Baile Atha Cliath....

...or just Dublin. Brandon and I spent a not-so-traditional Thanksgiving in Dublin this year and I have to say, I love the Irish. As a whole, they are some of the friendliest and most likable people I have met in my travels. And of course, I adore their accents. They could be yelling or cursing me out, but something about that Irish accent makes it seem so damn friendly.

Unfortunate for us the weather wasn't ideal, but considering we went to Ireland in November, I say we lucked out by not getting completely rained on. I took a photo tour with a fabulous photographer and guide and am still working on editing several photos...I am challenged when it comes to post processing. But I thought I would share just a couple of the photos that were easier to touch up since I am so slow at editing.

Dublin is full of statues and a couple of my favorites were "The Linesman" along the Liffey and the Oscar Wilde statue at Merrion Square.

The lighting was a little tough on this one because his face completely in the shadows and I had nothing to use as a reflector. But something about the statue intrigued me and I had to shoot it.



I love the expression on his face. From the smirk to the colored marble clothes, his personality was most definitely captured with this statue.

Christmas card photoshoot....fail.

It seems that I am never short of amazing ideas when it comes to shoots for holiday/event photo cards. However, I still have yet to do a successful studio photo shoot with my cats that I can use for photo cards. Please excuse the horrible photos. I eventually reach a point during a shoot where I simply like to capture the look of confusion on my cats' faces as they try to figure out what the hell I am doing. There is minimal editing, because there was really no point..

First I tried a "cake smash" shoot for the 1 year adoption anniversary, which was a complete disaster. My kitties were not amused with the "1" candle sticking out of their soft food and after I set it up I realized that the whole "vision" pretty much sucked. Mia decided she would enjoy the soft food regardless. Spitze is what we like to call "special", here he is still trying to figure out what is going on.
Next I had a "vision" for a Halloween shoot with a jack-o-lantern and two adorable looking kitties crawling all over it and possible even peeking through the top of it. Lets just say that never happened and leave it at that.

Then today I decided to do the famous "cookies for Santa" shot that all the Moms were doing last year for their Christmas photo shoot. I set up the seamless, had the cookies, milk and "For Santa" sign all set up....and my kitties did not want to play. I could show you photo after photo of one kitty's butt facing the camera while the other is drinking milk, or both of their butts facing the camera, or several other completely unusable shots. Needless to say I do not have a photo for my Christmas photo card. This was one of the few that kind of turned out but it is still not good enough to use. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It is difficult to get one cat to cooperate, much less two. Oh well, I got some practice with my seamless and speedlite. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow, or maybe I'll just forget cards this year...

Castle ruins on the Weinstrasse.

One of our favorite places to visit for a quick day trip is the Deutsche Weinstrasse (German Wine Road). The road takes you through cute little German towns filled with vineyards and local wineries where you can stop for wine tastings. Beyond the vineyards, there are several castles and ruins peppered along the route that you can just drive or hike to. Not all of them are spectacular, but it is so interesting and beautiful to explore some of these cute little sites. Here is one of the castles we found as we drove along the weinstrasse.


24mm
f/4.5
1/125
ISO 1000