raleigh bridal portraits: erika

i’ve been waiting for over a month to post erika’s bridal portraits! we couldn’t post them back in september because we would run the risk of dustin, erika’s fiancé, seeing them. however, the two were married this weekend in a beautiful ceremony and are now on their honeymoon in vegas, so it’s safe to post! :) i can’t wait to write more about their fantastic wedding after i’m done editing their photographs.

but anyway, back in september erika contacted me to do a bridal shoot that was fun and different. she was getting married at hill ridge farms in youngsville, nc and there were tons of places on that farm to take awesome shots. erika’s a lot of fun and was not afraid to run around a corn field, sit in some hay, or climb over a wall or two! (don’t worry – her dress was fine!) since hill ridge farms is a children’s farm, they had a lot of great “props” and different areas to take some really fun photographs. we had a blast and came away with adorable shots.

16

18

12

45

19

42

40

34

31

46

27

23

tabitha nicholas: dog model extraordinaire.

more tabitha, the adorable dog i had the pleasure of photographing this weekend. someone needs to sponsor her as a dog model for purina or something.

121

morgan and tabitha!

137

173

in north carolina, dogs have favorites when it comes to college sports too. :)

150

tabitha, morgan, and elisa: tabitha only sits still for more than 2 seconds if there’s lots of attention involved – one of the few pictures where her tongue is not out. :)

141

204

116

such a sweetie! hopefully i have the opportunity to do more pet photography sittings in the future. i love to photograph everything, but pets are especially fun to photograph because they present a unique challenge: you cannot pose them. unusually obediant dogs, maybe, but even then it is nothing like posing a person. it’s candid and action photography as its best and definitely keeps you on your toes. you have to constantly adjust camera settings and patiently wait for that perfect moment when the dog actually looks in your direction. :) it was a blast!

csp’s gone to the dogs.

first and foremost, my camera is back!

thank you, canon, for being super awesome in the customer service department. they repaired my baby and had it back to me within 7 days, good as new. they repaired the pixels and the focusing mechanism, cleaned it, and did a wonderful job. it’s good to have you back, camera.

so i resumed shooting on sunday morning when i figuratively put on my pet photographer hat and tromped back into west point on the eno where i was stung/bit several weeks before by an unknown bug assailant. morgan and i had been talking for several weeks about tabitha’s shoot and we were so excited! we originally intended for this to be a sort of halloween/fall type shoot with pumpkins, hay, etc., but quickly found out that it’s generally frowned upon to take your dog to a pumpkin patch, so we had it in the park instead. although we didn’t have pumpkins, tabitha did bring along a few costume changes and her favorite toys.

needless to say, tabitha is an adorable dog! we did lots of posed “glamour” tabitha shots and lots of action/au naturale shots of tabitha romping through the woods. both came out equally cute. this was such a fun shoot! thanks to morgan and elisa who helped make this shoot incredibly amusing and for helping pose my most wiggly subject yet. :)

076

019

017

080

044

129

0141

more doggone fun tomorrow…(sorry, i just can’t resist these dog puns)…

0511