tilt-shift musa
January 15, 2010 | Filed Under family photos, practice shoots | 1 Comment
played around with my tilt-shift lens the morning i had to return it. i still have a lot to learn with this lens, but it sure is fun….
(this first shot is actually with the 35L, not the tilt-shift…)
now, the tilt-shift pictures…
i don’t normally include two versions of the same shot, but i couldn’t decide which one i liked better…
and this one is musa’s favorite picture:
happy new year!
January 1, 2010 | Filed Under family photos, friends, portraits | 6 Comments
okay, so i’m not much of a new year’s person, to be honest. BUT, i do love good times with good friends, and i happen to have a bunch of gorgeous, unbelievably photogenic friends who are really good sports with me and my camera… so i took my equipment over to my friend humera’s house tonight to get some portraits of the people i love. my plan was to practice doing some off-camera lighting… but i’ve only succeeded in realizing even more how much i have to learn about it, so there’s only, like, one shot in here with flash. otherwise… i mean, i was shooting with a canon 35mm 1.4L wide open on a 5D at ISO 1000… why even bother with the flash?? have i mentioned before how much i love this lens?!
humera, jawad, aatif, rubina, shaf, imran, and my growing family hassan, rabiah, issa baba and baby imani – thanks so much for a wonderful evening!
children, everywhere…
December 21, 2009 | Filed Under baby, family photos | Leave a Comment
in the first part of december, my house was a wilderness of children… okay maybe just three, and maybe it’s a bit of a wilderness even with my one kid! but i spent a couple of weeks babysitting my one-year-old niece, and also had a wonderful visit from my beloved cousin, who used to live close by when we had our babies within five hours of each other, but has long since moved plane-flight distance away. it was the first time our kids had been together since they were one and a half, and booooy did they keep us on our toes! one night we managed to visit my brother, too, and so had all three cousins together – (this was only two days before the newest cousin – see the post below – made her appearance!) – and so of course i took pictures!
this is just a random collection i have been wanting to share, of my niece with possibly the most adorable hair ever seen on a baby, of my son playing in the season’s first snow (early december) and of my nephew and my cousin’s daughter, all posing together for us. if you like kids… enjoy! :)
niagara/finger lakes trip
November 8, 2009 | Filed Under family photos, nature, travel | 5 Comments
here is a selection from the almost 700 images we shot on our four-night trip to niagara falls, toronto and the finger lakes… yeah, that’s why it’s taken me so long to get these up! :)
so, here’s what we did! we drove up through upstate new york on sunday, oct. 18; just hitting peak foliage color, on the way, and it was a gorgeous drive! the first night in niagara falls was very cold, but the weather warmed up for the next few days. monday we started off at the bird & reptile kingdom, for the kid, but then we “did” the falls – walking along the cliff, taking the maid of the mist, going “behind the falls,” etc., underneath such a lovely blue sky with sunlit white clouds… the next day we drove into toronto, saw the city and the CN tower, tried a few different restaurants (specifically, my husband had three different shawarmas for dinner!) then came back to niagara falls; that night we also got some shots along the cliff with the colored floodlights glowing through the mist. the next day we drove downstream to see a little more of what the falls region had to offer – niagara-on-the-lake, etc – then crossed back over the border and drove down to ithaca for the night.
the following day, we spent the morning and early afternoon sightseeing along cayuga lake and seneca lake, with all their wooded banks aflame in autumn colors and the local vineyards laden with grapes… this was our only family vacation this year, and i’m glad to say even the little one quite enjoyed himself, for the most part! we stayed at the skyline inn and we were quite happy with the experience there. but more than anything, it was just a much-needed break, to have the time to ourselves, witness something as awe-inspiring as the falls, and – for me – to take pictures for myself… :)
just in case you’re wondering, this one’s from the bird kingdom’s reptile room…
and this is an actual “java house” with each wall carved painstakingly from a single piece of wood… they have this kind of randomly located in the bird kingdom…
my son, on the maid of the mist…
“behind” the horseshoe falls
here we were by the water in toronto…
and this is one of the views from the CN tower
back in niagara falls, at night…
this is the “whirlpool” in the niagara river, downstream from the falls
ithaca falls, by cornell university…
a park we stopped by near taughannock falls
and, taughannock falls! they said this is three stories higher than niagara falls…
