Obie T. Dogg stops to smell the flowers

I spent most of the summer in my favorite place, Lake Tahoe, CA.  My family has owned a summer home and now a part time home since 1952.  The original summer “home” was built by my dad and his best friend, Allen Combellack.  It was, how should I say it, rustic.  For a while there were no stairs to the upstairs and so they used a ladder to get to the bedrooms.  The interior walls were not finished for years…in other words, the bare 2×4′s were uncovered. My parents finally bought their own place in the 1980′s.  They have since passed away, so my brother and I have inherited this place.  I am greatly humbled by the hard work my parents did to own this place and then graciously passed it on to us.

The time I spent up there with my family and friends over the years hooked me.  I love the lake, the beautiful natural surroundings, Izzy Burgers, The Rainbow Trail, Kiva Beach, swimming in Emerald Bay, walking in the forest behind our house and everything else about the place.  So, this year I have spent quite a bit of time here, mostly with my dog, Obie T. Dogg.  Here are a few pics that I was able to take while strolling around the area with the dog.

Meadow at Rainbow Trail (Visitor's Center) near Taylor Creek

Fallen Leaf Lake at Sunset

Obie sits on Kiva Beach after taking a swim

Obie watches other dogs frollicking in the lake at Kiva Beach

Baldwin/Pope Estates

Meadow Near Fallen Leaf Lake

We also spent a lot of time in the Angora Burn area, but I’ll save that for another post.

Enjoy!

As I was sitting on the floor in the MGM Grand Convention Center waiting in line for the first speaker of the convention (Sal Cincotta who was fabulous, by the way), this is the view that made me happy to be there.  I spent 5 days in fabulous Vegas attending one of the biggest photographers’ conventions of the year, WPPI or Wedding and Portrait Photographers International.  Sixteen thousand wedding and portrait photographers, vendors, and other people affiliated with the industry were present.  Although most of my days were spent either listening to speakers or browsing the trade show, I did have some time to walk around the city with my camera and a photographer friend of mine. Here are some of my impressions.

And, of course, I made a video slideshow of the whole adventure.

Thanks for stopping by.

It was tough to pick because I had so many fantastic people that I was fortunate enough to photograph this past year.  Thanks to all those who touched my life with beauty and grace and down right fun.

Enjoy

well, the Sacramento Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk competition, that is. (Sacramento, CA USA (Old Sacramento & Railway Museum)) Now…on to the Worldwide competition.

This shot was a last minute edit and entry.  I saw and photographed this train early on in my walk through the museum. I saw lots of other photogs taking pics of this train from all sorts of different angles.  So, I tried my hand at an HDR (3 exposures) of this beauty.

Here’s the original after combining exposures and editing:

Not very dramatic.  Its an okay train photo.

So, I jazzed it up a bit, added some motion, submitted and crossed my fingers.

Now, my photo gets submitted to the Worldwide competition where the other 1100 winners will be submitted.  Some of the world’s best photographers have submitted their photos of the day. The prizes are pretty good:

“…leaders will have one week to choose the winning image from their walk. All of those winning images will then be posted in the People’s Choice gallery where you can vote for the shot you think is the best. The People’s Choice winner will receive a $750 Adorama gift card and a 1-year Kelby Training Online subscription.

While that’s going on, Scott will also be narrowing all of the winning images down to the best of the best to select the top 11 images from the whole event. Those will be the 10 Honorable Mentions (who will receive a $250 Adorama gift card) and the Grand Prize Winner (who will receive a $1000 Adorama gift card and a 1-year Kelby Training Online subscription).”

Somebody tell me to “break a leg”.

This is Gabrielle.  She was a very fun bride.  She danced and jumped and sashayed around in this beautiful wedding gown.  I could not have asked for a better bride for this set of bridal portraits.

I didn’t even have to direct her too much.  She was playful and came up with all sorts of ideas by herself.

I did ask her to leap in the air for joy in this photo and she did it with gusto.

I usually get the best shots when the client is willing to let go and show emotion.  So many people are afraid to show emotion or “let loose” when a camera is in front of their face.  Frankly, I don’t blame them.  There have been too many times when I have seen photos of me taken by loving family members or friends that show my backside, or my mouth open and waiting for a fork full of food, or blinking or…fill in the blank.  So, I  have learned to plaster a phony smile on my face and hope for the best.

However, a professional photography shoot is a little different.  The professional photographer (me) tries to get personality and emotion shots because those are the ones that are the most memorable.  But, she also wants to make you look good.  She wants you to love the pictures that she took.  If your photographer is good, you will never see the photos of your backside, or double chins or mouth full of food.

So, go ahead and let loose.  Show your personality.  Then, trust your photographer to toss the badies and show you only the good ones.

“If you could see what I see”…you just may like it.

I got an email this morning notifying me that I had won our Photo Walk Group’s best shot.  I looked at the photos taken by the other walkers and I am truly honored to have been chosen for this award.  There were some really creative and wonderful photos in the pool.

So, I win a copy of Scott Kelby’s new Lightroom 2.0 book, which is very timely because I just got my copy of Lightroom 2.0 in the mail this week.  Also, my photo will be among the ones in consideration for the grand prize of a bunch of good photography stuff like a Wacom tablet and 2 tickets to Photoshop World in Las Vegas in Sept. (drool…drool).

I’ve checked out the worldwide competition and there are tons and tons of fabulous photos.

Sigh…

(click on the picture for full size…also posted further down the page.)

So…I’m on pins and needles waiting to see if I won the new Scott Kelby Lightroom 2 book, and then my photo will be entered into the worldwide competition.

I’ve also given moved from Beemused in the Country to this new blog.  This should be an adventure.

There were a couple of old cars and a trolley on the Tallac Historic site property that the photographers were attracted to like flies to honey…bees to honey…some kind of bug to honey. Anyway, I enjoy photographing cars but it is hard to get an angle that has never been done before, so I settled on getting a straight-on view and then gave it some antique-ing. Pretty cliche, but I had fun doing it.

One of the biggest differences that I noted this year in the estates were the gardens. They were absolutely breath-taking and I was very jealous. Apparently all the work to maintain the estates is done by volunteers from all over the world. One of the volunteers told me that you sign up for a 5 week gig, but the state only provides an RV hookup, no room or board. There are several hundred volunteers who work very hard to maintain the property.

The gardens not only had flowers and shrubs, but had any items such as this birdhouse, which adds much charm to an already lovely scene.

Now, I enjoyed the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk as well as the next million people who joined in for the walk (I don’t think there were that many…but there could have been). However, there are prizes for this thing. And, not-so-secretly, all of the walkers were vying for that prize…jocky-ing and pushing and shoving to get “THE SHOT OF ALL SHOTS”. “Outta my way”, was the clarion call as tripods were swung at other photographer’s equipment. The photographers that took a moment to kneel down to get the shot were pushed over causing them to roll on the ground like a pill bug, protecting their “precious” Nikon’/Canon/Olympus/etc. camera.

Ha! Just kiddin’. Everyone was polite and nice as pie on our walk…I can’t vouch for other locales that may have more selfish and barbaric tendencies.

I’m just saying…

Anyway, each group leader will pick a winning photo from the group of pictures submitted. The prize for each groups’ winning photo is Kelby’s new book on Lightroom. That’s a nice gift and I wouldn’t turn it down. Those people then have their winning photos submitted to the worldwide competition for a $5,000.00 prize of numerous photoshop/camera related products.

THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT.

I checked out some of the competition on Flickr from other cities, and the competition is stiff. But as someone always says about why they continue to bet money on the lottery…”somebody’s gotta win.”

Right they are.

There were about 15 photo walkers and my husband also came along, (even though he’s not all that interested in photography) because he likes to look at historic stuff and we both like to walk.

We arrived at Kiva Beach/Tallac Historic site around 8:00 a.m. and walked for about 2 hours. The site has been wonderfully restored and is a feast for the eyes. I would highly recommend visiting the site when you are in South Lake Tahoe. After we walked, we all met at Camp Richardson General Store to “chimp” our photos. In case you don’t know what “chimping photos” is, it’s when you look at the photos you took on the back of your camera, and you all say, “Oh”, “ooh”, “ah”, “awww”, etc.

If you want to see photos of the photo walk from all over the world, go to flickr and search for “Scott Kelby Photo Walk”. Amazing photos.

Really!