The other day my niece was getting ready to head out with my daughter for some shopping or beach or something fun.  She put her makeup on in the living room (which I found particularly fascinating).  I decided to practice my bride-getting-ready-in-low-light-situations photography.  She was my “bride” and totally ignored me as I sat not far from her snapping away. she carefully applied her lipgloss and eye makeup and all the other stuff that young girls do to look great.

After she was done, she waited for my daughter…

And waited…

And finally dozed off.

But she looked beautiful!

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  • September 3, 2008 - 6:31 pm

    Lesley - I love these photos! They are particularly extraordinary, and your model is exquisite! I’m sure that this is your best work to date! So what if she’s my kid, I’m serious about this!

Last week most of my photography was of stationary objects like stamp mills, gold mines, old buildings and landscape type photos.  Those are always a lot of fun because I have a lot of time to think about my subject, what type of light is on it and how I want to compose the photo. However, there’s no relationship with these things other than finding something interesting that can be photographed.

With people, and especially people candids, it’s just the opposite.  Sometimes I don’t have a lot of time to think about the light and composition.  Because of that, sometimes the photos just don’t come across like I remember seeing them. The lighting was bad or the subject turned away at just the wrong moment or they see me and give me a goofy grin. The challenge is developing a relationship with the subject so that they will be comfortable around the camera, or positioning yourself so that they don’t really notice the camera and you can get a true personality picture.

The other day I was invited to a friend’s birthday party and I dragged my camera along. (It’s not like I ever leave the house without my camera.  In fact, I even take the camera with me when I pick my son up from school every day…you never know.)  These people know me pretty well, and so they are used to me having the camera up to my face whenever I’m around.  The party was fun because it was a late afternoon (think: good light) pool party (lots of splashing and action shots).  The only downside was that there wasn’t a lot of little kids around, and kids always make for fun photography.  In fact, there was only one little 3rd grade girl, who really doesn’t like to have her photo taken, but there were 2 dogs.  And dogs can be fun subjects as long as you are not trying to get them to look into the camera or sit still for a portrait.

One of the dogs (above) was not afraid to get in the water.  He was having a great time.  The other dog, a pit bull, was not particularly interested in getting in the water, but he was really interested in the ball that the oldest daughter was tossing into the water.

I love photographing this young woman, my birthday friend’s oldest daughter, and I’ve known her long enough that she trusts me.  She loves to swim and she loves her dog and I think her personality really shines in these photos.

Again, I love to take pictures of beautiful places and interesting things…but my heart is in people photography.  I never get tired of it.

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  • September 1, 2008 - 2:21 am

    Julie Winkle - I just love your photos Karen! They are inspiring, bee-utiful and just plain good!

    love,
    Julie W.

  • September 1, 2008 - 3:52 am

    Lesley - The middle photo looks like it just needs to have the dog superimposed over something…I’m not sure what, you’re more creative, but what a great pose! My dog is half pit, half lab, and she only likes to wade into the water up to her tummy. I always say she’s only half lab, so she only gets half wet!

Baldwin Estate

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…

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  • August 28, 2008 - 6:51 pm

    Lesley - That’s fantastic! Congratulations!

Well, I got an email this morning that I’m in the running for winning the “Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk” best shot in our group – South Lake Tahoe, CA.  The leader wanted me to send him full size images of these photos:

(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.

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  • August 27, 2008 - 11:34 pm

    Lesley - Good luck on the contest! Terrific shots btw. We were up there at the Baldwin Estates in July and it was so incredibly pretty. You did a great job capturing it!

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.

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