Winter at George Washington’s Mt. Vernon
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Arlington Cemetery is one of those places that you have to visit when you come to Washington DC. The cemetery is beautiful, peaceful, saddening and yet hopeful. Visiting with young kids takes away a bit of the opportunity for contemplation, but my hope is in a trade off of small seeds of impression planted in
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Life as a creative requires consistent inspiration. Sometimes we can find that inspiration within, but other times it is necessary to look outside of ourselves. These 5 photographers who inspire offer unique viewpoints and evocative imagery- a combination that never fails to ignite my own creativity. Photographers Who Inspire | Nisian Hughes Starting out with
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The kids each received a few packets of hot chocolate in their stockings for Christmas this year, and we’ve slowly been working through them. Some days have definitely not been hot chocolate days, recently. High of 82 in Virginia? In FEBRUARY? Can’t complain about the sunshine, though ;) (PS- these were edited with the Ruby
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So you’re in the process of choosing new photography gear. How do you make sure that you purchase the best piece of equipment possible, and that you’ll fall in love with using it? Choosing New Photography Gear: Know Why You Need It New gear is fun. The rush of buying it. The bliss of using
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Recently we drove several hours south of DC to pick up a tabletop that my husband had commissioned from custom woodworker. The woodworker’s son is a colleague of my husband’s and we were graciously invited to enjoy their farmland and lumber mill. Our boys didn’t want to leave. ;) Yet another indication that our eventual
Pin ItAll indoor self portraits for October. Even though it was still pretty summer-like for the majority of the month, the beginning of fall always finds me retreating indoors. Maybe I’m looking forward to the holidays? Speaking of, I have started listening to Christmas music almost every day now that Halloween is done. 2 months per
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Place, chase, joke, replace, shoot 1 frame. Repeat the first 4 steps in order to get to the 5th… over and over. That is how my sessions with all three of my boys at 4 years old have proceeded. Worth it in the end though, for pictures that help me to remember what their soft
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A week from today the last run of 2017 for Mastering Natural Light Indoors begins. I’ve been teaching this workshop for Click Photo School for over 5 years, now. I remember the nerves I felt creating the materials, wanting so badly to create an experience that would make a difference for photographers. After instructing hundreds
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While I was shooting my self portraits in September, I didn’t feel like they were incredibly inspired or creative. But now, as I look at them as a group I can see how I was experimenting with different techniques and I can appreciate the creativity that they do contain. This ability to see my work
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When you grow up in a semi-rural area, then spend 10+ years living in dense housing situations, open land and the quiet of acreage holds a siren song. While planning our August trip through New England, I knew I wanted to include some outdoors time, and during my AirBnB searching for places to stay I
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Routine, everyday life is busy, sometimes chaotic, but also very normal. That normalcy sometimes soothes me into complacency and I stop taking pictures of what daily life looks like at our house. Unfortunately, the stages of interest, and even the way my children look, both change extremely frequently and when the urge to document does
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August was a rough month for self portraits. The end of summer seems to drain me of creative energy. Still, 2 portrait sessions are better than 0. {Morning Routine} Clearly, I was trying to squeak in under the wire for this prompt. I do like to fit in a bit of yoga and stretching to
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When we lived in Sicily we wanted to ease our kids into the European travel scene. We decided that traveling to a location with English speakers and an easy-going culture would be the perfect fit. Malta was the perfect fit. A bonus for our plan of visiting Malta with kids was that the flight from
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Self portraits were flowing easily in July. Some months are better than others… Interestingly, it appears that this was also the month of pink shirts? The above 2 photos were for the prompt “What I’m Reading.” I’m a pretty voracious reader. Reading has always been one of my favorite hobbies and one of my favorite
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Partial success. The week after the older boys get out of school I thought maybe I’d try a daily shooting project over the summer. I lasted 8 days. But, that’s 8 days of documentation more than I might have had! This image is a 4th birthday portrait. I wanted to include some sense of scale
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When life is odd, and I’m not sure what to do, I shoot portraits and then edit them while listening to 80s power ballads or the Hamilton cast recording. That, or clean the house, with a side of all things chocolate. What is your “I need some control, this’ll fix me up” activity? Photography related
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After leaving Virgin Gorda, we sailed for a few hours until we reached the island of Jost Van Dyke. The plan was a few hours on the beach enjoying the libations at the Soggy Dollar Bar, then dinner at Foxys, both of which are storied institutions. As youthful (we think ;)) mid-30s folks we felt a
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One of my favorite little indulgences in life is to purchase a $5-6 bouquet of flowers at Trader Joes. I feel particularly blissful when it is Ranunculus season, but full Roses, pale tulips and delicate Hydrangea is satisfying, as well. My goal when bringing these bouquets home is two fold; I want to both 1-
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It is actually quite uncommon for me to deem a given scene “badly” lit. However, it does sometimes happen that I have deal with what I have and end up photographing in bad light. Generally, the light is bad because I do not have the option to modify it. If I can move subjects, add
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I spend about 99% of my editing time in Adobe Lightroom. Clean, simple editing tends to be the type that produces imagery closest to my vision, and I find the interface of Lightroom to be easy, and time efficient, to use. Today, I am sharing a video that walks through a basic Lightroom edit. The video
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I’m currently working through a weekly self portrait project over on Instagram, called #portraitsofme. My good friend Courtney, of clickitupanotch.com, and I would love to have you join in with us. Today, to go along with the images that I created in February, I’m going to share tips for 3 types of Self Portraits that you
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I want to shoot enough film in 2017 that I feel as comfortable with film as I do with digital. That is going to require some purposeful shooting. However, I do think that the scarcity of film, the need to make every frame count, speeds up the process a little bit. As think very carefully
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