Senior | Holly

Yesterday evening I spent about an hour and a half playing with Huntingtown High School senior Holly...and we had a blast! She and her parents have a really nice place where they keep all of their fun little four-leggeds, including 2 donkeys (Artie and Ella), 2 horses (Penny and Sunny), and 2 dogs (Wall-E and Mae). Holly was such a trooper for me, and I think these photos are pretty true to life...Holly is beautiful! Thanks for letting me come out Holly and Andrea! :)

Enjoying the weather

This morning after Riley and I finished up at the barn, I decided a walk around the farm would be so nice...I wanted some time to play with the camera and to be outside enjoying the weather with Riley (this in between summer and fall season is my favorite). Plus, after 3.5 days bored in the apartment, big white dog needed some RUN time.

I hope everyone else is taking the opportunity to enjoy the weather as well. I'm hoping it will be a beautiful weekend and the weather stays as perfect as it is today.

Happy Friday!

Perfect weekend, now back to reality...

What a beautiful weekend we had here in Maryland. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Dustin and Landon came up for Gemma's wedding, which was just such an awesome and so well put together event. The wedding and reception were at Running Hare Vineyard right down the road from home, and both the ceremony site and the reception building were breathtaking. It really didn't feel like we were right here in Calvert County...pretty awesome.

Saturday we celebrated Landons 4th birthday which was a blast. He had such a fun weekend riding horses, playing in the yard, riding the jet-ski, running around the house, watching his new movies, and playing with the dogs and I'm so thankful that they were able to spend the weekend with my family and I.

Here are some of the best pictures from this weekend (to see more, find me on Facebook...there's too many fun shots to choose from!):

Today I also learned about a workshop and is definitely going on my list to attend next year, should they have it again (fingers crossed...and I need to start saving!). Genesis Workshop sounds like the ultimate workshop and features so much useful information from photographers who I really admire, especially Tony Hoffer of Hoffer Photography whose work I've been following for a while now. So Genesis is definitely going on the Workshop Bucket list along with Jamie of Cowbelly who does pets, and Jodie of J.Otte Photography, who does children, families and newborns. Ahh, one day, maybe.

Andddd WPPI is hosting a WPPI-U for emerging photographers next year! In Vegas! I'm so excited...Dustin has already (easily) agreed to go with me and I can't wait for this! :)

In the mean time, I'm looking forward to photographing a high school senior this coming Sunday which should be so much fun, and two cute little kiddies in mid-October when the leaves change...can't wait!

Wednesday, done.

Yay! My Facebook photography page has it's own username now! Check it out and become a fan here.

In other news, no photos to update with tonight, but I do have several portfolio building sessions in the planning stages and am SO excited to see how those go. Andddd, this weekend my awesome boyfriend and his adorable son will be gracing the state of Maryland with all of their southern-ness and that means two things. 1. A very happy me, and 2. Tons of adorable photo ops :) So be on the lookout for an update Monday.

I'm officially into week three of school and Wednesday's are such a long day, but they seriously get the creative juices flowing. I spend 2.5 hours in Digital Publishing with Dr. Thom Lieb, then another 2.5 hours in Photojournalism with Monica Lopossay (Google her, she's an awesome photojournalist who has worked for The Baltimore Sun). Both are awesome professors with a wealth of knowledge and major passion for journalism and photography and I truly enjoy their classes. I can't wait to see what kinds of awesome projects and photographs I have to show for the semester when it ends in December, not to mention a great graduate portfolio website (hopefully). As for my photography website, I think I'll stick with the temporary Wix website until I for sure know I can be successful at this...probably by the start of 2011 after I get a good few months of portfolio building in and am better able to gauge how this is all working out for me.

In the mean time, I'd really like to find a good reliable print lab to outsource printing to...any suggestions?

Happy Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day...to you!

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend, and for those of you lucky enough, a day off from the typical stresses of the everyday work day. The weather here in Maryland was incredible today. Seriously the perfect day. We all spent the day working around the farm...painting at the barn, working on the new pastures in the back field, doing this, doing that...lots of stuff going on, but who could complain when the weather is so gorgeous?

Looking ahead and sunset shooting

So anyone who follows this blog, is friends with me on Facebook, or knows that I really am passionate about photography may realize that I am in the early stages of beginning to branch out and begin the process of (one day) trying to become a professional photographer. This is something I have been planning on doing, however and the classes I am taking right now are really getting me excited and giving me a jump-start and reason to get going. Up until now I've really just shared my photos because I love that a picture can say so much, have such deep meaning, and capture a special moment in time forever. Although I've always received positive feedback, I know that I have SO much to learn and really need to challenge myself to become more creative with my pictures and master my camera better. I recently just put together a Facebook for my photography, a Wix flash website (I will be moving to a legit domain this fall as I build my school portolio website at the same time), and am beginning to utilize Twitter to try to network a little and also stay informed on fun photography stuff (Twitter is way cool now that I am figuring out how to use it, by the way. Information comes and goes SO quickly!).

So, for anyone who may be wondering if I'm calling myself a pro or something all fancy now, no, I am not...my hope is to have a normal person job after graduation in May, and still be pursuing the photography in hopes that it will get me somewhere and that I will be able to provide people with memories they are proud to show off to friends and family, and maybe even display in their home. For the remainder of 2010 I am offering to shoot pets, kids, and high school seniors for free in order to build my portfolio, meet new people, and get better at working with other people, kids, pets, etc (so if you want pictures, let me know silly!). There are so many photographers whose aesthetic and style I admire so much, but my main goal going forward is to always stay true to myself while defining my own style and always challenge myself to become better, learn more, and hopefully inspire others to do the same. So...enough being cheesy...but I just wanted to mention what was going on and give everyone a little bit of an idea of where I am hoping to go.

For anyone interested in visiting my new pages:

- Like me on Facebook

- Check out my Wix flash website

- Follow me on Twitter @brittanibowling

- And just for the heck of it, anyone interested in my journalism work during my time at TU can find my journalism blog here

So for today, I had planned all day to bust out the camera when the light got perfect but I ended up getting carried away online and soon realized it was almost 7:15...which means the beautiful light was disappearing on me! I grabbed the camera, Sami, and some treats and high-tailed it out the door, so excited to bust out the new tricks I learned in my Photojournalism class Wednesday night. I ended up getting a few good shots of her, but soon Mom came cruising down from the barn with Riley in tow and she lost interest. Being the old girl she is and her lack of interest in activity, I obliged to her request to go back inside and switched out my models. Of course Riley is just about the most perfect dog model EVA in the history of dog models (I mean, look at him, he's disgustingly handsome. And no, I am not biased.) so the shots I got of him turned out great. The lighting was beautiful and the green bokeh is downright dreamy. Okay, enough of that nonsense...happy Friday, here's the pictures! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend!

This is one of my all-time new favs! It depicts a few unique characteristics of his personality perfectly. 1. His willingness to cooperate with my ridiculous requests, 2. His obvious disagreement with the bushes poking him in various places of his face (He would definitely be saying "Um hey, yeh hi, I'm not sure if you noticed, but uh, it's kind of hard to look this fabulous with these poking me in the face Ma..."), and 3. His gawwwgeousness (how could I leave that one out??). Gosh I love him.

Oh and just for the heck of it...Bowling Brooke Farm :)

New pics of the boys!

Saturday I took the camera out to the pier with Riley to get a few shots. I hadn't taken any pictures of him on the pier in a while, and I've been playing with the lens and figured it'd make for a nice background and great bokeh. Turns out, the pictures on the pier ended up being more funny than anything (you can see them on my Facebook), but I got some great one's of those perfect lab eyes on our way out.

On our way back in, we found Mom taking Arch for a dip in the pool, and these shots ensued.

And inside, I was able to grab this of Sherman.

Happy Thursday! It's almost Friday!

Ps. If you aren't already...follow me on my adventure of learning to use Twitter to promote my photography (or at least practice using it so that I can promote my photography one day when I actually have something to promote).