Cats and Kittens

Photographing animals is one of my favorite things to do. Cats have so much personality and I love the challenge of capturing an image that reflects their nature. I’ve had opportunity lately to photograph several cats and I thought I’d share.

The first image is my mom’s new kitten, who she named Mike after my husband. My husband, Mike, had the same strawberry blond hair as a child. The kitten, Mike, loves to hide and jump out at you. What’s so funny is he “thinks” no one can see him. The second image is a cute kitten named Rascal that we kitten-sat for a week while it’s owners were on vacation.What I like about this photo is the claws bared and a second after I snapped the shutter, this little rascal jumped out at me. The third image is an elderly cat named Blue, who lives next door to my mom. He spends a lot of time at my mom’s house, but is very shy and doesn’t like to have his photo taken. I think this image tells us exactly how he feels about having a camera pointed in his direction!

For camera information and to view the image large, click on the photo. All images on my blog can be found in my smugmug 2012 Blog Gallery.

Beaufort Boatbuilding

An image from vacation last week, shot in Beaufort, NC. This boatbuilding shop is an extension of the NC Maritime Museum and has a public viewing platform located above the shop floor. A perfect place to capture a few shots.

I rented a 50mm lens (f1.4) from BorrowLens.com to take on the trip. It’s a lens I hope to add to my collection one day and I wasn’t disappointed by its performance. It stayed on my camera the entire week.

For more camera information and to view the image large, click on the photo. All images on my blog can be found in my smugmug 2012 Blog Gallery. I hope to add several more shots from our Beaufort trip over the next week or two, so please check back.

Spring Iris

I visited a coworkers house about a month ago and enjoyed seeing their garden. Here’s a couple of photos of their iris’. I love the delicate beauty of these flowers.

These two images were shot with my 50mm compact macro lens. For more camera information and to view large, click on the photo. Too see several more of my iris shots or to purchase, visit my 2012 Blog Gallery.

Dandelion Love

You know spring is here when dandelions start popping up everywhere. For the last several weeks I’ve been trying to capture their beauty. These two shots are some of the last ones I photographed. Tired of laying on the ground, making a spectacle of myself, I decided to shoot against a black background — I love the result.

Shot with my 50mm compact macro lens. For more camera information or to purchase, click on the photo. You can view the rest of my dandelion shots (including these two) on Smugmug.

A Life Saved

My friend Judy has a heart as big as the outdoors. She devotes much of her time to helping animals who can’t help themselves. She sent me an email last week and asked if I’d like to see and possibly photograph a baby squirrel. Without hesitation I said yes!

She has had the squirrel for about a week and has been nursing him back to health from a leg injury. He appears to be mending nicely and the injured leg didn’t seem to slow him down. Once the leg heals and he’s able to fend for himself, this little guy will be slowly reintroduced back into the wild.

Shot indoors, using natural light, with my 85mm lens. For more camera information or to purchase, click on the photo.

Through the Looking Glass

Love the fish-eye effect photographing through a crystal ball. Here’s a couple of shots taken on vacation last week. I shot many images and was pleased to have six “keepers“.

The first image was shot with my 24-105 lens at 35mm. The second, sunset image was shot with my 10-22 wide-angle lens at 22mm. For more camera information or to purchase, click on the photo. To see some inspiring shots using a glass ball check out the photostream of sooze on flickr. If you’re interested in purchasing a crystal ball to try this technique yourself, the one in these photos was purchased from Amazon.

Cape Fear Sunset

We were in Wilmington for two reasons last September. Our annual couples trip to the beach which also coincided with parents weekend at my daughter’s college. My husband, daughter and I were strolling along the riverwalk watching the sunset when I stopped to take this picture. The sun’s warm reflection, the silhouette of the flying bird and the abstract texture of the water made this shot interesting.

Shot with my 24–105 lens. For more camera information or to purchase, click on the photo.