Oyster Roast

I had a great weekend celebrating the upcoming nuptials of our good friends Thomas and Katie. We were a part of a group of their friends that hosted an Oyster Roast at Landmark Tavern in downtown Raleigh. I volunteered to photograph the party and had a fun time capturing all the details and friends and family members having a great time. Everyone was in a celebratory mood, the food was fantastic, and there was an Oyster cake! Even the weather cooperated. Katie and Thomas have a wonderful group of friends who you could tell were really excited to help celebrate them and their engagement. Here are some highlights from the festivities:

 the bride-to-be welcoming her guests

                                               Oyster cake!

 

 

The fish bowl filled with embarrassing stories of the couple for the roast of them at the end of the night!

Good times with great food & great friends!

A New Love?

Okay, maybe "love" is overdoing it, but definitely a new infatuation. I recently upgraded to the DROID by Motorola and I am HOOKED, line and sinker. I had no idea how the apps would change my life, or distract me from it as it were... having google available at your fingertips can be dangerous... but there's no turning back now!

Its modes of procrastination are limitless with the barcode scanner to help me find the cheapest place to buy anything with a barcode, the urbanspoon to tell me where to dine, E!online for my latest celebrity gossip, google sky just in case I need to know what constellation I'm looking at, Fandango to see what movie I'd like to see and buy a ticket ahead of time, Live Scores so I know how my favorite teams are doing, the Weather Channel which lists the current conditions of all my favorite places, and I'm just one touch away from Facebook. If only there was an app to clean my house.... a girl can dream.

Dog Walking 101

Whoever said having 2 dogs is just as easy as having 1 has some explaining to do, or maybe they just haven't met Harvey and Belle. Belle is Phillip's "dog sibling" i.e. his parents' dog. While they were on vacation in Costa Rica we volunteered to watch Belle, a West Highland White Terrier. She's not known for being the most welcoming to other dogs... Phillip likes to tell the story of the time she lunged at a Rottweiler's jugular in the vet's office. However, she and Harvey warmed up to each other soon enough. Well, maybe him more so than her. He seemed to enjoy the company, but she mostly just tolerated him. It was a different story on walks though. You would have thought they had been best friends forever. At first Belle would only walk 5 feet behind him, but by the end of the week they would walk right next to each other and sniff the same things, try to eat the same "gutterjerky" as we call it and bark at other dogs together. It got tricky when they had to get down to "business" though as Phillip found out. The trio had paused to let one dog relieve himself and as Phillip performed the dreaded duty that follows, the dogs had managed to tangle their leashes around his legs unbeknownst to him. Just then a car drove by close to the sidewalk and another neighbor walking her dog approached, sending everyone into a frenzy. Phillip went down... poo in hand (thank goodness it was bagged). Luckily he can laugh at himself, just as the neighbor did at the scene and I did when he returned and said "you will not believe what the dogs did." It makes it hard to be mad at them when you're laughing hysterically though. Bad dogs ;)

These pics are from a walk with the rascals around Lake Johnson one Saturday morning. Luckily, no humans were hurt. 

Walking Buddies

 

Belle

 

Duck on a log 

The Name Game

Well, we did it! We adopted a dog and no one else can claim him - we have the microchip to prove it! After scouring through scores of craigslist postings, petfinder postings and visits to shelters and SPCAs, some close by in Raleigh, others way the heck down south, almost to South Carolina, we found him or actually maybe he found us.

Phillip's mom told us about a rescue organization in Wake Forest called Saving Grace. The founder, Molly, goes around to rural shelters in North Carolina and has a way of figuring out if the dog can be rehabilitated and will make a good family pet. She was at the Johnston County Animal Control shelter when she spotted a black terrier mix. She asked the AC how he was taken in and was told that they found him and another dog tied to a tree with no shelter, food or water - how awful?! They approached the owners and they said they didn't want them anyways, so AC took them away. Luckily for them, Molly rescued both of them, not knowing they were brought in together. Unfortunately, due to the high volume of dogs brought in to the shelters, they only have a week to be adopted or else they have to euthanize them. It's pretty heart breaking going into the shelters knowing that this is their last chance. We knew we wanted a shelter dog, but it's hard to tell what they will be like when they're in such a terrifying situation. The dogs we attempted to meet were actually afraid of us and some wouldn't even leave their cages. It's pretty depressing. I definitely have a better appreciation of Bob Barker's spay & neuter your pets campaign.

Thankfully Molly knows what she's doing and works around the conditions of the shelters. So after our application was accepted, we set up an appointment to meet "Freeman" - the name Saving Grace had given him. As soon as we walked through the gate, he came running up to greet us with lots of kisses and a happy tail wagging. He snuggled up to us both when we kneeled down, so we knew he was The One right away and a few minutes later he was ours! That was the easy part... the next part was not so easy. What are we going to call him? He hadn't been at Saving Grace too long, so he didn't know a name yet - our options were endless. It seemed like anytime we were together we were shouting out different names at each other. We'd poll family, friends, co-workers... really anyone who was willing to give an opinion, which people are generally not shy about giving. We finally narrowed it down to a top 10 list in no particular order:

1) Wallace
2) Duncan
3) Oscar
4) Harvey
5) Griffin
6) Roscoe
7) Johnny
8) Buddy
9) Lincoln 
10) Walter

I don't think we even really had a favorite since neither of us was willing to go out on a limb and say "he is definitely a ____." Days went by. Inquisitive emails from family and friends pressed for an answer. Our deadline came and went and we still couldn't decide. Finally, the day of the vet appointment arrived. It was kind of do or die. We had narrowed it down to 3 names - Walter, Harvey and Oscar - but couldn't decide. Phillip made the executive decision to list him as one of the names at the appointment. Afterward he told me the name he chose and I still wasn't sure, so I suggested we call him another name. It still didn't feel right calling him by that name either. By this point, we were pretty exhausted by our sub-par decision-making skills so we would just shout out random names to him and finally one stuck.... (drum roll please)

I introduce to you HARVEY! (which as luck would have it happened to be the name we told the vet) Isn't he handsome?

Suiter

Meet Miss Suiter. This little lady with an angelic face was wide awake and raring to go when I arrived early Sunday morning for a quick photo shoot. Her mom said she was all smiles and giggles right before I got there, so of course when the camera came out she was very serious, but at least there were no tears! Phew! And as much as we tried, she couldn't stay asleep unless she was snuggled up with mom - too much to see! So I just focused on capturing her gorgeous features, tiny hands and feet and beautiful decor of her nursery. I did catch one lucky shot of her blinking so it looks like she's sleeping - don't be fooled though - she sees all. Mom was great about changing outfits and keeping her happy while I snapped away. I'm still figuring out a lot - I think taking pictures of babies must be one of the most difficult things in photography - but was very happy with a few of the photos!

Here are my favorites:

 and now in color

 

tiny toes

 

"sleeping"

black & white version

tiny hands

 

Rocking her to sleep

 

 

Sound asleep when snuggled up with mom... 

I love the baby fuzz! So soft!

baby blue eyes

 Thanks for a great shoot ladies!

Professional Photographers of North Carolina

One of my assignments for my photography class involved purchasing some film for an in class project. While in Southeastern Camera, I started chatting with one of the owners and inquired about photographers needing second shooters for weddings - gotta start building that portfolio! - and additional local resources for someone who's just starting out. As luck would have it, the store keeps a list of people available as second shooters so they added my name (I scanned it and there weren't too many people listed!) AND I found out about the upcoming Professional Photographers of NC workshop in Durham the last weekend of February. And the icing on the cake? They're handing out free tickets to the trade show. Sweet!

Now unlike Phillip, who scored about as high as you can score on the extrovert portion of the Myers Briggs and is as charming as they come, I'm not the most extroverted person - we balance each other out that way. So the idea of walking up to strangers, who I want to be just like, is pretty intimidating. What do I say? Hi, my name is Laura. How do I do what you do? What's your secret to success?  Photoshop or Lightroom? Nikon or Canon? Do you need someone to mentor because I'm available? Need an assistant who'll work for free? I'll do it! Please teach me everything you know.... not likely. But if I'm seriously going to do this, I'm going to have to step out of my comfort zone... eek. I'm getting nauseous just thinking about it. This is what I want to do though and I'm passionate about it, so I'm just going to have to suck it up and turn on the charm. I'm sure I have some hiding somewhere ;)   

Here's to taking chances! PPA here I come! 

And representing my motivation is this picture of me sitting on top of The Law in North Berwick, Scotland. This was our first day there and we hadn't slept in over 24 hours, so needless to say we were pretty exhausted, but didn't want to miss a second of the great weather since it was supposed to rain the rest of the trip. So we hiked and on the hike, ran into an American student studying photography! I remember being so jealous that she had figured out the photography "thing" at such a young age, but also inspired that this was something obtainable and grateful that I had the clarity to see my passion now. So here I am, no shower and no sleep, but grinning ear to ear after climbing 187 m (613 ft) to the top of The Law. Whenever I am feeling lazy, I look at the picture and tell myself to get off my bum and go climb a mountain (or very large hill). No excuses!

Sunny San Diego

I'm currently holed up at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego on business. The plan was to bring my camera to take a few pics should any free time fall into my lap, but with my carry on and personal item filled to the brim and weighing all most as much as I do... ok, that's an exaggeration, but they are pretty heavy... I had to nix the DSLR camera and planned to throw in my point-and-shoot; however, that got left behind along with my toothpaste. So I'm left with my camera phone, which is actually not too shabby. Here are few photos I snapped with my LG:

View from my hotel room

Gas Lamp District Entrance

Padres Stadium

View of the marina and a Dole Cargo Ship -- That is A LOT of bananas


Entrance to the Embarcadero Marina Park 

View from the Convention Center of the sunset over the marina 

As a side note, while in the RDU airport, I realized that my fingernails looked pretty atrocious. As luck would have it, 2 gates down from my departure gate was the Xpress Spa. I've wandered by it quite a few times on other trips, always curious, but never enough time. Well, for once I actually arrived at the suggested hour and a half before my flight, so I took advantage of the spare time and got a manicure. It was definitely relaxing to sit in the massage chair and let all the stress from traveling, work, life, etc. just melt away and for half an hour I enjoyed some "me" time. Even though it was brief, it definitely did the trick and I was recharged and energized for the next few days of long work hours. I highly recommend it!