Flowers and Sunsets: Senior Session

Last month I shared my first ever session with my soon-to-be senior sister. And in that post I also shared my excitement over my latest session with her before she left for college...and then I never posted anything! How rude of me to tease you like that. Please accept my apologies (and excuses).

We spent the afternoon before the session driving around in the country looking for locations. When the time finally came for us to go out that evening, the sun was setting much faster than I thought it was going to and it was getting dark fast. Our carefully planned locations flew out the window and we stopped in a country neighborhood, in someone's driveway to take these pictures.

 During the session I fell in love with the purple flowers that matched her dress. When I asked her to stand in the flowers, she said, "You mean the purple weeds?" And that's why I love working with my sister.

Vegas Night Lights

At the beginning of the week I was itching to get out of our calm and quaint neighborhood in Henderson and capture some photographs of Vegas. For our first trip to the Strip with J, we had no expectations besides enjoying the flashy (really flashy!) and colorful lights of the famous Las Vegas!

We quickly learned that one does not just drive up the Strip, find a parking spot, and merrily be on their way to enjoy the festivities. Anyway....one hour later we finally make it to the Bellagio Fountains. With time to kill before the show, we enjoyed people watching and J enjoyed people chasing (and staring).

And when I usually feel awkward with my camera out everywhere we go, I would have felt MORE out of place if I wasn't snapping away at everything. Bonus of living in a tourist town! 

On a related note, I also felt a tiny sense of accomplishment as I thought of my journey from a snap-happy tourist to a photographer in control of my camera. (And as I type this I laugh because just this week I somehow smacked myself in the head with my camera's hot shoe. Ow!)

After finishing my NYIP lesson this week on natural light and night photography, I felt confident that I would be able to get beautiful shots of the fountains. What I didn't count on was my terrible timing when releasing the shutter. Even with a shutter speed of a few seconds, I would miss the big shots of water nearly every time. But now I know, just like with fireworks, you don't stop clicking until the show stops.

Moral of the story, I don't know "Billie Jean" like I thought I did.

365: August Favorites

Well August has surely been exciting for the Pieper family and I was happy to capture our lives in photographs during this crazy time. I really didn't know how we would survive this month and now that it is over I am happy to take a deep breath and prepare for a little normalcy.

Vegas living has come (unexpectedly) naturally to our little family. We love soaking up the sun at the pool, playing at the unlimited parks, watching airplanes take off and land, and having tons of options for shopping and eating out. (Which we don't do because alas, we are still college students.)

I am excited for the new opportunities to photograph a new place and to take in the desert beauty of Las Vegas. I am also excited to get into a more normal blogging schedule because finally all of the boxes are unpacked!

PS: Can you tell which of the above pictures were taken in Vegas?