Merry Christmas!

This is my first Christmas with the camera and I'm loving it! There are so many opportunities to take photos all around the house! Some of the photos that I took were of ornaments. I tried to backlight them as much as I could, lighting them up from behind and giving a Christmassy vibe. Christmas is about love and family, and what is family without pets? So, one of my first ideas was to take photos of my dogs, like my chocolate Lab, Lady Dave! I put them in front of the Christmas tree, and although they were not particularly happy with me, the glow of the lights bounced off their fur for a look in the Christmas spirit. They look like they're waiting for Santa Paws, for sure! They didn't really want to sit or look at me, but I managed to get a few good photos. Christmas is a wonderful time for photos, because everything is so happy and jolly. It is, indeed, the most wonderful time of the year, especially if you're a photographer! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Photographing Wildlife at the Beach

While we were on our recent beach trip, I spotted so much wildlife, including a lot of birds. Ranging from tiny sandpipers to giant hawks, they were all amazing animals to take photos of! There were lots of sandpipers on our beach, although they moved so fast it was hard to get a photo of them. The first big wildlife break I had was with the hawk. I spotted it outside, changed my lenses, and raced down to the beach. It let me get very close to it, even though it appeared as though it was eating something. I took a lot of hawk photos (a LOT) and then headed back home when it flew off. A few days later, we made a trip to the other side of the beach, which we refer to as the end of the world. There were so many birds there it was hard to count how many I saw! There were pelicans and sandpipers and seagulls. I loved it! This was a great wildlife photography aspect of the trip!

Pup Fun in the Sun

My family and I recently went to Topsail Beach, NC and we took all three of our dogs. At Topsail Beach, dogs are allowed on the beaches, and our dogs adore it! Our dog Keightley is a sweet old man, and we tried our best to savor every moment of what could be his last beach trip. We even gave him a little sailor hat and a bandana, which made for a perfect photographic opportunity, with little Captain Keightley prancing about the beach.

Blizzard, whom we call Blizzy, loved the beach and sand and water. We found out that she is a salty water dog, and she loved digging and running in the surf. This was her first beach trip ever and she loved it.

Lady Dave, our chocolate Lab, is the only one allowed to run free on the beach, but she adores this privilege and Topsail is probably her favorite place. We would take her out and just let her run, which is how I got a lot of my photos of her. We had so much fun with these pups, and I tried to take as many photos as possible to capture these special moments. The sand and ocean are the perfect background in a photograph, so that was amazing. The dogs were so excited to be on the beach that they would not sit still and often refused to look at me, so many of these photos are candid snaps. This was an amazing experience and the dogs were wonderful beach subjects!