Idrissa and I took some time out the day after Thanksgiving to visit the Garden of Lights display at Brookside Gardens.  Wow!!!  In past years, we’ve gone to see the holiday lights displays at the Mormon Temple and Seneca Creek State Park in Gaithersburg, but I think Brookside gives them all a run for their money!!!  Timed lights in icicle formations invoked the feeling of twinkling, melting ice…long strips of ice complemented by recordings of thunder wowed us.  And don’t let me forget the “ribbits” of the light frog.  But my very, very favorite is the Lock Ness monster and baby.  I’m probably not explaining this well at all…you just have to see it to get it!  And…I don’t know if Brookside is issuing photo permits during the light display, but it would be so very cool to do a children’s portrait photography session in the Garden of Lights.  So if you’re interested, give me a holler, and I’ll see what we can do!  The Garden of Lights runs through January 8th, 2012.  Otherwise, Gaylord’s ICE would make another great setting for children’s holiday portraits…and there’s also a place in Davidsonville with some beautiful holiday scenes set up.  So the holiday season’s just starting, and it’s time for your holiday portrait photography session!

Anyway, check out these photographs below.  In the first one, we didn’t bring my video light with me, so I lit Idrissa with…the flashlight we had brought along to help us see!  And for the photograph of me, I must admit that he had a harder time of it, trying to light me with a weak flashlight while I was jumping in the air!  (I composited photographs of him and me together later on in the computer for the second image.)  Don’t be surprised if you see this one on our holiday card!

I just haven’t had as much time this year as in previous years to work on my fine art photography side.  So I was happy to have this chance to play.  For this next series of images, I didn’t want the “normal” photographs of holiday light displays.  I was looking for something much more creative and abstract!  In the photos below, I purposefully ensured that the lights were NOT in focus, and I played around with long shutter speeds while zooming the lens, changing focus, and/or moving the camera.  This is how they look pretty much straight out of the camera!  Pretty cool, huh?

Oh, and as you’re searching for the perfect gift for your loved one, fine art photography makes for a cherished, lasting gift.  Don’t wait too much longer, as artwork is custom printed, matted, and framed just for you, and this takes both tender loving care and time!

Last week, I spent about five hours at the offices of Hutton Patt Title & Escrow in Potomac, Maryland installing 15 pieces of Chris Patt and Whet Hutton’s favorite photographs of the American landscape, including a few of your favorite spots here at home.  Check it out!  And if you’re buying a home or refinancing, Chris and Whet will do an awesome job for you…tell them I sent you, or I’d be happy to put you in touch.  (Hutton Patt: 240-575-6333.)  And if you’re looking for a realtor, mortage lender, and mover, shoot me an e-mail or post the question here, and I’d be happy to recommend some people who I just know will do you proud!

And are the walls of YOUR home or office bare?  Treat yourself or a loved one to the gift of fine art photography.  Browse my fine art photography archive of landscapes, nature, black & white, abstracts, architecture, travel and more here.

Award-Winning Fine Art Photographer Specializing in Nature, Landscapes, Architecture, and African Cultures

IRENE ABDOU PHOTOGRAPHY

Fusing fine art & photojournalism to create images that are simply…unforgettable

The April 2011 calendar wallpaper is here! Spring is in the air, and this month’s calendar wallpaper features a pair of water lilies at the amazing Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington, DC.  In a few months, the water lilies will be up in few force, and I will be recommending the location for engagement photography and portrait photography sessions!  (Check out this 2010 portrait session of Megan in the lilies of Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens here.)

Download the calendar wallpaper here, in a resolution appropriate to your computer monitor.  And view more fine art photography of the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens here.

Award-Winning Fine Art Photographer Specializing in Nature, Landscapes, Architecture, and African Cultures

IRENE ABDOU PHOTOGRAPHY

Fusing fine art & photojournalism to create images that are simply…unforgettable

Why oh why do my very favorite TV shows always end after just one or two seasons?  First, it was Dark Angel, then I discovered Eli Lilly, and then…Heroes was so good, how could they possibly have ended it after only one season???  And now!  I started watching John Doe, and that last episode was just oh so good, I search for season 2, and alas, it’s nowhere to be found…  Am I the only one who loves these TV shows???  So, so sad…

Anyway, as you can tell from my lack of blog posts this week, I have been BUSY!!!  I’ve photographed several important corporate events this week, one of which was a very cool Cirque du Soleil-style awards/all-star event, plus did an executive portrait for a CEO at a local public relations firm, and bright and early tomorrow morning, I’m doing executive portraits for four people from the leadership team of a local tech start-up.

And, in addition to booking weddings for 2011 and 2012, I am already booking portrait photography (newborn and family) sessions for both this spring and summer, as families and parents-to-be are wanting to make sure I’ll be available for them during wedding season!  So this is your chance too!  Don’t forget about my Be-My-Valentine portrait photography package promotion – between now and Valentine’s Day, book any of my portrait photography packages, and receive an additional $100 in complimentary luster and metallic prints!  Hurry!!!  There’s only ten days left!

And finally, I wanted to share with you a few new publications I’ve got.  The first is a full-page photograph of our very own Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, published in Dan Brown’s bestselling book, The Lost Symbol: Special Illustrated Edition (available from Doubleday; isbn: 978-0-385-53382-9).  The second photograph below is from Burkina Faso, West Africa, and has been published in a textbook called Masters of Media: The News Never Stops from Heinemann Raintree Publishing.  To Doubleday and Raintree, thanks for sending these over to me!

It’s cold out there! We can help you bring spring and warmth to your home while snow still dots the air! Empty spaces on the walls of your home or office? Consider a few pieces of fine art photography to brighten your living or workspace and to remind you that spring is just around the corner.

A client in Fredericksburg, Virginia just purchased this piece of fine art photography, called “Red Spring.” “Red Spring” – photographed in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee – is part of my “Landscapes & Dreams” collection (see artist’s statement below).  Using the new ordering system, this client customized the artwork by selecting a print size of 13×20″ on archival matte paper, complemented by a silver florentine mat in a 20×26″ black/silver slimwoods frame (right).

Customize your “Red Spring” artwork or browse other fine art photography by clicking the image below.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT, “LANDSCAPES & DREAMS” COLLECTION

I am an explorer. An explorer of vibrant colors that stir my heart, an explorer of the multitude of hues, both natural and man-made. An explorer of shadowy contrasts that make me wonder, an explorer of the supple paths of light. I travel down dusty highways and onto dirt roads, and through lush landscapes and into desert sands. And with my camera, I seek beauty in my subjects. Sometimes, I find it on the surface, easily displayed for the world to see. But always, I seek the more subtle beauty within. I seek the essence of our world.

While I pressed the shutter button on my digital SLR camera to capture these fleeting moments at various times, it was only in the last few months of 2008 that I began to explore a new process of “developing” these digital photographs. The resulting images form my “Landscapes and Dreams” series of landscape photography, made by combining two copies of each single photograph, each copy changed from the original in a certain way. The juxtaposition of these two “revised” copies results in the final effect.

When I photographed the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, DC last weekend, I also shot a sequence of 59 images (360 degrees around me plus up and down, making a 3D, 360-degree sphere), as I wanted to try a 360 degree panorama, as well as a stereographic (spherical) panorama.  Check’em out here.  Too crazy?

The first image below is a simply 360 degree panorama on a single plane, stretched out in a line.

Here, I took the 360 degree panorama, and warped it a bit to make it a bit “straighter.”

And finally, this is the 360 degree stereographic panorama.

Or do you like it inside out?