Heidelberg

Some images from my recent visit to Heidelberg with the family visiting from the States. My husband's cousins wife's Grandad (wow that was complicated) was stationed here after WWII & so wanted to check out the city. Here are some of my images including some portraits i shot of the family whilst we were there. The weather wasn't wonderful, a little misty but the sun was out & we had a great day (although way too many stairs for my liking).

Inside of Heidelberg Castle.

& the outside of Heidelberg Castle.

Daniel & Leah ...

& Lucas & the future Mrs Evans.

ants view of the mona lisa ...

for those of you who have never been to the louvre ... imagine being an ant & trying to view the mona lisa, being an average human is difficult enough!

morning drive to base ...

Bad Durkheim Wine Festival

This past Saturday i went to Bad Durkheim wine festival, the largest wine festival in the world. Basically it's an excuse for anyone to get really really drunk on wine, unless you're me the DD who plans on taking a whole bunch of photos. & that's pretty much exactly what i did ... took lots & lots of photos of anything & everything & got somewhat creative & had some fun during the editing process as well.

Let me know what you think ... happy looking!! xx

the story of a photo about love & marriage

Once upon a time in a far off land there lived a beautiful (well this is my fairy tale) photographer princess who liked to take photos of the things she'd see on her travels, random & unique, her images were bright & bold & colourful. But they were always "created" by someone else, mother nature, a shop keeper or home owner, she didn't explore or even understand conceptual photography ...

OK enough of the fairy tale ... my plan was originally to post this image with words from a poem or song but i decided the story behind me taking it was way more interesting. It just shows the weird & wonderful places we find our inspiration.

So there we were sitting in the beer tent at Bad Durkheim, the largest wine festival in the world (& yes were were in the beer tent ... go figure), & for some reason these moments are when i seem to end up messing around with my beloved macro lens. So anyways everyone's drinking except for yours truly the DD, & the token they had given me for my cola bottle (to get a euro back ... for those of your who don't know they're really big on recycling here in germ any) was a little wooden red heart. So I'm taking photos of that & then because i really wasn't paying attention to what they were saying wedding rings were coming off & well then the idea formed. Somewhere deep in the depths of my tiny little mind i built this photo (& another similar using my friends wedding rings) on a table in a beer tent.

I think photography like art doesn't have to be exactly as you see it, & this is what I'm learning about at the moment. Whilst i still go out & photograph things in their own environment so to speak, as someone else placed them I'm also learning to build images around an idea to create something equally as beautiful but in a different way. Call it artists interpretation if you like but we don't criticize painters or sculptors for doing it so then it's alright for me too.

Lyndsey & David

Just wanted to share a few images from my recent shoot with the wonderfully fabulously gorgeous Lyndsey, David plus one (well a bump anyways). We had a great shoot & i naturally wanted to share a few of the images here with you.

Enjoy.

The "Citrus Fruit Collection"

some yellow, green & orange ... otherwise known (& this is me being all sophisticated & everything) ... the "Citrus Fruit Collection"! Image will be printed on both recycled notecards & as original fine art prints.

Christine Meintjes Photography

Yesterday i blogged about Rock N Roll Bride, a wonderful blog that has introduced me to some fabulous photographers, & opened my eyes to a whole new world so to speak. So here is my first blog about one of the incredible talented, friendly, down to earth & personable photographers i have been introduced to. Sorry did i mention her photos are stunning?

So here before your very eyes is the work of one Christine Meintjes ...

Christine is a wedding & portrait photographer, working out of Cape Town, South Africa, although saying she only photographs people would be a lie since she can produce stunning shots of anything she seems to put her mind to. But back on the subject ... She discovered her passion for photography whilst working as an assistant for a wedding photographer which led to her completing a BA in Visual Communication, specialising in graphic design & photographer. Now she has her own business producing stunning images that people will cherish for the rest of their lives.

From reading Christines blog you are able to get a sense of who she is, as a person & from talking to her (& trying to persuade her she needs to do a workshop over here in europe) i've found her to interesting, insightful & always willing to help those of us trying to find a foothold in what can be an incredible tough business. Infact she just had her first workshop which was naturally a success & i'd imagine there are many more to come!

Christine's blog isn't simple a showcase for a work but a tool that other photographers can use to learn from, as she provides all kind of valuable information such as a recently introduced question & answer suggestion giving real life insight into location issues, her particular style & of course the photography industry itself.

Everything about Christine's images sums up my recent change in opinion of portrait & wedding photography. Her use of colour is wonderful, being a fan of bold bright colour's, & high contrast, she doesn't shy away from these things but at the same time understands when a softer shade or black & white is more suited. Her style is more natural none of the posed images i've grown to hate & the detail within her work fantastic.

So now comes the part where i try & sum up Christine & her photography but really i can't, by looking at her images you know they are fantastic & through talking to her you immediately understand she isn't one of those photographers with her head up her own ass.

Christine can be contact through her website at http://www.christinemeintjes.co.za/

Rock N Roll Bride

A couple of months back in my search for engagement photos to help with Monqiue & James's shoot i was introduced to the blog Rock N Roll Bride ... & wow is all i can say. I have become hooked on the wonderful images that the fabulous pink haired gorgeousness that is Kat blogs about on a daily basis.

I had all kinds of preconceptions about portrait, engagement & most of all wedding photography, & i never wanted to fall into the that group. I'm no Annie Lebovitz but i wanted to be able to photography people & not fall into the posed cliche that i see every day. I wanted something different, images that people can return to day in & day & love well into their 80s. Photos that sum up who they are, in a way that's unique & interesting but honestly i didn't know how to go about this. But Kat's wonderful blog showed me the way (so to speak), showcasing the great wedding, engagement & portrait photography out there. Further she writes wonderful blogs about how to blog so us newbees out there can get it right.

Kat has given me a whole new insight into a world i would love to be a part of, & hopefully one day my images will grace her blog.

orange - inspiration avenue weekly challenge

This weeks "weekly challenge" in Inspiration Avenue was "orange". So here i was a little stuck for a while, i mean whilst many would think Halloween with this i don't, being British & all. Orange to me is bright & bold, it reminds me of summer, my second cat Sandy (if you hadn't already guessed he was one big ass ginger tom) & one of my favourite t-shirts. (if you want one check out Palmer Cash ... they are awesome, & i really cannot begin to describe how much i love to shop with them!!)

So i went back through my work to see what i already had, & nothing was really orange, or stood out to me. I mean i had some stuff i took out & about but nothing that screamed orange.

September is here but Autumn isn't appearing & as i said I'm not such a fan of Halloween, although i might still go out & buy a pumpkin for some photographic fun. & so i went literal ... i went an actual orange. Started photographing that on a bright red chopping board & then remembered i had some orange paper so ended up with the orange on orange paper & well I'm not sure you can get more "orange" than that. Although in taking the shots this isn't the one i thought I'd end up with but then that's half the fun of editing ... isn't it?

So anyways here's my submission for this weeks photo challenge ... hope you like it. & you have until Sunday to get your entry in ... have fun people!

new discovery on etsy ...

i just discovered this shop on etsy & WOW do i want this bag! anyways go check out the store, her bags are stunning. Stop by EightSeasons for the perfect tote!

ps. if my husband is reading this make a note!

art through the lens ...

I was lucky enough to be included within this website, amongst a group of fantastic photographers. Photographers come from all warps of life, we travel the world photographing anything & everything, viewing the world in a way no one else can. & that is what this article sets out to show. & whilst we are all different we all love photography, cameras & producing art through the lens.

Thank you Jes, & be sure to check out her shop on etsy ... Junquerevival.

more military life ...

how many pairs of shoes does the average guy own ... well my plan for this photo was to shoe the number of pairs of boots the average military guy owns, unfortunately i gave up searching because well whilst finding military clothing in our house is pretty easy to do, finding specific items is literally like looking for a needle in a haystack! So instead here are the boots my husband insists on keep in our bedroom ... yes our bedroom! they have since been removed.

a weekend in the black forest ...

The past 2 days i spent with my husband & two of our closest friends down in the black forest, seeing well a whole lot of trees amongst other things. I wish we'd had more time but you know the military, they don't always take our vacationing plans into account so we just had to make the most of the time we had.

Setting off at stupid o'clock Saturday morning we had a fun "road trip" down to the region stopping off at Alpirsbach, a little town in the middle of nowhere, home to a famous monastery & wow how about that a brewery! So we spent a couple of hours wondering around there, seeing the monastery & of course sampling the beer ... although guess who got to drive! yes that's right i missed out on this bit of fun.

So after the monastery we headed to Freiburg where we would be spending the night, the biggest city in the black forest it really wasn't that nice. We checked out the sights (including the church) & finally found ourselves a nice little Irish pub. Yes i rock at tracking down the Irish pubs where we succeeded in running up a nice little tab & i kicked ass at darts! From there it was just a short stumble back to the hotel & a wonderful nights sleep.

Our plan for Sunday was to head to Triberg to check out the waterfalls, the highest in Germany. They were ummmm pretty, full of tourists & not exactly as grand as i imagined but the town was pretty & we had fun. We hiked up to the top (not that far) & i had fun messing around with my new cable release for my camera, shooting slow shutter speed images of the waterfalls that is until it broke. I will be returning it tomorrow.

& then it was time for ice cream when i shot this, messing about with my camera in the ice cream shop & ended up with this image which i love. So that was my weekend, i got to see some cool stuff, take some new images, & experiment with all kinds of photographic stuff. I hope everyone else had a great one.

ants view ...

One of my favourite photographic "tricks" so to speak is to put the camera on the floor & take a picture, an ants view if you like. It creates a whole new perspective on the world, & allows you to see things you've never really noticed before. So here starts another new series of "ants views" of the world!

This image was shot in the Alpirsbach Monastery, Germany.