MLM Session, Emma

I recently joined up with The Maple Leaf Mission, a nonprofit group that gives "the gift of life in pictures" for families dealing with either a debilitating or potentially terminal illness, final moments and military deployments.

I had the opportunity this past week to complete my first session:

Emma has Down syndrome. At 7 months old was diagnosed with Infantile spasms (West syndrome) which caused global sensory delays. She was treated with harsh medications, delaying her even more. She has progressed over the years with more types of seizures and in May was diagnosed with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. She has been on the ketogenic diet since June, but doctors are not very promising that her outcome will be good. She is visually impaired and has a hearing impairment.  

Here are a few pictures that I captured on Sunday afternoon :)

                   

Nick and Amanda -Wedding Album

 Page1 can go black and white...

 Or in Color, which ever you like better :)

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2 in 1 day! More flowers!

Ok... A day to get caught up :)
Just this past week, I made trip to the Oregon Gardens with a wonderful friend, Teresa. It had to be the nicest day so far this year. Well that had its benefits and challenges!

Still new to macro photography and plants, what felt like pleasant breeze equaled tornado like winds when you are trying to capture a macro shot. And of course my tripod is in need of repair. Hand holding my camera with 105mm lens steady was no easy task to do, so I could be ready for the brief second the wind would stop long enough to capture an image.

The sun that I have been so happy to see peaking out from behind the clouds every so often was out in full force! This meant not much was in the shade. At noon the light on the flowers was quite intense giving strong contrast.

But any day to get out and play with my camera is absolutely worth it and I couldn't have asked for better company! It was a wonderful day and I look forward to my next adventure!

Tulips... a little later than anticipated :)

This April I had taken a trip down to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm and it turned out to be one of the few beautiful spring days with almost no rain :)

The morning started just around 9am before the loads of people arrived. Only the those looking for the perfect picture were out there at this time in the morning. Moving from flower to flower, row to row, color to color, there were so many in bloom the choices were limitless!

After about 3 hours of shooting my family joined me and we spent the rest of the afternoon taking a few more pictures and checking out the other activities like bouncy houses, rock climbing, slides and of course an elephant ear to refuel!

In May the Portland Metropolitan Photographer's Association had their quarterly print competition. Since I really had not done much in the way of flower macro photography I entered 3 images to see what I could learn...

This one "Three of a Kind" did ok it scored a 79. Almost but not quite a merit print as the name implied all 3 flowers were the same, though the middle one is just a soft focus. A better name, maybe a better score ;)

These 2 did score an 80 earning a merit and tied for 3 place "Morning Dew" and "Peach Pit Tulip" During the process of putting the images together and entering them in competition, I learned quite a bit about presentation, impact and titles... just to name a few. There are some many things to consider when entering but I look forward to the next one! Always an excellent opporturnity to grow and learn!