Hearing people talk about that on Friday sparked something inside me. Photography is my passion. Sure, there are other things I enjoy, but nothing as much as being behind the lens. Yet, with the other demands on my time recently – a busy job and a new baby daughter – I have not been cultivating my passion like I should. So after saying goodbye to my friend, I decided that I can no longer make any excuses for not making time to pursue my photography.

This morning I dragged myself out of bed at 6:30, and my friend Ron and I went to Oakwood Cemetery to shoot some photos. It felt really good to get out and snap some photos of something besides Callie and my pets (not that I don’t absolutely love photographing them…I just haven’t done anything different since before December). I have always enjoyed photographing cemeteries, but maybe I was a little more drawn to Oakwood this morning with Isiah’s passing still weighing heavy on my heart. Regardless, today I feel like I got some great shots. Click here to see some of those photos in the Oakwood Cemetery gallery on my website.

We will miss you, Isiah…

And for this week’s Photography Fix…

With the imminent arrival of our little one, Val has worked very hard to get the nursery ready. Last weekend I shot a few images, and these were two of my favorites.

We were driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway and experienced the thickest fog I had ever seen. As we were going back down one of the mountains, the fog started to clear and I spotted this rainbow. It was still raining a little bit, so there were water spots on the lens, but the mountain just looked amazing with the rainbow shooting out of it.

Several months ago, Val thought I had begun my descent into old-manhood when I told her I wanted to get a bird book and a pair of binoculars. She thought the next logical step was for me to start yelling at the damn kids to get off our lawn (which, incidentally, I found myself doing last week).

I have had the opportunity to observe and photograph several different water birds and birds of prey during our trip to the Everglades in January and during our recent trip to Edisto Island, SC. But one bird I have been dying to see and that I have never encountered in the wild is an owl. My parents have told me about the owl that used to sit on their fence every night, and my sister-in-law told me about the white owls they would see in Cashiers…I know they’re common…I just have never seen one. Until today.

Val, Bella, and I were walking through the Swift Creek Bluffs area, which is one of the Triangle Land Conservancy‘s properties. It was beautiful with the beech trees and sunlight glistening off the drops from the morning rain. On our way back to the car, we saw a huge brown bird fly over the creek and into one of the trees in the valley below us. Our assumption was that it was a hawk. So after we climbed down the hill, we made our way toward the area where we thought we saw the hawk land. As we got closer, Val told me she didn’t think we saw a hawk…then she pointed to a branch hanging over the creek where this beautiful creature was perched.

This week’s photo is one I shot from the backyard of two friends. Their house backs up to a beautiful horse farm (which happens to be owned by a great portrait photographer – check out her work here).

I took this photo using my Canon EOS 20D that I had modified for color infrared, then I converted the image to black and white. The angle of the shot and having only the horse in focus combine to give the image a dreamlike quality.

This photo was shot on the beach at Botany Bay Plantation Wildlife Management Area on Edisto Island in SC. It was taken at sunrise, and although the sunrise was beautiful, I believe that black and white captures the eerieness and isolation you feel when walking among the petrified trees that litter the beach.

{Edited 8/14: Apparently I posted a color photo instead of the black and white photo I intended to post. Although I really like the color photo, it just didn’t quite match the story.}