Un Natural Nature

I have been distracted recently with an injury, but am also trying to expand my photography.  Here are a few composite photos that I have been working on.  I very much enjoy shooting wildlife (with the camera of course) and have been trying to add a bit of creativity to those shots by merging a few of my birds into different environments or “stages.”

This is still a work in progress, but I’ve enjoyed working on these so far.  Thanks to my friend Patrick for the idea, check out his Macro photography here.

An Assortment of Birds

It’s been a little longer than I’d like since my last photo post.  I’ve hurt my ankle and between doctor visits, physical therapy, and working an alternate schedule at work to accommodate for my injury I haven’t had a lot of down time.  I’m back to my normal schedule at least now, and am doing a little less running around.  Here are a few shots of birds I saw at at the Brevard Zoo here in Florida.  I think they are so beautiful!  (Not necessarily the photographs, but the birds!)  I just love watching them.  The more I photograph birds, the more I want to be a wildlife photographer.  That can be a very expensive hobby to have, unfortunately. 

The Bald Eagle

The Red-Tailed Hawk

The Blue and Gold Macaw

Thanks for taking a look!

Meerkat Mob

Aside from the Giraffe exhibit, this is where I spent most of my time at the Brevard Zoo.  I went on my way into the zoo for a while, and again on the way out.  Here is my photoshoot with the Meerkats! 

Meerkats are matriarchal, and the alpha female has control over the group.  Below is Kiki, the head of the mob in this exhibit.  I knew I had to get a portrait of the head, and she was a pleasure to work with.  She does look fierce doesn’t she?

Here you can see her playing a slightly more gentle role… I thought it was sweet but at first as you can see no one really wanted to look at the camera for me. 

That’s better.. sort of.  I love how she has her arm wrapped around the baby.  It definitely shows her softer motherly side.

I caught these (brothers?) guys just hanging out back to back… but again you see my dilemma with not getting them to look at me.  The little one on the left just didn’t’ want to have his photo taken at all.  They remind me of a certain little white furball who lives with me. 

After waiting around a while longer, and a little coaxing from his buddy, I got both of them at least looking in the same direction.  I would have liked to have a better angle, but for these guys I’ll take it!

Aren’t they cute!

Okay, finally I was attempting to organize a family photo (or partial family, there were many more meerkats not in this shot.)  But as you can see, I had my work cut out for me. 

A very long time, and many shots later, this is the best we could do.  Christmas card worthy? 

The Meerkats may look cute and cuddly, but don’t be fooled.  As soon as food is out they are vicious!  We got to see the zoo keeper put food out and they went pretty crazy.  I wouldn’t dare get in their way. 

I very much enjoyed my time watching these guys, and I hope you like the pictures!  If you’d like to read a little about the exhibit or see some additional photos, the zoo has an article about them here:  http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/2014/04/meerkat-brevard-zoo.html

Thanks for looking!

A Day at the Park

It is a rare day when I venture out into the Disney parks when I’m not working.  But today was one of those occasions, and of course I had my camera.  My original intention was to take some photos of the Tower of Terror, and use a black and white edit to create kind of a spooky, mysterious image.  I just couldn’t find a vantage point I liked. So naturally, then I just started stalking the wildlife.  It started with these two, wondering around begging for breadcrumbs. 

Caption this photo! Ha I wonder what is going on in their heads. Probably something like “this crazy woman with a black box stuck on her face keeps following us around, what do we do?”

Next it was time to grab a peanut butter and jelly milkshake (the main reason for the trip into the park to begin with).  Yes, a peanut butter and jelly milkshake.  It’s from Fifties Prime Time Café at Hollywood studios, and it is delicious.  I highly recommend it. 

But on the way there, I saw baby ducks and they were just too adorable to not stop for more photos.  The problem is they were tiny.  And very very fast.  So after, oh I don’t know, fifty or eighty snaps I managed a few with the little ducklings close enough to see clearly, that weren’t either blurry or too dark from a fast shutter.

The adult ducks were pretty relaxed, and even seemed to pose from time to time. 

Kind of unrelated, but I really liked the look of these flowers I also ran across today.  I felt like the color took away from the interesting textures, so decided to go with a black and white edit for these.

Thanks for taking a look, and Happy Friday!

Recap–My First Wedding Shoot continued

When I was first going through my photos after the wedding I was so excited with the moments that I had captured for Mizza and Jose.  Then came the hard part, hours – and I mean hours – of editing.  Probably too many hours, but I’m still learning and will get things done quicker as I get more practice. I love editing, and in addition to getting every photo of a quality that I was happy with, I took some creative liberties to add a little unique artistic flare.  These are a few of my favorites.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Recap–My First Wedding Shoot!

June of 2014, I had the amazing experience of photographing my first wedding for a great friend.  I was so happy with the way everything turned out, and want to share just a few of my favorite shots.  I’m breaking this up into two posts – this first one with images that I loved pretty much right out of the camera and had to do very little editing.  In the next post I’ll include some of my favorite creative edits. 

This one above I just love.  This is Brandon looking up at his mom on her wedding day, and the look on his face is just precious.  He told her she looked like a princess.

I had a little fun playing around with perspective here, letting Mizza be a “fairy bride.”

 

Thanks for taking a look!

Flower and Garden Part 2–A Few More Details

Here are a few close up shots of the flowers I came across.  It was pretty windy out and I tried to get as close as I could with my lens, so focus isn’t as sharp as I’d like it to be. A Macro lens is definitely on my wish list.   

Thanks for stopping by!