Walnut Creek Greenway, Raleigh

in
Walnut Creek Greenway extends about 15 miles. Beginning from East Raleigh, not far off Barwell Road, the trail moves westward, has a short disconnection in town near the water plant, passes through several tunnels, becomes an NCU walking trail just off campus, and runs into Johnson Lake. Once at Johnson Lake, there's a trail around the lake to loop back around, which is about 2 1/2 miles. I recommend taking it to the right from Walnut Creek trail because there are steep hills to come down that way, rather than go up, so it's more fun.

Baby and Family Shoot

in
Here are my top three favorites from the last session.

For these I used natural studio light from the skylight and from a larger window to the right. Translucent white drapes were used to soften the light spill, and a white reflector to the left was used to fill in shadows. Everything was edited through Lightroom and then Photoshop.

Artistically speaking, I like how the color combinations, texture, detail and exposure came out in these three in particular. Enjoy :)

French landscape series at Night Kitchen Bakehouse at Seaboard Station

in

January 24, 2017 Grab some delicious baked goods and check out my French landscape series on display at Night Kitchen Bakehouse and Café. They're limited edition prints on fine art paper, of 7.

Final 366 Slideshow

in

Sunday, January 8, 2017 https://youtu.be/QdllRo3AXuY

This is the final day-by-day photo slideshow, set to the 1959 recording of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, from Leonard Bernstein’s album An American in Paris. The project involved a photo a day of my son for his first year alive. The song and slideshow are about 16 minutes in all.

A Photo a Day for the first year of my son's life

Facello's Fall Photos

in

Nov. 7, 2016 Taking these photographs for the Facello family last month was my pleasure. We had fun shooting glitter portraits, and the evening sky over Lake Lynn was romantic.

Location Research - Downtown Raleigh, Fayetteville/Capital District

in
There were a lot of homeless people sleeping at sunrise in downtown on Fayetteville St. Another issue would be the endless festivals each weekend on that street. There was a bit of nice light in pockets, but as far as the sun went, the buildings generally blocked it. The capital area is very pretty. These are unedited shots of my husband, he was a stand-in for research this morning. His expressions are perfect. What might be nice is Nash Square or Moore Square, but again, homeless people might be trying to sleep.

Late Afternoon Light

in

Thursday, September 8, 2016 These are from the daily photo project of my son--it will be complete on October 5th. :)

I'm looking for more people in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area to photograph outdoors around sunrise and sunset. If you're interested, contact me here or call 678.516.4448

Double Exposures from North Carolina Botanical Gardens

Food Photography

in

Friday, July 8, 2016 I've been cooking a lot since my son was born, and even more since my dad had seven-bypass surgery. This way, I can plan and make healthier, more balanced meals than we'd been having before and we don't spend as much income on eating out. Sometimes the meals are pretty and tasty, so I like to photograph them. I'm new to food photography, and I've never been so keen on cooking until this year, so we can say this is somewhat amateur work, but it documents the dishes well and maybe offers ideas for other families.

Here were the first food shots from Duck Donuts that began inspiring my food shots. Of course, those were neither healthy nor baked by me. One of my piano students brought me one and then I had to get some for Brett to try. :)

Here are the Sunday brunches I've been coming up with, they generally consist of ingredients leftover from the week as well as a few produce ingredients from the local farmer's market. One involves a berry clafoutis and lentil soup with peach tea, cream, and biscuit, another involves a cheese omelet with baked bacon and what hash browns we had leftover, and finally there is a braided savory pastry filled with what curried venison meats, onions and cheese we had leftover. I love savory pastries and my husband loves sweets, so it works out for us to have things like that once a week.

This is a venison burger made with ground venison that Brett's paw paw sent us, with sweet potato fries, and I made jalapeño cornbread and Brunswick stew for Brett since he'd never had it. The image isn't the greatest, but those are the leftovers he felt the need to take to work for one of his co-workers to sample. The final image is of squash, cabbage, a bit of leftover ham, and tomato gravy over southern biscuits. Brett hadn't had squash that tasted good before nor had he had tomato gravy and biscuits, so I felt he needed to try this. Here's the Brunswick stew recipe and the jalapeño corn bread: http://www.food.com/recipe/brunswick-stew-georgia-style-chicken-pork-32386

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/jalapeno_cornbread/

I don't remember where I got the recipes for the rest of it, so...if nothing else, there's inspiration. :)

These are Indian and Pakistani curried meals, and one peanut chicken dish. The Pakistani beef curry was fantastic, and it involved sweet potatoes. Here is the recipe for that: http://wholenewmom.com/recipes/ground-hamburger-ground-recipes-recipes-for-indian/ The Indian curry was not runny enough for our preference, but it was delicious. Those little yellowish-white squares are paneer, which is a hardened cheese made from milk. Brett likes to make homemade paneer, but it can be bought from the local Indian grocery store for convenience-sake. If you're getting Indian spices, I recommend getting them from an Indian grocery store because they are much more affordable than from another grocery store like HEB or Harris Teeter or Lowes Foods or Wal-Mart.

Speaking of Wal-Mart...

Day 260

It's not good, I know, but sometimes we go to Wal-Mart...because budget.

Here is Brett's favorite-slow-cooker chicken flautas--they're super easy to make, and you can get the recipe here: http://www.lecremedelacrumb.com/2014/10/slow-cooker-creamy-chipotle-chicken-taquitos.html

Day 276

And the latest creation--pan-fried plantains, black bean soup, and Cuban-inspired sammiches.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'll add more later just to update the site. Otherwise, it's just been keeping up with the Silas daily photo for a year project: https://silasking.wordpress.com

Until later! <3

So many baby images

in
The 366 project is still going at silasking.wordpress.com and he's seven months now, cutting two super sharp little teeth through his bottom gum. Here are a few more recent photos and instagrammed posts.

Otherwise, there is a 25% off Mother's Day sale for sessions and prints purchased within the month of May, and my Saturday's are open to shoot any graduation images, newborn, family portraiture, etc.,...even architectural photography--it all applies, man. :)

My 21st/22nd is booked up and there's also the Artsplosure festival in downtown Raleigh that I'm excited to visit at some point.

 

Grey Card

in

http://wp.me/p6vraS-ku An easy way to quickly calibrate color for photos in editing is to click the eye dropper onto a grey card in Lightroom, then batch edit the similar photos around it.

http://layersmagazine.com/using-a-gray-card-for-setting-white-balance-in-adobe-photoshop-camera-raw.html

If there was no grey card available but there is some other neutral grey close to it, try setting the white balance via that grey, or choose auto tone, or a specific lighting setting based upon the lighting conditions the photos were taken in.

 

Double exposures

in
I've started enjoying taking double exposures of Silas on occasion. I'll share some here and then the link to the tutorial I followed to learn how to shoot them digitally.

https://vimeo.com/106329469/description

 

West Virginia HDR Stream

in ,

Mountain Stream-2 While sorting through old photographs yesterday in the archive and cleaning/rearranging files, I came across this set of bracketed landscape images with long exposures of water I took while checking out some of the historic and forgotten back roads of West Virginia. This one was off McKendree Road, considered McKendree, West Virginia (unincorporated). There's a bridge over it that water was spilling off of onto the other side. I used that shot for an altered landscapes composite project for a college assignment at the time, and this was just a lovely landscape behind it that I captured as a personal bonus. I hope you like it!