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.