but I think this ended up working out okay. I stood off in the distance with my 70-200 lens and shot these pictures so I wouldn't disrupt or influence any of their activities. They would've been out there with the hose for hours but moments later storm clouds rolled in and filled the once clear blue sky.

Photo Session

It's been a while since I've done a photo session, but tonight I had one with the Head Master at Tyler's School (well, his kids anyway). There were three of them (6 yr, 3 yr, and 5 months old). They drove from Atlanta and were in the car for 6 hours prior to the session, so the kids weren't exactly in the mood to have a lens in their face. But they put up with it ;-)

Here's a couple of shots (the files are really small so they are a little pixelated on here)...

Pretend Play

Tyler is at Byrnes Camp today, so I'm using Brielle as my subject in these pics. Here, I have one of Brielle's favorite suffed animals, an antique high chair given to my by a friend of mine, and Brielle in a simple off white dress. It was hot and humid today - 95 degrees - so we had to make this a quick practice.

Here's a cropped version of the picture below - I think I like the uncropped version better (it draws you in more).

Below I worked on using a narrow depth of field so the background had really smooth bokeh.

New Lens 70-200 Canon L IS f 2.8

Brielle was in awe over a little tiny bug she saw in the grass (mom, it wasn't a snake - don't worry). I like the mood of this photo, the pink, the wonder and dim evening light.

I just had to do a mini-photo session with Brielle now that I have my new lens. Tyler wasn't too into it so he was off playing. Here I've antiqued the picture in CS3.

This picture of Tyler and Brielle playing in their lemonade stand was the first picture I took after putting this lens on. It's not the best, but I thought it was a sweet moment between the two.

I was standing inside the house - about 9 ft. away when I took this picture of the flower pot on our screen porch. I was amazed by the depth of field - f 2.8 in this picture with dim evening natural light.

Summer Thunderstorms

In this picture I was trying to capture both kids as the played beneath the darkening sky. I wanted to get the eerie mood of the storm captured here... Later that night we awoke to a light show and rumblings of thunder brought on by the storm.

In this photograph I focused on Tyler's hands making his face slightly blurry - again we were outside, in the evening as the sky was beginning to grey with the thunder storms rolling in.

Manual Mode - 24-70 Canon L Lens

This picture was taken last evening with the same lens. It was early evening and the storm clouds were moving in, so I had to work quickly. Obviously Brielle was just doing her own thing only to look up when I sneezed and then to ask 'you okay mommy?'

Life's Captured Moments - by Kara May

The picture above was another use of natural light - morning rays coming through the keeping room window. Here, Brielle had no interest in me or the camera. She was just focused on observing her brother while he played and chewing on the straw she's seen holding.

My daughter was running away from the camera just before I took this picture. She happened to run, jump on the couch and lay her head against a pillow on the armrest when she finally looked up at me for only a moment. Finally, I got a picture of her looking right into my lens. Brielle rarely looks at me when I shoot pictures of her so this a treasured shot.

Natural lighting, indoors, 24-70 lens