Birthday Party Sneak Peek

This last weekend I had the opportunity to photograph the birthday party of one of my grandson's friends. Here are a few shots of the fun day.

It was the cutest thing ever, this birthday boy really dislikes the birthday song.

April 2014 Eclipse: Playing With The Moon

Like many others I stayed up late on the night of April 14th to watch and try to get a nice shot of the lunar eclipse. I set up my camera out in the back yard where I had a lot of room and what I thought would be a clear shot at the moon. It was fantastic to watch but my photos were not as nice as I had hoped. But here there are anyway.

This first image is a series of shots during the first hour of the eclipse. I was a bit disappointed for two reasons. First I thought it would be turning red and that it wasn't going to after all. Secondly, although I had thought I positioned myself in a good spot to get the full eclipse, the moon moved more than I had anticipated. First behind some tree branches and then completely out of the frame.

Here is a closer look at the shots through the tree branches. As I said I pretty much gave up and went inside and uploaded the photos. An hour later as I was headed to bed I looked out the front window and this next photo is what I saw.

Now that was what I was hoping to get photos of. So I grabbed my tripod and camera and headed out to the front yard, where I took a few shots as the eclipse waned. Here is a few from the end of the eclipse.

I did manage to get some pretty cool shots playing around, both during the first hour of the eclipse and after I discovered the moon had turned red.

My glasses had fogged up as I huddled into my sweatshirt, so I decided to use them as a filter and this is the result.

After that I decided to take one through the lens without it being all foggy. My glasses have prisms in them so they created some fun shots.

 Another fog shot.

Here I tipped the glasses slightly toward the camera lens.

And here I tipped them slightly away from the lens.

Here they are all together for a bit of an abstract.

This last is straight from the camera with no editing other than to reduce the size of the image. The shot red in the sky was created by using a long shutter speed and rotating a lit cigarette in a circle in front of the camera lens. Alright I know I shouldn't smoke but it did make for a really awesome photograph.

As you can see I am a little behind. Hmm, maybe a little more than a little, but I hope you still enjoy these photos.

Linking up with: Skywatch Friday

Maternity Sneak Peek

Maternity portraits are among my favorite sessions. It is a joy to help family's document this miraculous time.  Here are a few from the first session with Stephen and Anni.

The next session will be done when Anni reaches her eighth month of pregnancy, and will be an outdoor session. Then we will do another session when the little one is a week old. I am almost as excited as they are for this little one to arrive.

Reflection on The Highway

At the beginning of a long five hour ride across South Dakota, I decided I wanted to capture one of those fleeting sights, you know when the surface of the road is at just the right angle of the suns rays and it turns the roadway into a mirror for a mere second or two?

I snapped about fifteen shots over a half hour period, most of them like the one above with a good amount of light reflection and reflection of the fields but not too interesting. This next shot though is my favorite. If you click on the images and view the larger you will see that both the car and truck are reflecting on the road as well as the fields to either side.

For more reflective photography be sure to stop over at

 Jame's Weekend Reflection.

I would like you to meet my youngest grandchild Kylie. She is almost two months old and lives about 300 miles from me. I considered doing a full infant photo shoot with her but instead I spent most of the weekend just being Grandma!