project 52 of 2013 | motion blur

This weeks challenge was "motion blur." I had a few ideas...

project 52 of 2013 | no faces

This week's challenge was "no faces." Being that it's spring in Northern Virginia, the first thing I thought of was to share photos of the cherry blossoms in our yard, but it's been really windy here. Then I took this of me shaking paws with our German Shepherd, Snoopy; I liked the imagery of the bond between man and beast. Working with rescues again has reminded me of the appreciation our dogs have for us. Even though they sometimes drive us completely nuts, and are not without their quirks, we're their family and they're ours.

Flowers and Birds | Northern Virginia Photographer

Figured I'd update everyone on how our little butterfly garden is doing. Happy to report that it seems there is life to it! The milkweed still hasn't come up, but the woodland sunflowers are off to a great start. This is one of the three we planted; they all pretty much look the same.

Skyline Silhouette | Northern Virginia Photographer

Come to think of it...this probably would have been a good choice for my "from above" theme this week, too! This is a test shot I took setting up to photograph the Northern Lights, which were supposed to be visible from my part of Virginia last night. They never came (didn't get far enough south) but it wasn't all for nothing. I spent a few hours enjoying Starbucks and conversation and jokes with a good friend (check out Beryl's blog) and it appears I caught a shooting star!

project 52 of 2013 | from above

For this week's challenge of "from above" I went with an image from my trip to Friends of Homeless Animals (FOHA) yesterday. You might remember that I'm working with them to update the photos of their wonderful adoptable dogs on the website. Thanks to Billy and Marla and a few other volunteers I ambushed while they were innocently out walking them, I was able to photograph 37 more dogs this weekend! This is Carma:

Operation: Monarch Butterfly Waystation

This weekend, my husband worked hard (I supervised!) putting in our Monarch Butterfly waystation. The Loudoun Conservancy recently launched the Monarch Butterfly Campaign and we're excited to be a part of it. We had a rose bush already in place, so we purchased two butterfly milkweed plants and three woodland sunflower plants from Hill House Farm & Nursery at the Rust Nature Sanctuary plant sale, and also a butterfly bush from Abernethy and Spencer Greenhouse in Purcelville where we also got our leaf mulch. These are all native plants to our area and all are grown pesticide-free - hoping this means it will be difficult to kill them, because we're not known for our green thumbs in this house.

The C Family Easter Announcement | Northern Virginia Photographer

I recently had the pleasure of photographing the C family's big Easter-themed announcement - Baby #2 is due in October! Congratulations to this beautiful family!!

Welcome, Baby Brooke | Northern Virginia Photographer

I am seriously behind on blogging these days. This session is actually from several weeks ago - I was (and still am) offering a special promotion to build my portfolio in newborn photography, and thankfully Brooke's parents took advantage because she was sweet as can be!

project 52 of 2013 | reflection

Sorry this is coming so late - I completely lost track of time!

For this week's "reflection" challenge I chose a picture from a beautiful wedding my husband and I attended on Friday night. I tried to capture this image first by focusing on the flowers with their reflection in the background; then I tried to focus on the reflection and blur the flowers in the foreground. The latter looked great in my head but not so great in execution, so I went with my first idea. I had also really wanted to make the image black and white, but I felt that it lost a lot of detail that way. Basically, you are all getting a sub-par image this week ;)