Leah 2009 Bat Mitzvah Party

Here are some photographs from Leah's Bat Mitzvah puppy party at the Laurel View Country Club. She had a great party with lots of kids, lots of dancing, tattoos, games, entertainment, etc. Wow! The theme was a dog/puppy theme and every table had an icon breed. The kids all received bags with lots of stuff inside -- puppy stuffed animals, puppy hats, socks (so the could ditch their shoes and dance around comfortably), candy, etc.







This is her with her lifelong friend Eliza.

We just photographed Eliza's Bat Mitzvah and party in June.

There were sooo many great photographs that we took at her party. I could not pick just a couple so I created a few collages. The collages help you get an idea of how exciting this event was and what a great time everyone had.



Attention to detail was evident everywhere you looked -- from the t-shirts being made to the ice cream sundae station. Everyone had a good time.

Leah's parents (middle) are just great, easy to work with and very proud of their children. They looked on proudly as their daughter reached this milestone. And you can see everyone from newborn to one woman in her nineties was dancing!

The candle ceremony was very touching to watch, and at the end of lighting all the candles I so enjoyed watching Leah's parents look on as she made her wish and blew out her candles.

We will be placing the the rest of Leah's photographs online in her web gallery http://tlc.smugmug.com/gallery/8710144_Pa4fJ as soon as her parents pick up their photos...

Photographs of BJ outside

Here are a few photos of BJ, taken outside on a stone wall. We used the sun-swatter (from Sunbounce) to create the nice diffused light on her, then threw a little warmth back in with a gold reflector (also from Sunbounce). The sun-swatter was very effective, but required one person to hold it and another to hold the reflector -- The suns-watter created some great light (these were taken at 3:00 in the afternoon).


I just love the next three black and white photographs! She has a great smile!
And this image with her eyes closed is very effective as she looks serene and happy!







Here is another version of BJ with her eyes closed and that great expression!



I thought that this series of 6 images tells a lot.

You can see the rest of her photos here: http://www.tlc.smugmug.com/gallery/8518263_EyyCZ

I happened to take these photographs, but ones that Tom took are also posted in her gallery.

Sugar Hill, New Hamphire

Tom and I spent a long weekend (for our Anniversary) in Sugar Hill, New Hamphire -- mainly to photograph the lupine. I follow the lupine blooms via Harman's website every year, but it was great to get there this year!

We stayed at the Rustic Log Cabins, right along the stream.

We ate at Polly's Pancake Parlor all four mornings -- if you have never been there you are missing out! MMmmmmmm!

We ate at Adair Friday night, photographing their grounds during the day. Great food, but worth a visit even if you do not eat there.

The lupine were very different than the last two times that we were there, but there were lots of flowers out -- and so many different colors and color combinations. Sunday morning we photographed for three hours in a light mist and were well rewarded with great color saturation and water droplets.

This was the only moose that we saw :-) but we did see a lot of wildlife...

We saw a variety of wildlife: three bears (one up big one close), deer, turkeys, a porcupine, a common snipe (right across from Polly's pancake parlor all day), bluebirds with babies, a great blue heron, red winged blackbirds (with babies), a kingfisher (caught a fish and beat it on a branch before eating it), lots cedar waxwings, a pair loons (very close one morning), etc.

Common snipe, at Polly's

Female red winged blackbird, at Polly's

Female red winged blackbird, with baby, at Pearl Lake

We took hundreds of photographs of this pair of bluebirds feeding their young with a plethora of insects and worms.

You can see some more photos of this trip here: http://tlc.smugmug.com/gallery/8571654_Ei5Fc

more of Trinette

Here are five more images of Trinette. She ordered these five individual photographs plus 18 other images...

The rest of her images can be viewed on our website: http://www.tlc.smugmug.com/gallery/8518223_yQrnL

Trinette

We had a lot of fun photographing Trinette, a model and a photographer, this weekend. Click on the images for larger versions. And you can see the rest of her photos here: http://tlc.smugmug.com/gallery/8518223_yQrnL

Which meditation expression (above) do you like best: happy or contemplative??

Tom took the "Fred Astaire" images...

Tom and Lisa earn end of the season photo awards

The end of the season scores for the New Haven Camera Club were announced last night at the Banquet. You can view all of images from the 08-09 NHCC season competition here: http://www.newhavencameraclub.org/images.htm

Tom's photographs earned him First Place for the Print competiton for the 08-09 season and my photographs placed me in First Place for the assigned subject for the 08-09 season.

My photograph of a hummingbird at a Dahlia flower (taken at a breakfast brunch in the Adirondacks) earned second place for the End of the Year comeptition for class A.

Sally the surfing Dog

Sally is such a unique dog -- she LOVES the ocean. She is very good at the waves too!

Watch the slideshow...

See the rest of Sally's photos here: http://tlc.smugmug.com/gallery/8356022_6dVm4

Video made using Animoto: http://animoto.com/?ref=oktlubph

Sneak peak at Leah's Bat Mizvah

Here is a sneak peak at Leah's Bat Mitzvah.

We will post a few photographs from Leah's "Puppy Party" at the Laurel View Country Club soon!

Leah has a gallery on our website: http://tlc.smugmug.com/Portraits/666595 with a few select photographs in it. The rest of the photographs from her Bat Mitzvah and her puppy party at the Laurel View Country Club will be psoted here soon.

We actually got to GO to a wedding

Tom and I rarely go to weddings (when we are not working that is) but recently we have two as Bob and Laura got married a few weeks ago (and our nephew is getting married in a couple of weeks). It is very strange to sit back and just enjoy ourselves.

Of course we always take a few snapshots...

Like Tom and I, Bob and Laura met via our photography (they met at NECCC last summer) and there were two tables from NHCC and a table from CT-PPA.

Before the toast the best man described a conversation that he had with Bob about his photography a while back: he was trying to ascertain if Bob might be interested in selling his photographs, etc. -- making money from his hobby since he had bought all this photography equipment. Bob's reply was that he would be very happy if he ever made back his investment on his photography equipment. Bob's Best Man at the wedding added to this story that Bob had indeed made back more than ten-fold on his investment because that very investment resulted in him meeting and marrying Laura!

Tom had a little fun that evening, trying some interesting flash patterns, panning while the couples walked in, dragging the shutter, etc. Here are four composites of photos that Tom took -- the whole day both Bob and Laura were just BEAMING. Two very happy people!



I am never in the photographs because I am always behind the lens, but I made it into a few that night. Even Art's bunny made it into the photographs!

To view a few of the photos that Tom took that evening please check out this gallery: http://tlc.smugmug.com/gallery/8359706_sDcSJ

Eliza iPod session

Meet Eliza, a wonderful and energetic young lady. We photographed her for this iPod session and ended up taking a large variety of images. She was a pleasure to work with! we will be photographing her Bat Mitzvah in June.

I created the first iPod Eliza and then I found an image that I thought would work even better, then I could not choose so I found a third image and this is the collage that we created for Eliza's signature photograph for her party after her Bat Mitzvah (Hulahanks)

We loved her hair so we also tried one with her lying down and her hair splayed out. I do like the way that it turned out, except that she looks like she is college age not 13!

Here is the same image without the iPod silhouette effect applied...

OK, these next few were really fun. We had poor Eliza doing all kinds of jumps, splits, etc. etc. So for these next few she got to sit indian style on our posing stool, which I later removed in post-processing...so here she is on cloud nine...

Adding in the iPod and now she is on cloud nine listening to her favorite tunes...

Can you tell the different between these next two???

Hint click on them to make them larger.

OK no hocus pocus for this one, just a wonderful portrait of this beautiful young lady.

Like I said we had a great session, creating many more images than anticipated. Here is a collage of a few..

I had to include the last one, in black and white, because I loved the cheerleading move whjere she jumped up and was almost completely horizontal in the air. Can you tell that she is a flyer in cheerleading?

We are looking forward to photographing Eliza's Bat Mitzvah and her party at Hulahanks afterwards. To see more of here photographs from this session take a look at her gallery on our website: http://upload.smugmug.com/photos/add.mg?AlbumID=8701375