Jesse & Leslie say "I Do" and Photo Friday: Symbols

I, Liz, come from a small town in Upstate NY called, Volney. Volney is rural county with rolling hills and farmland; it is pretty secluded. Without many neighbors of my own age, I mainly played with my older brother, James since I was also home schooled. Poor kid, he put up with a lot. Then one year my Aunt and Uncle moved to Volney and stayed on my grandparents farm, which was next door, while they found themselves a new home. Their children were about the same age as my siblings and I. Their youngest boy, Jesse, was only a couple months older than me. During the time that they lived there I spent almost every waking "play" hour with my cousins, especially Jesse.

I lived in Volney from when I was around 5 till I was 12. My back yard was about 240 combined acres between my grandparents and great grandparents land. I remember so many trips in the woods with my cousins. Jesse, do you remember the "Iron Wood" walking sticks? Or swimming in the beaver pond? Or finding that strangely serene meadow before continuing into the "deep woods".

Fast forward 12 years, Jesse took the plunge on May 6th and brought a new, lovely woman into our family. I had the pleasure of providing the photography of their nuptials as my gift to them. Their wedding came with a bit of a struggle. First their reserved wedding site was flooded with 5 ft of water from the rains in Kentucky. Then the chair rentals fell through. Then we lost the wedding music! But true to form, they pulled through admirably. In the end, Jesse and Leslie accomplished what they intended - they were married.

Leslie was such a beautiful bride.

And not an ounce of bridezilla in her! The first time she met me was the day before the wedding and she welcomed me with a smile and light, sarcastic, banter - my kinda girl. Even with everything that went on, she held her composure and even joked about it. Bravo, Leslie.

The ceremony was short and sweet; Jesse and Leslie stood in front of a lovely waterfall with their close friends and family. Leslie's dress was a gorgeous champagne color with a chapel train that had a lovely french bustle for the reception. After the ceremony, it was picture time! I had to have some fun with the groom and the groomsmen ( I've known most of them since I was 5). I love non-traditional poses. They always make people laugh and genuinely smile. One of my favorites for the groom and his groomsmen is the "Captain" pose.

I stole in on an intimate moment between Leslie and Jesse and captured this. I feel like their eyes are saying "finally!" They are so good together.

I think this photos says, "Finally!" for very different reasons. ;-)

Someone once told me that it appears that I find it hard to post a photo shoot without including a picture of a dog. Maybe they're right. Meet Gage, their Husky. What a cuddle bug! He was such a well behaved dog, and so sweet. Jesse and Leslie requested he be in a few of the wedding photos - this is my favorite.

I know this is a lot of "teasers" but I couldn't help myself. I was so happy to be a part of their special day and to be able to capture their love and commitment to each other. I'll leave you with one last photo. This is also the photo I used for May14th Photo Friday challenge: Symbols. I think the image speaks for itself.

Congratulations Leslie & Jesse! Welcome to the family Leslie, I think you'll fit right in. Thank you two for letting me a part of your day and I can't wait to give you the remainder of your photos!

For those who would like an e-mail notification of when Jesse and Leslie's photos will be available online, please e-mail me at oakcityphotographync@gmail.com.

As always, thanks for reading!

-Liz DiNatale
www.oakcityphotographync.com

May 7th Photo Friday Challenge: The Coast

This Photo Friday challenge doesn't leave much up to interpretation. The Coast...I wonder what will be involved in these photos? Perhaps a sea? Some sand? Waves and the such? I was thinking of photographing a coasting bike but decided to go with the no-brainer. Is that lazy of me?

Last year sometime in the summer, I can't remember the exact month anymore. We (myself, Steven and our friends) visited the North Carolina coast at Carolina Beach. Lucky for us, there was a hurricane off the coast (note sarcasm). The rip tide was so strong, the lifeguards would not let you out past your knees. That is, unless you had a surfboard or the like. One of the couples we traveled with did indeed have a surfboard! See...

 
In the midst of the watery oppression, the surfboard meant freedom. I think after I took this photo we proceeded to build the biggest sand castle ever (I might be exaggerating). Complete with a 5 ft pit that Matt (surfboard guy) dug with a random shovel left on the beach (a real shovel). Then we had fun jump kicking the sand castle into the 5 ft pit so that no one would accidentally kill themselves.

On another note! Sorry for my absence last week! I was in Lexington, Kentucky photographing my cousin's beautiful wedding! Tune back in the next couple of days for a sneak peek at some of my favorite shots!

Thanks for reading!
-Liz DiNatale
www.oakcityphotographync.com

April 23rd Photo Friday Challenge: Sunshine

Sunshine....on my SHOULDERS....makes me HAPPYYYYY....

Who doesn't love the sun warming your back on a cool spring day? That has to be one of my favorite feelings. Or the way the sun beams pierce a storm cloud after a good rain. The sun does some great things, and damaging things, but lets not focus on those.

For this Photo Friday challenge I thought I'd take a photo of the sun in action. Doing what it does best, feeding things that feed us. I have a small garden in my back yard, it consists of tomatoes, peppers, squash, carrots, cantaloupe, cucumbers and CORN. Yep, corn, in a residential neighborhood. I know it may be odd, but I love some corn and the first plant I thought of when I thought of wanting a garden was corn.  I was giddy when the first corn seedlings broke through the tough North Carolina clay. Now they're about 6-10 inches tall. I digress. Here's my photo.

Just look at that sun in action! Grow corn GROW!!!

Please vote for me, go to the Photo Friday website and find entry 354! Thanks.
This weeks challenge word is Sexy. There's no getting around this one.
As always, thanks for reading!

-Liz DiNatale
www.oakcityphotographync.com

April 16th Photo Friday: Wheels

I just counted, I have around 34 wheels at my disposal to take photos of at my house. That's a lot of wheels. So with such ample opportunity to take photos of wheels, the real challenge for this Photo Friday was to make the photo interesting. So I decided to play with lighting. Unfortunately I have no lighting equipment but I do have a couple very powerful bike lights.

So again, on the 11th hour, I pull out my dusty camera (yes dusty, I haven't had any photo shoots in a while! I'm going to be rusty for my cousins wedding) the dirty single speed and the pristine Seca 700 bike light. It was really neat to play with the lighting. To see the different emotions I could get out of an inanimate object just with shadows and light. I'm totally an amateur at shadows and light but it was fun to experiment. Might have to play with this some more!

After a bunch of photos I had several options and finally decided on this.

It kinda feels like it's coming at you doesn't it. This is the rear wheel on my fiance's Selma Single Speed. She was a good model, I may have to work with her again.

This week's challenge work is Sunshine...and it's supposed to rain this weekend. Come on! Maybe the sun will peak through the clouds and give me an awesome sunbeam photo. One can only hope. Check back next week to see what I can come up with!

Thanks for reading!

-Liz
www.oakcityphotographync.com
oakcityphotographync@gmail.com

April 9th Photo Friday: Overcast

Yeah...I've got nothing. In the week for this submission, it wasn't rainy or an appropriate cloudiness. Go figure. We've had a very wet and icky fall, winter and early spring and now the skies dry up? Thanks. I think nature has a vendetta against our grass seed and my garden. This is what I think of your vendetta nature!!

Oh yes, I did it, I made Gunnar stick his tongue out at you! He's so supportive of my rants.

So...since I don't have a photo to submit I skipped this submission (yes on purpose, no I didn't forget...really). I figured I'd bore everyone with photos of the "kids". Nope, not even recent photos! I'm so cruel.

Cleo says she's bored of this and is going to go back to sleeping...

Wake me if there's a bug I need to chase, k thanx.

On a side note, completely unrelated, this spring we've been surrounded by carpenter bees. Those big fat scary sounding bees that are about as harmless as flies? These guys. They love our house and fence, it's apparently very tasty. Lucky we don't have wood siding, only wood fascia boards and a wood fence. But I digress. Masi...

What?

loves to chase bugs (we think she used to be a cat...she cleans herself too). There was one summer a couple years back when Bond Park was swarming with June Bugs and oh boy did she go nuts! It was hilarious. She'd run around chomping at all of them. Occasionally, catching one and then freaking out b/c they wouldn't stop buzzing in her mouth. I think that day we played "smack the June Bug" with the chuck-it. Which got old, so we left early. Wow, that was a tangent. 

Back to the point, the carpenter bees. Well, they're  about the same size as a June Bug and make about the same amount of noise. To Masi, they're ripe for the killing. Whenever we're outside she'll start running and leaping at, from what we can tell, nothing at all. Until we hear bbbzzzZZZZZzzzz as the bee flies by us. I'm so very curious to see what will happen if she ever catches one, and I really hope I have my camera. Rhea would like to see this too. She's already laughing so hard, her tongue won't stay in her mouth! And her ears have gone cockeyed! 

I'm just hot...and you're weird.

On a more tragic note. A friend of our family's has recently left us. You'll be missed Alex. You were one of the many adopted children of our family, and there is a tangible void now that you're gone. I'll remember how you saved me from certain boredom at Carolina Beach and the flowers for my graduation. I don't have any fitting photo of you to share to end this post so I'll share a photo of Carolina Beach. R.I.P. Alex. 

-Liz DiNatale

www.oakcityphotographync.com

March 2nd Photo Friday: Blurred

For this Photo Friday challenge I wanted to take an action shot of the pups or at least something in motion for a motion blur. Unfortunately, I did my usual and procrastinated until the 11th hour (literally) and had to use a photo I had taken previously. I had 3 photos I narrowed it down to. Each had a lovely DOF but in the end I really just liked this photo of my brother.

What I like about this photo is for one thing the great bokeh effect (blurred background with in focus foreground) and how sweet and charming it is. I think it goes pretty far to capture his personality. He has no idea I'm using a photo of him for this weeks challenge, hope he doesn't mind. This was taken on Easter Sunday outside our step-sister-in-law's house. I'm pretty sure he asked me to stop taking photos after this...

Surpwise James! Thanks for being a(n) (un)willing subject in my photo challenge.

This week's challange is Overcast...geee...I wonder what I'll take a photo of.....

Thanks for reading!
Oh! don't forget to VOTE!

-Liz DiNatale
www.oakcityphotographync.com
oakcityphotographync@gmail.com

March 26th Photo Friday Challenge: Pleasure

Pop quiz, what is the first thing you think of when you think of photography + pleasure....yeah...me too. I couldn't photograph that...I don't think blogger would let me post it. I am at a loss for this challenge word. I had the image of what I felt the perfect portrait of pleasure to be...and it was stuck in my minds eye, not letting any other creative vision take seed.

So in an effort to not fail and to actually post something, I dug into my photography stash. Something in there must portray pleasure. I found the perfect photo!

It's carnal, it's seductive, it has a feeling of impending pleasure, its....crap that's not my photography. This would be a photo that Chrissy took for Steven and I for our engagement photos. I'm pretty sure submitting this photo as my own work goes against my moral code. Well crap, but hey, there's got to be something else.

And there was. In 2009 Chrissy and I had the pleasure (hey, key word!) of meeting Toya and Jerry, soon to be Owino. We were recommended to them through a friend of a friend and were able to take their engagement photos as well as their wedding photography. These two were so intimate, it was obvious they were deeply in love. Typically when we photograph couples, we have to ask them to kiss, we had to ask these guys to stop!

I took this photo on their engagement photo shoot. This was in the courtyard of the Raleigh courthouse. I love how it appears as if I'm sneaking in on them to capture this intimate moment. It amazes me that this was nearly a year ago. In May they'll be celebrating their one year anniversary! Toya and Jerry Owino...good people.

Enough of my rambling, here's the photo I submitted.

If you liked this photo (or even if you didn't) please vote for me! Go to Photo Friday: Pleasure my submission is titled SOR_Pleasure, it is number 271.

As always, thanks for reading!

-Liz DiNatale
www.oakcityphotographync.com
oakcityphotographync@gmail.com