I woke up at 6:04 AM this morning. Really, I woke up earlier. I finally opened one eye and looked at the clock at 6:04. I’d really rather wake up at 10:00 AM if I don’t have an early morning shoot. But my trouble is that I don’t like to go to sleep at night. I’d rather stay up and do stuff…any stuff. Sleeping takes up so much of the day! You might wonder why I’d wake up at 6:04 if I slept after midnight. Well, I do get tired. And if I don’t go to sleep when I’m tired, but rather, I stay up watching 21 different Cirque du Soleil show trailers over and over again, then I get more tired. And the more tired I get, the harder it is to sleep. And the more tired I am, the earlier I wake up. It’s a vicious circle. Take it from someone who knows.
So then you might ask why I spent the last hours of the night watching Cirque du Soleil trailers. Well, yesterday morning, I was catching up with David Ziser’s blog (David is one of my favorite photographers – I’m going to be attending his one week wedding photography masterclass in Kentucky in October, so that I can brush up on my technique), and saw that David was able to catch the permanent Cirque du Soleil O show in Las Vegas. I clicked on the link and was hooked. Actually, a few years ago, I thought about seeing a show, but then kind of forgot about it. Today, though, I don’t think I can forget. Cirque du Soleil’s Ovo show is coming to DC in just a few weeks. But Idrissa and I aren’t really all that into insects and reptiles. I’d rather see the O (LOVE that music! alas, shows in Las Vegas only), Totem, Ka (Las Vegas only), Dralion, Zumanity (NYC and Las Vegas only), Quidam, Zed (Tokyo only), Allegria, or Corteo (touring Europe only). But there’s hope! A light at the end of the tunnel! Click on “buy tickets” for Totem, and it says “coming soon” to Baltimore! Hopefully, it won’t be during our November trip to Burkina Faso, West Africa!
Anyway, onto the photo topic of the day. I printed a 24×36 canvas print in a black premium frame for newlyweds Issy & Jason, and let me tell you, it is STUNNING!!! The colors are spectacular, the quality of the printing is flawless, and the black premium frame is absolutely the right choice for this image. I took a few photos of it before Issy & Jason picked it up last weekend.
24x36 Canvas Print Framed in a Black Premium Wood Frame by Irene Abdou Photography
Here’s a close-up from an angle, so that you can see the texture of the canvas.
24x36 Canvas Print Framed in a Black Premium Wood Frame by Irene Abdou Photography
Here’s another close-up, this time straight-on.
24x36 Canvas Print Framed in a Black Premium Wood Frame by Irene Abdou Photography
These next two are close-ups of the premium black wood. My clients can choose from gallery wrap canvas prints, where the print wraps around the wood frame, so the frame isn’t visible, or a framed canvas print in a standard black wood frame, or premium black, premium walnut, premium antique, or premium gold frames. I think Issy & Jason made the right choice in selecting the premium black wood!
24x36 Canvas Print Framed in a Black Premium Wood Frame by Irene Abdou Photography
24x36 Canvas Print Framed in a Black Premium Wood Frame by Irene Abdou Photography
By the way, after the wedding, I was absolutely floored by the response I got from Issy and her family and friends to the photos. Here’s what she wrote when she reviewed me on WeddingWire.com:
Irene is one of a kind. She is so talented, easy to work with, she’s an instant friend! We truly enjoyed working with her and she was so enthusiastic. We had a very small wedding of 15 but she made our pictures look like so incredibly phenomenal! When my friends saw my wedding pictures, they said stuff like… I wish I could get married again so that I could have Irene as my photographer…. You looked like a movie star…. The pictures made us cry, we felt like we were there…. I would have never thought of taking a picture like that….Fantastic pictures.
I would recommend Irene to anyone! She is worth every penny and much more. I came back from my honeymoon (a week) all the pictures were already posted on the website. I was able to share it with my friends and family all over the world. We will continue to use Irene; I’m thinking Family pictures….
Issy’s friend, Tracy, said:
I wish I could get married again so that I could have Irene take my pictures, those were just fantastic!
Nanette, Issy’s cousin, said:
The pictures are so beautiful. I wish my wedding photographer would have done a work like your photographer. You look so happy, Isabel… The cake looks AMAZING!!!. What else can I say. Everything looked just beautiful, delicate and most important that you were happy on that day. Thank you for sharing the beautiful pictures with us.
Issy also told me that her other cousin, Leta, LOVED the pictures too, she said that “you can feel the happiness.” Both Tracy and Leta said that they cried looking at the pictures.
You know, for most people, it might be a BAD thing to make someone cry. But for me, it’s GOOD! AWESOME! MAKES MY DAY! It tells me that I did GREAT! After all, what is my job? It’s to help people remember and relive one of the most important, wonderful, and happiest days of their lives… What an HONOR…
A combination of photography techniques called "focus blur" and "zoom blur" are used to transform the lights of the ferris wheel into abstract designs at the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
A few weeks ago, I taught a Light & Motion photography workshop at the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair. I headed back to the fair a week later to work on my own focus blur-zoom blur technique. My abstracts were some of my Summer 2010 Photography Newsletter readers’ favorites, so I’ve decided to make one available for September’s calendar wallpaper. Download the resolution that matches your computer monitor. Enjoy! You can also view a slideshow of more Light & Motion abstracts here.
Last night, Idrissa and I watched The Notebook. My third or fourth time watching it, and I still cried! Seriously…greatest love story of all time… My Blockbuster-by-Mail subscription dropped us another video today. I think…I hope… it’s Hung Season 1, Disc 2… Too funny! Even Idrissa likes it, and he doesn’t usually like this kind of thing…
I’m sorry…well, no I’m not…but I love TV shows…most of the time, I like them even better than movies. I mean, when you love a show, you don’t want it to end! Most of the time, movies just don’t last long enough! I started loving TV shows when I was living in South Sudan in 2005-2006. Of course, I loved living in South Sudan, but there wasn’t a whole lot to do for entertainment! Nowadays, I don’t feel relaxed if I don’t watch a TV show before going to sleep!
Anyway, I’ve been talking about how I believe an additional value that portrait-wedding-event studios can add is beautifully designed and printed cards, invitations, and announcements. Yesterday, when I showed you some baby announcement designs, I promised to also show you some save-the-date card designs, so here they are! Can you guess which design Leigh & Garrett have chosen? Which one would you choose? Scroll to the end for the answer!
Cards and invitations are available on a variety of standard and premium paper types, including art linen, art watercolor, art recycled, and my personal favorite, pearl paper.
Desgin #1: 4x6 or 5x7 flat vertical save-the-date card. Left side is the front of the card; right side is the back of the card.
Design #2: 4x6 or 5x7 flat, horizontal save-the-date card. This is the front of the card.
Design #2: 4x6 or 5x7 flat, horizontal save-the-date card. This is the back of the card.
Design #3: 4x6 or 5x7 flat vertical save-the-date card. Left side is the front of the card; right side is the back of the card.
Design #4: 4x6 or 5x7 flat vertical save-the-date card. Left side is the front of the card; right side is the back of the card.
Design #5: 4x6, 5x7, or 5x5 flat, horizontal save-the-date card. This is the front of the card.
Design #5: 4x6, 5x7, or 5x5 flat, horizontal save-the-date card. This is the back of the card.
Design #6: 4x6 or 5x7 FOLDED, vertical save-the-date card. This is the front of the card.
Design #6: 4x6 or 5x7 FOLDED, vertical save-the-date card. This is the inside of the card. The photo stretches across both left and right sides.
Design #6: 4x6 or 5x7 FOLDED, vertical save-the-date card. This is the back of the card.
Leigh & Garrett chose Design #3, size 5×7 on pearl paper. Pearl is my absolute favorite paper, so I’m really glad they chose it! It’s glittery and so BEAUTIFUL. It really goes with the spirit of weddings. Can’t wait to see them printed! Which design and paper would you choose?
Want to see more photos from Leigh & Garrett’s engagement session? Check out their engagement storybook album here.
I believe that portrait and wedding studios can add a lot of value beyond the photography and simple prints. This is why I offer beautiful custom-design products like press-printed storybook albums, accordion books, keepsake image boxes, and canvas prints in premium frames, and other quality products, in addition to matted luster and metallic photographic prints, mounting on bamboo panels, and other types of mounts.
Today, I want to show you a sampling of 5×7 flat and folded baby announcement designs that I put together for the birth of little Ezra King. (See the captions under each photo for details on the design.) In coming blog posts, I’ll also be showing you some sample save-the-date card and wedding invitation designs. Cards and invitations are available on a variety of standard and premium paper types, including art linen, art watercolor, art recycled, and my personal favorite, pearl paper.
Design #1: 5x7 Flat Card
Design #2: 5x7 Flat Card
Design #3: 5x7 Flat Card
Design #4: 5x7 Flat Card, Front
Design #4: 5x7 Folded Card, Inside Top and Bottom
Design #4: 5x7 Folded Card, Back
Design #5: 5x7 Folded Card, Front
Design #5: 5x7 Folded Card, Inside Top
Design #5: 5x7 Folded Card, Inside Bottom
Design #5: 5x7 Folded Card, Back
Now, I am off to spend the evening watching The Notebook with my husband, Idrissa. If you haven’t seen The Notebook, you have to! It’s once of the best movies – one of the best love stories – of all time. I’ve already watched it at least twice, but not in a few years, so it’s time to see it again! It’ll be the complete opposite of Lord of War, which we watched last night. I usually don’t like Nicholas Cage movies so much, but Lord of War was good. A little sad and definitely disturbing, but a good movie…
During my photography workshop last week on Light and Motion: Photographing the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair last week, I wanted to focus on my students, so I didn’t do any of my own shooting. However, I did get the chance to catch two hours of the fair on the last day this past weekend, before the start of a drizzle scared me off. Here’s a slideshow of some of my quick picks. For the most part, I was working on a focus blur technique, with a few combination zoom blurs thrown in for kicks. I haven’t finished processing all my images yet, but will continue to add them as I process… Enjoy!
Last week, I taught a photography workshop on Light and Motion: Photographing the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair. The students and I had a great time; everyone agreed that the fair is a great subject for a photography workshop! What better place to learn about night photography? And of course, everyone got some great photos, so all of you, pat yourselves on the back! Here’s a selection of some of the students’ work here.
(Click on “View with PicLens” for a full-screen slideshow.)
I’ll also be posting critiques of each image on a private viewing site – students, you’ll be getting an invitation from me this coming week to view the site!
I didn’t take any photos myself during the workshop, as I wanted to focus on the students, but I was able to head back to the fair for two hours last night before getting scared off by the beginnings of a drizzle. I’ll post a selection of my own fair photography soon…
And, over the next few weeks, I’ll be planning my next group photography workshop. I’ll probably only have time for one more workshop in September/October before I head off for a month in Burkina Faso, West Africa. I’m thinking that my next workshop will be on something “horsey”…horse races…polo…rodeo… Let me know if you’re interested! I always give students who pre-express interest first dibs at registration!
Proud parents Kristen and Dan welcomed their second son, Ezra King, into the world two weeks ago. After doing Kristen’s maternity photography last month, I had the honor of meeting Ezra when he was just 12 days old for his very first photography shoot! Isn’t he absolutely adorable???!!!
A young Fulani boy in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso wraps a turban around his head in traditional nomadic fashion. The turban protects from the harsh dust and wind of the Harmattan season.
This November, my husband and I are going to be traveling to Burkina Faso for one month. I’ve timed the trip to overlap with Tabaski, one of my favorite West African holidays. (I’m looking forward to the food…) It’s a part family trip (my husband has family there), part photography trip. In 2007, we visited, but only for a week. (In fact, the photo above, called “Wrapped in Blue,” is from my 2007 trip.) And our previous visit was in 1999 for just two weeks. So this will be my longest and most in-depth visit to Burkina Faso, one of my favorite countries in Africa.
One of the photography projects that I have in mind for my trip is documenting the “Doohi” of Burkina Faso. Doohi is a form of Fulani music/song that includes repeated background chants/vocalizations. It’s very distinctive and originates from a specific area of Burkina. It’s traditionally performed at night by children and young adults around campfires in the bush, but with the relentless onset of modernity, it’s sadly practiced less and less. There’s very little existing documentation of doohi – I’ve only been able to find a single CD recording from 1997, which had just a few images as part of the jacket. This is why I believe that it’s so important to document this significant cultural heritage while it’s still practiced as a regular form of community entertainment. This project is particularly interesting to me because I originally got my start as a Peace Corps Volunteer in neighboring Niger, where I spent 3 1/2 years living in Fulani villages. (I speak Fulfulde – the language of the Fulani people, who practice doohi – fluently.) Plus, this project can also serve as a foundation for future projects on how Fulani musical forms have evolved after thousands of years of these nomadic pastoralists crisscrossing the Sahel and the Sahara – the Fulani living in different countries across West Africa have developed distinct forms of music specific to their geographic areas.
Anyway, I’m going to try something new here with my fine art photography and offer the opportunity to pre-purchasefine art photography from my upcoming November 2010 trip, that is, the opportunity to pre-purchase artwork that doesn’t yet exist. The bonus for YOU is that you’ll get to own this artwork at 35% to 50% off the regular price – that’s 35% off for sizes 8×10 to 11×14 and 50% off of larger sizes up to 24×36. That means that you can own an 8×12 print matted to 12×16 for just $127 (regular price $195) or a 24×36 print for just $332.50 (regular price $665). That’s a GREAT deal!
And the bonus for ME is that I can use the funds to help support my Doohi project. I promise that if you pre-purchase artwork, when I come back from Burkina, you’ll be able to select from hundreds of images. It will take me some time to sort through and process everything, but I will start making images available for selection in mid-December and have all images available by the end of January 2011.
A week ago, I posted photos of the amazing Longwood Gardens Fireworks & Fountains performance. There’s still one more show left (in September) for the year, so you might want to see if you can catch it. You won’t be sorry! When we drove up to Longwood Gardens, we arrived in the afternoon, so had a bit of time to explore the gardens before the nighttime fireworks. The gardens are just as amazing as the fireworks. First of all, the place is HUGE! These are the biggest gardens I’ve seen! And they are filled with beautiful decorative and design elements, such as plant-covered arches, long walkways ending in a fountain, beautiful, sculpted stone benches… It is the absolutely perfect locale for portrait and wedding photography, so if anyone wants to do a portrait session there, let me know! And, of course, I would be up for covering a wedding there also!!!
This Siam tulip was growing in the Conservatory. The Conservatory was also amazing – indoor, ivy-covered columns, arches, a little pond, and plants hanging in pots from the ceiling…
But I immediately fell (more) in love with the outdoor lily ponds behind the Conservatory. The photo below just shows one lily pond; there were actually four rectangular ponds and one circular pond, if I remember correctly. Very different from Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington, DC, where the lilies grow like wildflowers, but nevertheless absolutely gorgeous. I couldn’t get enough of the lilies…
I especially enjoyed the giant water-platters, which I’d never seen before…
In one of the outdoor gardens, we found lots of butterflies.
Today, Longwood Gardens complements its horticultural displays with more than 400 musical and theatre performances, and other events, per year, and since 1914, Longwood Garden’s Open Air Theatre has amused visitors with theatrical performances, concerts, and garden parties. The theatre also has a fountain system housing 750 water nozzles. The fountain height and patterns are choreographed to musical performances several times per day. We caught one of these performances.
We went out in the evening for dinner, then came back for the fireworks. We had just a little time to quickly visit the Italian Water Garden, which is enclosed by pruned littleaf linden trees and clipped ivy. Within the garden, 18 blue-tiled pools catch water from 600 water jets.
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