New lens test subjects!

I apologize for all the extraneous photographs of ourselves lately (and now, ourselves and our cats), but I just got a new lens this weekend and we’ve been testing it out. A lot. Because it’s awesome! It was a dreary, wet weekend but we ventured out into Fletcher Park and downtown Raleigh and practiced. Once in the day, once at night.

Fletcher Park portraits pet portraits Fayetteville St. Raleigh raleigh portrait photographer Night Portraits Fletcher Park portraits pet portraits Raleigh portraits raleigh portraits

A lot of these could’ve totally been used for senior portraits if Geoff was a senior. :) The one of him by the door a few pictures above is my favorite! Now we’ll stop posting pictures of ourselves for a while. ;)

Blog Ch-Ch-Changes.

Last night we decided to change the blog and bit. I like simple designs. The website is simple, my album layouts are simple, and I felt like the blog was a bit overkill with the green background and kind of distracting watermark. So we went back to basics (white!), the OLD old school watermark (also white!) and developed a few storyboards for a different layout. :) The photographs will also be a little bit larger. Geoff and I were out and about last weekend practicing with some new photography toys and brushing up for wedding season next month. Pictures of Geoff courtesy of me, pictures of me courtesy of Geoff, my husband/assistant/2nd shooter/website creator/Donkey Kong partner. You can tell he’s been modeling for me for a long time by his Zoolander model face.

Raleigh portrait photographer Raleigh photographer raleigh portrait photographer raleigh portrait photographer

Let us know what you think about the new design!! :) We love it!

I had the opportunity to photograph the events of Friday evening at the 2011 NHL All-Star Wide Open in Raleigh, NC for the Downtown Raleigh Alliance! It was packed and chock-full of goodness and eccentricities. Best of all, it was full of a lot of Pittsburgh fans. ;) Kids and adults alike sporting Pens jerseys. Even the buildings downtown had big posters of Crosby. I’m not a big hockey fan, but I do love the hometown so it was nice to see. :) And Raleigh, my second hometown, is such a genuinely beautiful city. I always adore photographing down there at night.

Downtown Raleigh

Ms. Deborah Morgan and I meet again! I had the opportunity to photography and meet the WRAL anchor through the DRA last year. She’s such a nice lady!

NHL All-Star Weekend Marriot downtown Raleigh

NHL All-Star Weekend 2010

Below: Representin’ the ‘Burgh in the south commercially…

NHL All-Star Weekend

And representin’ the ‘Burgh in the south with fashion. You go, kid!

Pittsburgh fans in Raleigh

City Plaza Raleigh

Raleigh event photographer

downtown Raleigh

Shot down Fayetteville St. of the Capitol Building in Raleigh. Raleigh does a lot of awesome things here throughout the year where they shut down Fayetteville and surrounding streets to cars in order to have festivals, markets, and other activities.

Fayetteville St. Raleigh NC

Wachovia building

Convention Center

96 Rock

So this is where things get creepy. Before now there was a cupcake eating contest, people were ice skating and watching WRAL’s broadcast, just generally hanging out and exploring the city. I’m not quite sure when and how this happened, all I know is that the Carolina Roller girls came out with some sort of drumline behind them… followed by GIANT PUPPETS. And I mean giant. They were huge. People were holding said giant puppets, others were in them and on stilts. Still others just had on giant puppet heads and were walking around.

NHL All-star Weekend

Woah. This is all getting very Pan’s Labyrinth here.

NHL All-Star Weekend

NHL All-Star Wide Open Raleigh

Giant scary monster puppet on stilts… bringing down her wrath on this innocent videographer.

Raleigh event photographer

Raleigh event photographer

…And before you knew it, it was back to your regular programming. Ice hockey, everyone!

Downtown Raleigh ice skating rink

High School Cheerleaders

Raleigh event photographer

Raleigh event photography

Local cheerleaders from the high schools held a pep rally and I was super fond of this Jaguar. Giant animal mascots crack me up – especially when they’re stuck in a perpetual roar.

Raleigh event photographer

All-Star Wide Open Raleigh

Crowd

Ice Skating Rink downtown Raleigh

downtown Raleigh, NC

oak leaf sculpture

Capitol Building Raleigh

Goodnight, Raleigh!