With Christmas and other winter holidays fast approaching, October is the perfect time to have your family portrait created — just in time for gift giving.
A family portrait is the perfect holiday gift. It’s unique, it’s personal, and it comes from your heart. Continue reading
The way light plays across a subject can dramatically change your perception of it. Does your garden appear flat and one-dimensional or richly layered? Does texture appear or disappear in the sand on the beach? Are facial contours accented or hidden? Consider two aspects of light: the size of the source in relation to the subject and the direction from which the light strikes it. This month I’ll discuss how the size of a light source affects its quality. Next time I’ll cover the effect light direction has on revealing shape and texture. Continue reading
Autumn doesn’t come immediately to mind when I think of roses. Since my childhood, roses have been associated with warm summer days, with colorful blossoms emitting rich fragrances that waft across the garden on gentle breezes. We stop in the rose garden and inhale deeply of the heady aroma. Continue reading
Have your family portrait created at one of our favorite locations, Larrabee State Park or Whatcom Falls Park, and support the Bellingham Food Bank at the same time. The weekend of September 17 and 18 we’re offering a special price of only $100 for the session (half our regular price) and we’ll donate the entire session fee to the Bellingham Food Bank to support their “milk money” program. Continue reading
September and October are prime months for high school senior portraits. Yearbook deadlines are coming up, so if you know a senior at any of Whatcom County’s high schools have them give me a call (360-671-6851) to arrange their senior portrait session. Continue reading
Light is the stuff from which pictures are made. Light has color. Light has shape. Light brings the world to life.
So often a snapshooter is concerned only about capturing a fleeting moment. The subject is everything. There’s certainly a lot of value in catching the crack of bat against baseball, the warm embrace of grandmother and grandson, or your triathlete husband crossing the finish line. Those are memories to cherish and your photos help preserve them whether the lighting adds to or detracts from the subject. Continue reading
What looks like an oak, has acorns like an oak, but isn’t an oak? That would be tanoak, Lithocarpus densiflorus, a west coast native. This evergreen tree is also known as tanbark-oak. It has flowers like a chestnut but forms acorns rather than having its nuts enclosed by a spiny bur. Both Lithocarpus and Quercus are in the Beech family, the Fagaceae. Continue reading
One of the things that sets me apart as a photographer is having earned my Certified Professional Photographer designation. Certification means that I passed a comprehensive written examination on the technical aspects of photography and also passed an exacting portfolio review. I am one of only four Certified Professional Photographers in Whatcom County. For more information on the certification program visit the Professional Photographic Certification Commission website. Continue reading
This was a great year for the photography classes I taught at several locations around Washington and Oregon. In March students in Salem, Oregon braved rain in the pocket camera class at Historic Deepwood Estate. In May we spent a day at the Burke Museum and University of Washington Medicinal Herb Garden. June found me teaching a 3-day digital SLR photography at the Siskiyou Field Institute near Selma, Oregon as well as leading a one-day field workshop at the Oregon Native Plant Society annual meeting southeast of John Day. I led a similar session outside Winthrop for the Washington Native Plant Society, then taught a 3-day pocket camera class for North Cascades Institute. Continue reading
December and January are dark, cool, and wet in Pacific Northwest lowlands while the high country is buried under a thick blanket of snow. It’s sometimes challenging to bring high-elevation plants down to lowland gardens but Mountain Hemlock, Tsuga mertensiana, is an exception. Continue reading
