Portraits: Kelly and Kevin

My good friends Kelly and Kevin were in town this weekend for the nationally known Tampa tradition called Gasparilla. It is a big party that starts with a pirate invasion and then there is a big parade. Everyone goes home with a neck full of beads! So Kelly and Kevin made the trip down from Tennessee for the festivities.

When they got in town on Friday we decided to do a quick photo shoot before the sun went down. For all the photographers out there, you all know how wonderful the evening light is. Kelly came especially prepared with a few wardrobe changes that worked really well! We went to Philippe Park in Safety Harbor and got some great shots along the stone walkways, wooden fences, and the small beach. You can just tell how much these two are in love by how happy they are. Thank you guys for allowing me to capture these great moments! Check out some of my favorites. There are so many good ones, what a great looking couple!

My Old Guitar

I decided to pull out my old guitar the other day, not to play it, but to take pictures of it. I never got very good at playing it after getting it about 5 years ago. I learned a few songs, but never the basics of reading sheet music. After sitting in the closet for years, I dug it out and blew about an inch of dust off the case and pried open the latches that were stuck in the closed position. After some wrestling, it opened and the guitar looked exactly how I remembered it. Here are a few pics I took with some natural light shining in through the window.

Philippe Park

I went out looking for a new place to take some portraits and was pleasantly surprised with what I found! I went looking for Philippe Park a few months ago and ended up finding a marina that I thought was the park and didn't think much of it. This time I made sure to check Google Maps before leaving the house. Here are a couple of fun spots I found. Kelly wants a couple beach shots for next weekend, so I found this little spot of sand that might do quite nicely =)

Here are a few nature details that caught my eye. Some bright purple berries, a lone palm tree frond floating in the water, and a tree stump.








Then, all the way at the back of the park I came to the "Historical Mound". Apparently this was made by the native americans and it's the largest remaining mound in the Tampa Bay region. If you've been to the area you know how flat all the land is around here, so hills (or mounds) are hard to come by.





There are so many places for portraits along this trail of stone steps leading up to the top of the mound.



And a fun tree to climb! If you look closely you can see that someone was actually climbing it when I took this picture.

New 70-200 f/2.8 IS Lens!

Dun dun dun... after some great advice from my good friend Armin, I have purchased an amazing lens! He took quite a few of our wedding photos with this lens and I am going to keep at it until I can create the same great quality of photos. This is the newest addition to my photography collection and boy is it heavy! I am so excited to take lots of pictures with it. Chris picked it up for me and we both rushed home last night to take some pictures outside before the light went away. My adorable neighbor from across the street, Evie, so graciously posed for a picture with this beautiful dead leaf she found. Sadly its pretty hard to see the leaf in the picture... but it was a really cool blue and brown color, I promise. =) I took a few pictures to test out the zoom and such but they were pretty dark. So here are a couple shots of the new glass!

Nice Evening Light in Dunedin

This weekend Chris and I decided to go take some pictures in Downtown Dunedin. He had gone with our other friends Keith and Dena a week or two ago while I had to work one Friday during Christmas break. So I wanted to go see all these wonderful colorful buildings that I had heard so much about and seen pictures of. We finally made it out a little after 4:30pm so it left us just a little time to take some nice evening pictures with soft light. This first picture is my favorite one that Chris got of me, and the rest are pics I took of some interesting things I found the cute little downtown area.

Outback Bowl

Happy New Year!

Yesterday was a great start to 2008. The VOLS came down for the Outback bowl against Wisconsin and pulled off a not-so-pretty win, 21-17. But hey, after last year's loss in the rain down here, it was a big improvement. Just seeing all the Tennessee orange is always fun and comforting. To add to the experience, Chris and I enjoyed a good burger and greasy fries... and with the temperature dropping throughout the day, they made a nice warm meal! We also met up with a few friends from college that had made the trip down for the game. Here are a few pics we caught with my point and shoot at the game. I always seem to get atleast one picture of Chris and I that I took myself =) That is one good thing about my monkey arms.

Here are a few at the beginning of the game as Tennessee entered the stadium!