journey of life

From mylalaland. 

After reading Holly’s post at attempts for a holiday family photo, I read this article about Olin Mills portraits.  And, some of them are really, really bad.  See for yourself.

The new Scared of Santa photos are up.  This one is awfully funny.

…in the sun. I’ve created a gallery showing the dogs in their favorite sunny napping spots. Our oldest dog loves to hang out by the back door to keep an eye on the squirrels that love to terrorize her. When she tires of watching the squirrels, she snoozes in the sunlight. Our youngest, a couch potato, moves the pillows as she follows the sunlight coming in from our side window. Smart girls.

And, apparently, our oldest dog isn’t as deaf as she may appear. The click of a camera shutter startles her awake.

Over the weekend we went to the Virginia Tech football game (vs. William and Mary, thanks for the tickets Allison!), make a pit stop to see my family and pick up the race car (which we aborted, more on that later).  The weather was gorgeous (even if it was a bit warm for football), we tailgated with some friends (thanks to the Pankey/Davis clan for the drinks and grub), went to see the memorial (we were especially moved by the game tickets placed by the Hokie stone of several victims), bought Hokie Effect tshirts at the bookstore (I am going to figure out how that girl made her tshirt), and finished off the evening with dinner at The Cellar (which, by the way, no longer serves Greek Spaghetti on game days, FYI).

Throughout the day I did not carry a bookbag, a tote bag or a purse.  I was naked.  In my pockets I had sunscreen, my cell phone, a lone check to pay for the tickets, a pen, and feminine products.  I wore a hat and my sunglasses and Matt carried my cash and drivers license in his wallet.  It felt strange not having anything to hold on to, but very liberating.  And, although I would have liked to have pictures that captured the day, I was glad we didn’t bring it along.  It would have just been something to carry.

Which, leads me to the second half of the article title…I really enjoy taking pictures, but dislike lugging a camera along with me.  Does anybody else feel this way?  I want to capture certain moments in life, but sometimes if you have a camera it seems more trouble than it is worth?  And, with my limited skills as a photographer I find it overwhelming all of the buttons and settings and unfortunately have very little interest in understanding how it all works (therefore each time I touch the camera I am asking Matt to set it in “dummy mode” for me and ultimately don’t always get the best shots).  Then, on top of it all, Matt is clearly the photographer and has an exceptional eye for gorgeous shots.  Me?  I just see things I like and want to document it.  Remember this little place we drank beer in Bruges?  You know, where all the locals were and the lab was sitting at the bar with his owner?  Oh, look.  Here we are at Blowing Rock, North Carolina on our first trip together.  I am sure some of you can imagine us as old geezers, showing slideshows ala Jim and Bettie…  I think I should really just start getting in the habit of having a camera out with me at all times when sightseeing (not caring if I look like a complete dufus tourist) and just start snapping away.  Maybe I will (a) get used to having it with me, (b) become more acquainted with the settings, and (c) feel like taking it everywhere.

This is just one of the pictures Holly took while we were at the beach. Follow the link to her blog to see more!

The past two months were full of showering… Alison’s bridal shower, then Shanna’s baby shower then Alison’s lingerie shower. Unfortunately, I forgot to take the camera with me to the lingerie shower, but being that it was a little racy, maybe that was a good thing!

Above is one of my favorite pictures from Mead Photography. For me, wedding photography is about capturing the moment and this picture is a culmination of moments (or hours of work) the hairdresser spent on the maid of honor’s hair (note: her hair went halfway down her back), but the end result was glorious.

So, imagine my surprise last night when I found this picture on the Wedding Photo Journalist Association’s latest contest winners and finalists. Sean Flanigan, a talented photographer in Washington state saw the artistry in the updo as well.

This is reaffirmation to me that Matt’s got talent. With so many people running around with digital cameras, oftentimes the importance of an artist’s eye is lost. But when pictures like these appear, it’s really worth it to get someone other than Uncle Fred to capture those special moments.

After dabbling into photography for several years, we decided to take it to the next step and try photographing a wedding. I believe we did a pretty good job and we are wanting to do a little more than dabble. Check out Mead Photography to see a sampling of pictures and let us know what you think.