Why I love Summer {no words necessary}

 Ok, I said no words, but does anyone get the Lil Critter reference?

Yep, that pretty much says it all. About 10,000 words worth of pictures.

Hope you're enjoying the unfolding this summer!

Early Morning on the Beach

The other night, we hopped down to Grandview Beach to enjoy the water on a warm evening. I realized then that the sun rises over the water here (makes sense - we're on the east coast). After that, I have been set on shooting some beach pictures in the morning. So, this morning, Tim woke me up early for a Monday morning date on the beach.  He is so much more romantic than me (I offered to make him corned beef and red cabbage for his birthday dinner - I think that might be the anti-romantic).

The path to Grandview in the morning:

 

On the beach, we watched the crab fisherman take their boats out. Another fisherman, a Loon, also dove for his breakfast in front of us. Mostly, we just walked and took turns enjoying the beach with Gwennan.

 

At this point, Tim and I traded baby for camera. I really should insist that he take pictures more often. He's quite good.

 

And finally, one for the grandparents:

Babies in Pictures

My little girl is growing. She's learned to sit up. You can tell from these pictures that the boppy is really only necessary to cushion her fall now instead of propping her up as it is in the bottom photo. She now spends a lot of time sitting and chewing on stuff. For instance, she just pulled off her sock and shoved it in her mouth.

I admit, the baby picture posts are mostly to satisfy Grandparents and Great Grandparents (that's right MY grandparents have bookmarked my blog).

I want to point out something about photographing people in general, but babies specifically. Pay attention to the clothes they are wearing. When I wanted to take G's 3 month pictures, I put her in one of my favorite new outfits (she had just moved up a size) without a thought to how it would look on "film." Even though the light was much better when I took this shot (natural light on a sunny day coming in from multiple angles), the color was off. Those awkwardly pink flowers on her shirt are actually purple. The problem is two fold: the colorful shirt messes with the overall white balance, and the pattern distracts from my subject: Gwennan. If you look at the above pictures, you might notice the cat emblem on her shirt, but mostly you see her eyes. Even more distracting than big patterns, lettering. Right now, Gwennan has on the cutest onesie that say "Daddy Loves Me" in bright colors. While I love putting her in this outfit, today is not the day to photograph her. I'm not a particularly skilled photographer, but I try to improve. Paying attention to clothing detail is my newest lesson.