Amanda – Anytime Portrait

…Romance, not the kind between 2 people, but the kind with nature… that was my inspiration for this series with my daughter, Amanda.

I love the outdoors and since this year I will not be taking my annual trip to a National Park I am going to spend more time outside in my own community! This is far from a National Park, but makes me happy anyways! I love the feel of this image, her hair romantically falling over her shoulders, the colors of the leaves in the back, the softness of the focus, the whiteness of her skin…

Although her eyes are quite dark in this one, I love it.

It started to rain on us for this shoot, but we continued and I am so glad we did. The rain is a regular occurrance around her so why not just go with it! We found a broken down shack to hide in…

I have been experimenting with more color and exposure for these last few shoots and I am loving the outcome! I love the little “over” exposed look with such yummy white skin matched against a colorful background.

I have also been experimenting with different focusing techniques. This image is purposely out of focus… clarity is not always the goal.

Another “different” focus technique.

Another new found love is the look of “vintage” 70’s… not the romantic feel above, but the overly grainy and washed out colors of years past…

This is one of my favorites of the shoot. Amanda wasn’t so impressed with my choice of hairstyles for her, but after seeing the outcome she liked it… just needs to learn to trust her mommy on these shoots!

Nothing better than a good Amanda laugh! She is wearing the special ring I bought her for Christmas… you will see this in another shoot we are planning later on… can’t wait!

We did this shoot with Joely, Amanda’s cousin and I have some funny ones I am saving for another post, but for now, wanted to show you this sweet picture of the 2 of them together. They have a very special relationship since Joely’s mom (my sister-in-law) used to take care of Amanda when she was just a baby…. so Joely and Amanda had a lot of time together as youngsters… now that Joely lives in PA Amanda cherishes those times she can come and visit.

This year is starting out well, a new decade to look forward to with a new career, support from family and friends, great kids and the love of my life sharing it all with me… thank you God!

One last one… more later…

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Nature – Macro Photography

I thought I would take a break from showing you portraits and share a few macro images from our camping trip. We just got back from our second of the season.

Instead of giving generic store bought cards I create cards from my macro images. I have always loved the outdoors and landscape photography was my first love, but that grew into loving portraits, macro’s, architecture, graffiti art and just random interesting stuff I might find along life’s journey.

Hope you enjoy and if you are a friend of mine you will probably get one as a card some day :).

Oh, and I wanted to say one more thing… thank YOU for stopping by! In just under 2 months I have had 1700+ people stop by my new site. That is so cool. God is faithful. Please, leave a comment so I can get to know you better while you are getting to know me. I love to read them and they lift my spirits :). Thanks again.
{{hugs}}

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