house portrait

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I have an ongoing list of places I need to photograph or return back to. So when my friend, Birch invited me to walk around Alexandria with her, I was 100% in! I feel like Alexandria has been on my list of places I need to revisit for a long time. 2 for 1 deal if you ask me. A nice morning walk in Alexandria with great company!

I had no real expectations of what I wanted to shoot. I was just looking forward to exploring the city with my camera. So when we started weaving in and out of the neighborhoods, I loved the way that some of the doors were decorated for Easter. These two houses in particular caught my eye. I love the yellow from the tree to the Easter wreath and then finally back to the left hand side with that piece of gold on the bottom of the door. I also really liked the red door right next to the red brick house. Everything about this image just lined up so nicely.

I totally felt like @DCCityGirl while I was capturing this image! LOL House portraits aren’t something I usually do, but I just couldn’t resist when I saw this one.

Hope you all have a great weekend! I’m off to Chicago today with Andrew for the weekend to scout some places to photograph for the photo workshop in July. I’ve spent the last few days reading articles online and I’m really looking forward to sharing what I find with you all. Although I heard that it snowed earlier this week! I already packed away all my winter clothes for the year. LOL.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/1600 and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

All photos available for print and licensing >

The first morning we were in Oranjestad, my friend Sue and I walked around the city. It was so cute and every turn had something new and unexpected. I loved all the colorful buildings and homes and this house was no different. It was the pink flowers that originally drew me in but then it was all the cracks and tears all along the facade that really made me want to photograph the house. I just loved all the details and really wished that I was able to walk onto the porch but there was a gate blocking us from doing that.

So I captured this image with my 16-35mm wide angle lens. As we were walking around more I felt like I wanted to capture more detailed shots of the house. I opened up my backpack, trying to dig out the 70-200mm when I noticed a cat was sitting on the porch! I had no idea it was there when I first took the picture so I tried to remain calm and quickly put my 16-35mm wide angle back on the camera before I went any further. I’m not sure what happened but the cat quickly got up and ran away šŸ™ I was kind of disappointed that I wasn’t able to capture the cat like I wanted to but went back to review my images and I’m so glad I was able to capture this. It’s so funny because I didn’t even know he was there in the first place. He was a tiny little guy so I wouldn’t be surprised if you missed him the first time you looked at this image too. LOL.

My camera settings for the image is F8 at 1/800th of a second at ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

All photos available for print and licensing >

About a week or two after Snap DC came out, I cut my hair short. It hasnā€™t been this short since high school. Andrew has never even seen my hair short before. Iā€™ve always had it long, way past my shoulders, almost to the middle of my back. But I felt like I needed a drastic change. I donā€™t know, I felt like I was a point in my life where I needed to shake things up a bit and cutting my hair was the answer.

What I didnā€™t expect is how much I would look like my mom in the process. OMG itā€™s kinda scary. This picture looks EXACTLY like her except her hair is even shorter than mine. Either way, Iā€™m still undecided about it. I definietly will keep it for the summer but after that, I may just grow it out long again. What do you think?

This image was taken on our last day in Aruba. My friends Sue, Neena and I were walking around Oranjestad trying to get last minute gifts for people back home when we came across this amazing yellow wall. I think itā€™s the side of someoneā€™s house. Whatever the case is, I love how vibrant the color is. The palm tree made for a nice frame as well. Now that I think of it, my momā€™s favorite color is yellow. LOLOL.

So shoutout to Sue for creating a picture thatā€™s meant for my mom.

Donā€™t forget, a week from today Iā€™ll be cohosting a photo workshop with my friends, Geoff Livingston Photography and Focus on the Story International Photo Festival on night photography. Weā€™ll be walking the National Mall and talking about long exposure, street photography at night and so much more! Its going to be a really fun event with a lot more photo instruction than the regular photowalks weā€™ve been doing this summer. Plus there will be 3 instructors instead of one. So if youā€™re interested, check out all the info here.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/1000th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.