This past weekend, Thanksgiving weekend, was a time to visit with my family and spend some time at Tahoe with my brother and his daughter.  Although I love to take photos of people, there is no better photo opportunity for me than photographing my family.  This weekend was great for that.

My niece (above right) asked me to take a few head shots of her for a Christmas gift for her grandfather.  So, I took her outside and we just had a good time together taking some photos.  She’s quite photogenic (maybe aside from the above photo) and a fun gal to be around.  She and my daughter (above left) are close in age (6 months apart) and close friends.  They also look quite a bit alike…many people mistake them for sisters.

So here are a couple of my favorite photos that we took together.  Isn’t she just the cutest thing?

She also brought her boyfriend along.  So, I dragged him outside to do a brief photo shoot of him.

He was cooperative and fun.  It doesn’t hurt that he is very handsome.  I enjoyed getting to know him a little better.

But, the most fun was when I took my niece, my daughter and this young man outside to do a photo shoot with the three of them.  They found some old hats in the cabin and insisted on using them as props.  I’ll let the audience be the judge.  (I told them to pretend they were at a cowboy’s funeral.  This is the pose I got…snort.)

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.