Alex

My sweet Alex! Another one of my clients, she has dealt with one health issue after another including 3 bouts of cancer! At one point, the veterinarian only gave her months to live, and yet today, 3 years later, she is still going strong! I don't get to see her as often anymore, but she still gives me the best greeting when I pay her a visit! There's nothing like the wiggle dance and being smoothered with kisses by this trooper of a dog!

Leo

Leo is one of my clients and an absolute blast to care for. He is a great about posing for me...that is until he can't resist the temptation to play with the tennis ball lying by my feet!

Sean

Today is my nephew's 6th birthday. I took this photo of Sean on sunday at his birthday party. I've always sworn I would be the type of photographer who would do only minor adjustments to any photo I take. But I have to admit, as I study other photographers' work, I have found myself drawn to many images that have been digitally manipulated, some would say, enhanced.

Sunday was an overcast day and Sean was in the backyard playing with my dog. Knowing I needed a fast shutter speed, I upped my ISO to 800 which created a grainy image, thus the first decision to convert to black and white. I felt the image still needed something else, so I added the vignette and a black border around the edge. So far, it looks better than the original color photo, but I think I can do better. I've already spent a lot of time playing around with various options...have I discovered my new addiction???

PS...Happy birthday Sean!!!

Riley & Gaby

Pomeranians Riley & Gaby have two puppies who I had also hoped to photograph and create a collage of their "family." But the puppies are still to young yet to sit still for long, so nothing I photographed of them was in focus.

Sailor

This is my friend's horse Sailor. I have a slice of an apple in my one hand and my camera in the other. I had already given Sailor a couple of slices and he knew I had more, but when I didn't give him another right away, he let me know of his frustration!

I am currently reading Bryan Peterson's book Learning to see Creatively: How to Compose Great Photographs and I just read the chapter on wide angle lenses the night before. My lens is an 18 - 135 mm lens and my comfort zone hovers around 35 - 100 mm. Remembering what I just read and hoping to create an image more unique than what I normally take, I played around with the lens using only a wide-angle setting.

Centre Hall Farm

This morning promised to be a great day, but shortly after I photographed this farm the sun went behind the clouds not to be seen again. I had hoped to find some more farms in Central PA to photograph later in the day, but I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Mill Creek

I went back to this creek in Gladwyne and took some more photos. So much snow had melted in just a day it almost looked like a different creek. I also changed some settings on my camera and had better results.

In like a lion...

March arrived with a vengeance by dumping 8 inches of snow in the area. I've been sick with a really bad cold lately and would have rather March arrived like a lamb instead.

After spending over a week in bed trying to get better, I finally felt well enough to venture out and took my camera with me to take some photos yesterday. I started out by looking for a park I discovered in Gladwyne last year but found this creek in another park instead. I don't know how anyone finds their way around this area when every town has a Bryn Mawr Ave and it is not the same road!

I've been wanting to take a photo where I could blur the motion of flowing water to create a silky look. Having a sturdy tripod is a must for these images and the $30 KMart special I previously owned was not good enough for the task. I'm hoping the snow will stick around for a little while yet so I can go back and work on this some more.

On a side note, one of my photos was recently selected by schmap.com to be published in the latest Key West Florida edition. Check it out at this website:
http://www.schmap.com/floridakeys/sights_attractions/p=273605/i=273605_7.jpg