Cherry Blossom Festival, Finally!

It's been a while since my last blog, and I remember when I said I would post these pictures a while back, so here are my pictures from the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. I know they are late, but I have been working on some cool projects with my photography while continuing to pick up work on the side. Although I have neglected my blog, I have had some wonderful photography opportunities and I am working on an online store to sell my work.

To recap this trip, when I arrived in Washington, D.C. on a Thursday evening, the cherry blossoms had just reached full bloom in the prior weekend, but the weather was not very cooperative with cold rains. The forecasts for my stay were hopeful in that they expected the weather to clear for the weekend festivities. My plan was to walk around early Friday at a minimum to scout some good spots for the festival activities, but what I found was that the weather forecast changed to heavy rain for Friday afternoon. Fearful that the cherry blossoms would not make it through these last rains before the weather cleared, my scouting walk turned into my last chance to get the best photos of cherry blossoms for the weekend.

Although the sky was overcast and the blossoms were not completely full, the experience was still fantastic. Walkers and cyclist passing by were telling me that I missed the bloom, but to my virgin eyes that had never before witnessed this event, the scenes were that much more impressive.

The rain started just after noon and continued to get heavier through the early to late evening. By the next day, the scene was much different, while the blossoms were still evident and cheerful, the fullness was gone. I was grateful that I had brought my gear that Friday morning to scout the scene. Saturday it remained overcast, and I didn't take many photos after that morning, but I got to enjoy the company of friends the whole weekend. Sunday, the weather finally cleared for the kite festival and looked like it was there to stay. My flight home was in the afternoon on Monday, so I planned to get up before the sunrise. The friend that I stayed with has been doing his medical rotations for Med School and is very familiar with leaving his appartment at 4:30 in the morning. He suggested I start at the Iwo Jima Memorial and move towards the Mall as the sun began to rise. The advice was perfect and it was well worth the early morning. Although the friends whom I visited and the experiences outside of photography really made this trip awesome, the photo opportunities and the beauty of this majestic city really puts this weekend in the top of my list of recommended things to see.

Thank you for being patient with my work and continuing to follow in spite of the lapses in blogs. I hope you will soon enjoy the opening of my new online store. My goal is to make my work affordable yet meaningful to all fans of my photography. I plan to offer fine art limited edition prints at affordable prices and keep things simple to start. I will be slowly building it up to offer more of my work in a variety of formats while also inviting my friends who are artist or photographers a convenient affordable way to start selling their work through my online store with very little overhead.

I hope you enjoy these photos and can understand the wait between blog posting! I will be working to make my online store public soon, and I hope you can find something you would like from my collection of work.

Rebalancing

Gavin and Martha came to me over a year before I was to shoot their wedding, and were extremely easy to work with from the very beginning. Their plan was simple and their wedding was sweet and beautiful. Schnebly Redland's Winery was picturesque and the time of day was perfect for some great lighting for the ceremony.

I have grown fond of formal portraiture over the past year, and weddings have been great opportunities to experience this type of portraiture in a special way. An aspect of formal portraiture that I enjoy is the freedom of time and not feeling pressure to lose a moment that is often associated with event photography, an exception to this has been portrait sessions during weddings. When you combine the time constraint of wedding plans and formal portraiture, the mix is a charged session of portraiture that I tend to enjoy. There is something about pressure and energy involved with being in a moment that I love.

Lately, I have been working long hours, busy with photography jobs on the weekends, and trying to learn more about shooting and post-processing video in every free moment I am able to get. Still, I have found time to work on things around the house on the weekends and spend time with my great family at least once a week. I am grateful to have all of these things to fill my time, and by no means is this a complaint but to say that I don't want all of this busyness to burn me out, nor do I want the feeling that my job, photography, and learning more are the cause of being burnt out. To cope with being busy, I have been getting to bed earlier, waking up earlier, getting some quality time alone in the morning, and taking breaks throughout the day to watching some inspirational TED talks. The result has been the ability to focus on one thing at time, letting go of some things for the short term, and getting back into some physical exercise. I love playing sports and with a schedule that easily gets filled it becomes increasingly hard to make time to play as I get older. The benefits of physical exertion especially through playing has a great balancing effect, and it is something I feel as though I have always had while growing up.

The two TED talks that seemed to have sparked an interest in me the most have been one about playing and one about regularly scheduled and planned sabbaticals. I have not reflected on the significance that playing has had on my life until watching this talk about revolutionary play. I have been previewed to regular sabbaticals through friends in ministry, but had not considered the effects for myself, and at this time it is quite enticing although unsettling to my perception of the normal. Plenty of dreams in this little head of mine, and there are so many great technological breakthroughs that seem to be happening weekly that it is hard not to be excited about the future. I continue to gain perspective about life one day at time while trying to stay balanced, preparing for the future, and grateful for each day I get.

Back in the Water!

So I remember when my love for photography was new. I was learning at an incredible rate and I was just concerned with taking pictures for the sake of learning. My videography has become that fresh new love to me. I am able to enjoy the foundation that 10 years of photography has afforded me while experiencing a new medium of expression. When I look at creating complete video productions I become overwhelmed. So I have changed gears and I am starting from what I know. I am just beginning to collect footage learning about my cameras and the simple encoding and uploading to web for the best results at a minimum file size.

I hope you enjoy these two brief clips plus a few images I gathered before filming. This is a more personal post and I know this is my professional photography blog, but this is a natural progression of skills and direction of learning for me, and since it is consuming my time, it is either this or no blog! I do have plenty of less personal higher quality images to share and I intend to share more when ready, but in the meantime enjoy and please stay tuned.

I have also been on a weekly adventure with Lianne helping to maintain her blog and produce both video and images to track her progress along her journey to Horse Whispering! Check out her blog for weekly update with my own photos and video. It is pretty sweet, I know. She has begun to give me weekly lessons so that I can begin to nurture my own skills and love for horses as well. I am loving every minute of it. I hope you understand and can continue to follow my blog despite the inconsistency.