Sunday, February 13, 2011

Kelly ~ Gainesville Maternity Photographer


Yesterday morning I had the absolute pleasure of visiting with my friends Kelly and Mort for Kelly's maternity photos. Kelly is a fellow UF Animal Sciences alum and horse enthusiast. While it was a bit chilly outside and the horses were a bit too hairy (they grow thick coats here in Florida too!) to include them in the maternity photos, we did include Sierra and Otto, Kelly and Mort's two dogs. In fact, as we were starting, Otto jumped right up on the couch with Kelly and laid down with his head on her leg, right against her belly. So adorable! I had a great time taking Kelly's photos -- she definitely has that "glow!" Some of my favorites:

Otto, protecting his Mom's belly!

Love, love, love this one!




Friday, February 11, 2011

Friday randomness


Some randomness for your Friday:

I'm currently reading working my way through Madame Bovary.... it's one of those books I promised myself I would read but I'm just not loving it.

We're starting season four of The Tudors. So far, Catherine of Aragon is my favorite queen.

My laborador sheds more than any dog has a right to....but I still love her.

Speaking of dogs, both need baths and toe nails clipped. One likes the bath, the other is good for toe nail clipping, but neither is happy about the entire process, despite treats of yummy things like hot dogs for bribes.

Jared has been nothing short of amazing the last few weeks. I'm so lucky to have him!

My Grandma is coming to visit next week, and I simply can't wait. She's such an amazing lady and I love that she comes to spend time with us!

Before Grandma gets here, I have two shoots to do and a house that needs some significant cleaning. :)

That's probably enough randomness for one day.... So I'll leave you with this pretty random photo I took in the backyard a few weeks ago.... Enjoy your weekend!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Lens love....


So I received my new Sony 24-70mm, f2.8 lens in the mail this afternoon...

And oh, I do believe I'm in love... Well, I know I am that, but let me tell you, I'm not really sure how I've lived without this lens for so long. So first, for the non-technical people reading this blog, let me give you a brief introduction to this lens. The 24-70mm part means how far it can zoom. This range is appropriate for images like portraits where the subject is fairly close. This is a pretty standard zoom range for a lot of lenses, so that alone doesn't make this particular lens special. What does do that is the Carl Zeiss glass (which I won't cover here but suffice it to say that Zeiss glass is the BEST you can get. period.) and the ability to open the aperture up to f2.8.  So what does that mean? That means in lower light, I can shoot faster shutter speeds which means less blur because of motion and less grain because of changing my ISO. It also means that wide open, I get a lovely bokeh (a basic definition of that here).... 

So of course I had to play a bit.... First, two images taken with my "kit" lens, a 18-70mm f3.5-5.6:


Notice that a fair amount of the foreground is in focus in most of these shots, while the background is slightly blurred.

Now, with the new lens (taken on a different day, which accounts for the change in light/color temp/grass in some of these):
Notice how less of the foreground is in focus? And if you look really closely, you can see better bokeh in the background? It's a bit tricky to see on these photos, due to their lighting. 

All in all, I'm super excited to try this lens during my maternity shoot this weekend. Can't wait to see the possibilities! And not to leave Bella out, I took a few of her this afternoon too: