For the Love ~ Under the Lights

Right, so that blogging I promised you? Here it is! At least the first bit of it. So awhile back the ladies of For the Love got together downtown for an "Under the Lights" photo shoot. Basically, just practicing shooting in low light with whatever ya got -- flash, no flash, whatever! We met at Maude's, wandered around the Sun Center and then made our way to Sakura, which is a fabulous little cupcake bakery! So feast your eyes on some prettiness from downtown Gainesville... Thanks so much to Debra and Kelly for coming out and for Wendy who made it even though she was a tad bit late! ;)  And look out for more For the Love get-togethers coming up.. .

Debra and Kelly! :)

This may be my new favorite place downtown.... seriously good cupcakes.

Look at all of those choices!! 

Seriously yummy stuff here... and such a cute place. Definitely need to go back... any takers? :)

Nate & Meagan ~ Gainesville Portrait Photographer

So I know I promised these awhile ago... let's just say it's been an interesting few weeks! Seems like as soon as I get home, get dinner and sit down to edit, I'm asleep on the couch.

Anyways, more from Nate and Meagan's amazing shoot. The fun thing about concept and styled shoots is that I can edit in new and fun ways. So here are a few of my favorites....

Shoot styled by: Anwen Elizabeth Photography, Chrissy Rose Photography, and Sarah Reed Photography

Hair and Makeup: Stephanie Bliss

Models: Meagan and Nate Weinstock and Frannie the Wonder Dog!

Assistant: Lori Garrett

It's been how long??

Yeah, so just call me a slacker now. Except that I really do have good excuses... really. None of this "the dog ate my homework" type stuff either... so where have I been? Why has my blog gotten slightly dusty? Let's see... since the last blog post I have had one amazing concept shoot (put together by the lovely ladies at Anwen Elizabeth Photography, Chrissy Rose Photography and myself), have been to Connecticut and back on business, and now have some family in town. So last night, more than a week after the concept shoot, I finally had a chance to actually look through the photos I took that day. So today you get a sneak peek, just enough to pull you in and get you as excited about it as we were and still are! Meagan and Nate were awesome models, as was their adorable Basset, Frannie. So enjoy some of the eye candy and check back for more later this week!

Some of the amazing details:

Frannie was super all afternoon!

Love this shot. Totally Chrissy's idea!

 RAWR! Both of you. Seriously...

And a shot of the 3 photogs. Laugh like Julia Roberts!! 

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 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!

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: 

Sarah & Lisa ~ Daytona Beach Recital Photographer

I love my family. We all have unique talents and generally aren't afraid to share them with the world (for better or worse!). Unfortunately, because we live so far apart from the majority of our family, Jared and I often don't get to participate in the fun goings-on. (Not sure if that's a word, but for today, I'm making it a word. So use it often; tomorrow it probably won't count.) So naturally I was excited when my sister-in-law, Sarah (yes, there are two Sarah Reeds in our family), told us she was traveling to Daytona Beach to perform. You see, Sarah is a singer (you can check out her website here), a soprano to be exact, and she was invited to perform at Bethune-Cookman University with the lovely Lisa Lawrence on piano. So of course Jared and I drove over to see her, and the recital was wonderful. More wonderful was the chance to hang out for a bit, something we don't have the chance to do much more often than Christmas and maybe once in the summer. I took a few "action shots" for Sarah and Lisa during the sound check -- didn't want to interrupt the performance with my camera clicking away!