tis the season...

for family portraits!



a friend of mine asked if i could do their family portraits before she left for a new life in vegas. conflicting work schedules are usually the most common reason why families haven't been able to get together for formal photo sessions, not to mention having a large family group of 10+ to shoot. luckily i'm mobile with my studio stuff that as long as you have room where the furniture is easy to move and space is ample, it's photo shoot heaven.

starring mr. asa brixton

i did a photo shoot with my best friend's baby. this lil' nugget takes after his mommy when it comes to being in front of the camera... facial expressions galore. there were more images i could've posted but i didn't think anyone could handle the overwhelming cuteness. please proceed with caution :) it might make you want a lil' nugget of your own.

jesse & nicole

the wedding photo book i made for jesse & nicole is fantabulous! my favorite part of this creation is sequencing the photos to tell their wedding day story. As much as I wanted to include so many more photos... less is more. I can't wait for them to see it.



there were 5 bridesmaids and 9 groomsmen! the traditional ladies on one side and gentlemen on the other just wouldn't work. i'm sooo glad lorimar was there to help. having another creative mind with you on photo shoots lessens the stress of the checklist of photos you have to remember to take.



when someone asks me for tips on photographing a wedding one of the tips is to think of it as a game... a photo scavenger hunt. there are key images (ie. bride getting ready, bride and groom's first kiss, father and daughter dance, etc.) to capture among the candid ones you will take. the more key images you capture the higher you score!




i swear these two are going to have some really cute kids. cheers to their new life together!

a wedding, some fish, cute kids & smiles

for about a week, i've been sick with the cough of death. i swear every time we get to see my brother and his family the hubby and i catch some mutant cold germ from our niece and nephew. so two weeks ago, shane and i went to La Grange, GA for my sister-in-law's brother's wedding. Michele and Berwin asked me to be their photographer and i asked shane to be my assistant!



my husband has always been very supportive of my photography work and this was the first time having him help me with a gig. i taught him the cliff notes version of photography 101 in less than a week before the wedding. with what info he could remember in conjunction with his own artistic talent he did awesome! by the end of the night he was soooo pooped and i told him "welcome to my world babe." heheh. we took pics of each other taking pics during the wedding and didn't tell each other until we reviewed the images. heheheh. cute.



we visited the Georgia Aquarium before we left. if we had more time we could've sat in front of viewing tank in the Ocean Voyager for hours. it's said to be the 2nd largest viewing window in the world! it's like watching one of those fake aquarium screen savers for a computer but it's real. they had these charts you could carry around with pictures and names of all the fish. i played match the fish and every time i recognized one i called out the name like an excited lil kid. good times.







sometimes i wish i lived closer to my brother to be part of my nephew and niece growing up. the last time i saw them ryanne couldn't even walk yet. i do make it a point to capture blackmail photos of them when i can:) hehehe.



the following weekend ciesther, from DCPG, needed a photographer to help with an operation smile charity event and i helped out. they managed their photo booth service and i got to document the evening festivities. of course we couldn't end the night without a photo booth pic!



it's always a good thing when you can network with other photographers because you never know when you need the help.

willliamsburg photowalk

photowalks have become one of my favorite activities these days. you walk lots. you shoot. you talk shop. you work up an appetite. you eat. you go home full of info and food.

this past saturday lawrence from the tidewater digital photography club, organized a photowalk in colonial williamsburg inspired by the scott kelby event in august. as soon as i found out about it, i contacted cies from DCPG to come along.



it was cool to hang out with her and swap photography stories like girls at a slumber party. good times.



what i also like about photowalking is discovering new spots for future shoots. as you walk you get to "take time to smell the roses" and really look at your surroundings.

pixel & adobi

pixel and adobi are 2 years old! still babies. i'm amazed they didn't bolt out the door while i was shooting. the hubby was my spotter (from inside the house). my next petography challenge will be a shot of sadie (our new cat) and the dogs hanging out being chummy. animals do the funniest and cutest things when you don't have a camera ready.

paper fortune teller: THE REAL INSTRUCTIONS

hopefully no one actually tried to make ramen with the fortune teller. if someone did, then i also hope that it was yummy-licious :)

if you are one of the 3 lucky finders of a GOLDEN TICKET you can e-mail me at:

writeneleh@gmail.com

high fives to lorimar for the creative input and designs!

folding party

for more info about the look alive project, click in the graphic below:

silky satin smooth

my new business cards are soooo silky satin smoooooth. i love them, love them, love them. i hand them out and i watch people rub them between their fingers. you can't help it. very durable too.

"look at that subtle off-white coloring. the tasteful thickness of it. oh my god, it even has a watermark." (hehehe... this movie rawks)

my good friend justin, who is a graphic designer for signs by tomorrow, helped revamp my original design.

his work also does vinyl sticker stuff for vehicles and they make all sorts of signage goodies with cool materials like faux bricks and faux bamboo walls.

for my car, he made a sticker of my website addy to put on my back window.



i get giddy looking at it in my rear view mirror.

thank you prince vector justin for your awesomeness!

new albums

i finally added new albums to my main website: seedlings, couplings and petography. eventually i'll revamp the site so i can link this blog and other sites on there. i need to find an easy-to-update flash template that will help me do this.

a rarity

mom and dad requested a photograph of me & the hubby for this artist guy in the philippines to draw our portrait. i'm usually the one taking the pics so i don't have many of myself or of me and the hubby together. it's probably been four years since we've taken an exclusive couples photo.

edit: (thanks anne for reminding me to post this)

here is our lifetouch style photo. i didn't bother to set up the studio equipment since i knew the photo was going to be transformed into a drawing of sorts. hmmm... it's weird to see myself in a photo.


so after i took a formal portrait via tripod & self timer, we got a bit goofy and captured these:

En Vogue & Bel Biv DeVoe

this past weekend verizon wireless sponsored the american music festival at the va beach oceanfront. billy idol & the b 52's were headlining but i was more excited to see the opening acts for morris day and the time... en vogue and bel biv devoe! holy back to the 90s batman! so working in sales for the big red machine has its perks... VIP passes to the concert!!! a whole section in front of the stage blocked off for VIPers, free beer, free food & immediate access to the porto potties!

i forgot to bring the compact digi so here are pics i took with the pearl cam:

en vogue singing "hold on". we only recognized two of the original four group members.



the hubby came close to losing his voice from singing almost every song that BBD performed. it was good times.

scott kelby's worldwide photo walk

during most of the week i'm a sales manager for a verizon wireless authorized retailer and the one thing i love about it is the networking opportunities. about a month ago i met a fellow photographer, lawrence, who was thinking about switching services to try out the iphone. we talked for a bit about photography and he invited me to check out a photography group he helps organize events for called the Tidewater Digital Photography Club.

most of the meet ups are across the water in newport news and is a bit of a drive for me. i basically look forward to all the shooting opportunities they announce like Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photo Walk that took place this past saturday. i signed up right away for the norfolk, va walk.

the morning of the event i showed up a bit nervous and excited. why was i nervous? i suppose there's an intimidation factor being around other photographers with more equipment than you. there was a lady who showed up carrying a huge tripod on her shoulder with her camera attached to it! i had to keep in mind that the main goals of this event was to 1)have fun! and 2)talk shop with other photographers and learn from each other. the bonus of the event is the chance to win cool prizes from scott kelby. the excitement was more from the opportunity to go out shooting since all week long i'm cooped up in the retail stores.



our group ranged from amateur hobbyists to professional shooters. some people walked in small groups and some by themselves. i was by myself for most of the walk bumping into other photographers and introducing myself. i didn't chat too much with other participants because i wanted to walk the entire suggested route within the 2 hours we had before meeting everyone back at the restaurant.

there were these two photographers who seemed to have the same goal of walking the entire route and i decided to slow my pace down to hang out with them. one was an older gentleman who was giving a guided historical tour of the area pointing out where things used to be and told stories of growing up in the area like how $.60 was all he needed to spend the whole day in the city. i learned quite a bit about the city i work in. i also discovered that sony dslr cameras are pretty cool because that's what he carried.



when the whole group met up at jillian's to eat lunch i got to talk shop with another photographer about wedding photography. it was interesting to discover that his day job is software engineering and he picked up photography to keep his sanity.



overall, i really enjoyed the event. so why wait for someone to organize a photo walk. i'm going to pick a place to go walking around and bring my camera with me! duh! what better way to burn calories and practice my shooting skills at the same time.

oh! and what's also cool about the scott kelby event is you can check out images from participants in other cities around the world on the event site!

you can view more of my images from the walk on my flickr site.

enjoy!

tavren

tavren's mommy wanted to have some summer portraits taken in celebration of him being 6 months old. i believe it's around the 6th month mark that most babies can sit up on their own... kinda. heheh. he just got over a cold and during the latter part of the shoot began to sniffle and sigh. poor lil' thing! he was a trooper during the whole shoot in the humid hot weather.


in less than 8 hours i will be participating in the first ever WORLDWIDE PHOTO WALK ! stay tuned....

come sail with me

my friend L invited me to go with her and her two boys on a sailboat ride at norfolk, waterside. as long as i have been living in the tidewater area i have never been on a sailboat ride before. (i'm such a land luber.) so i excitedly accepted the invitation with the idea to do some leisurely shooting and to finally test out my lensbaby 2.0.


it was a hot semi-hazy day. no clouds in the sky and barely any wind. so much for a true sailing experience on the american rover it was all good though. it's the company that we keep that makes everything worth while.


L enjoying a silent moment with her two little ones.

norfolk's scenic waterways include a colorful array of huge steel structures

not to mention other stuff that look they came from the transformer's movie

one of my better attempts to photograph a water buoy using my lensbaby while on a moving sailboat

another lensbaby creation. it's a tugboat moving way faster than the boat i was on.


i'm so excited to shoot my high school classmate's wedding this saturday! jesse and i reconnected about a year ago through myspace after a 10yr hiatus. basically we hadn't seen each other since high school graduation. he had asked me to be the photographer for his wedding last fall and i was honored to accept. tomorrow i meet with him and his fiance, nicole, at their wedding ceremony rehearsal to check out the venue. so far, i was told there will be no flash photography allowed. i'll be finding out what other photography challenges we may face when i get there.

i hadn't thought about an assistant photographer before but after many long conversations with L about what level we wanted to take our photography to, i decided to ask her to join me this weekend. this will be our first time working a wedding gig together. cheers to this new adventure!

sadie lababe

she's a new addition to the family. that makes 3 cats and 2 dogs. her formal name is sadie lababe named after a character from a poem written by one of my favorite local poets Tim Seibles. the hubby and i have been calling her mow mow (the sound i make when i call for her to come out of hiding.. heheh). we are hoping that sadie will bridge the relationship between feline and canine in our home. our other two cats don't get along well with the dogs most likely because they were older when we introduced the puppies to them. in fact, just the other day we witnessed for the first time one of our dogs, pixel, doing lovey dovey head rubbing with sadie. it was a precious moment.

elalator go up! elalator go doooown.

being in elevators with strangers always intrigues me. i secretly scope out where everyone looks, where they stand and what idosynchcratic coping mechanisms occur during the awkward silence. every once and a while i'll get the pleasure of witnessing the reactions of others as someone breaks one of the unspoken rules of elevator ettiquette.

one day i was riding alone in an elevator free to look where ever i wanted and noticed this:




i captured it with my blackberry pearl camera. not my favorite camera phone option but it did the deed. the overhead lights in the ceiling of the elevator reflected this abstract compostion on the steel walls. it's kinda ansel adam-ish but then again i'm still learning about notable photographers so ansel adam is the closest comparison i could come up with :)

i'm back

i'm back. thanks to a rawkin' dear friend of mine, Anne K. in L.A., for motivating me to jump start my photography blog. please stay tuned as i dig up digital treasures to share with everyone once again...

in the meantime you can scope out my other sites:

helenbackwards.com
myspace

enjoy!