Happy Birthday Blake! San Diego Birthday Party Event Photographer

Happy Birthday to one of my cutest new clients!

Her mom asked me to come capture the memories of her very special 4th birthday party!





What a fun and amazing party with all her friends and family...!




Pony rides and a petting zoo!






And cake!  You can't have a birthday party without a cake!






(And let's make sure there's plenty of icing on that cake, okay???)     ;-)



Birthdays are nature's way of telling us to eat more cake.
Author Unknown

In search of Leprechauns and Four Leaf Clovers....

Well, the REAL REASON we were out hiking along that forest trail (see yesterday if you missed that) is that we were in search of a leprechaun.

...well..ummm... to be perfectly honest...ORIGINALLY we were just out to take some slow shutter portraits...

But then I noticed a beautiful patch of clover, so I decided instead to look for a leprechaun!

(Always be flexible when you are a daily photo blogger...make a note of that.)



Now if this clover was growing in my lawn, I'd be miffed...but since they were in the wild, I had to stop and enjoy the sight.

And if I'm enjoying it, you KNOW you are going to be looking at a blog of it!  :P



Never noticed how clovers are made of hearts!

If you look really closely you can see a leprechaun in this next photo....hiding in the shadows...?



Or maybe not...  Hee hee...made you look!  :-)

Hope that's the only St. Patrick's Day prank you experience today!  (and if you find a pot of gold, send some my way!)

Why do people wear shamrocks on St. Patrick's Day? Regular rocks are too heavy.

Knock, knock!

Who's there?

Irish.

Irish who?

Irish you a happy St. Patrick's Day!

How did the Irish Jig get started?

Too much to drink and not enough restrooms!

How can you tell if an Irishman is having a good time?

He's Dublin over with laughter!

On the forest floor...

Had a lovely afternoon with my pals on a photo stroll through Felicita Park...



So many beautiful little things... if you just take a minute to stop and notice...

Tomorrow I'll tell you what we were specifically looking for....



In the meantime, we also spent some time working on slow shutter photography... don't you love the smoky effect of the water?  This was created with a shutter speed of 2 seconds:



I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. ~John Muir

B Family San Diego and Poway Family and Child Photographer

How cute is that?  We were just finishing our hour long session together when little Natalie presented mom with a pink flower she'd found growing nearby....



So we had to capture a quick ladies only portrait too!



Of course we had spent our hour capturing some family and individual portraits.





We'd first met just before daddy's deployment homecoming HERE, HERE and HERE, so I was over the moon when I got a call asking for a family session.  (I love seeing my little clients grow up!)











To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.
-- Barbara Bush

The Belted King Fisher = An I Spy Game

Well, while I was sneaking around capturing photos of the Canadian Geese, I happened to be standing under this tree.



Then I felt like someone was watching me, so I looked up into the tree and spotted a king fisher.  So I started snapping a few photos of him, then I happened to look STRAIGHT above my head and spotted a second one!



...he was watching me too!



Then I noticed another...



And another....!  (Anyone else feeling a bit creeped out?  I almost expected that scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" to take place...yikes!)



Belted Kingfisher
Megaceryle alcyon
It is 28–36 cm long, with deep blue or bluish-gray plumage with white markings, a shaggy crest and a broad white collar around the neck.

It is often seen perched prominently on trees, posts, or other suitable watchpoints close to water before plunging in head first after its fish prey. They also eat small crustaceans, frogs, aquatic insects, small mammals, lizards and berries. These birds often give a rattling call as they fly overhead.

Duck, duck, GOOSE

The reason I was out with my camera in the first place (see yesterday's desert flowers) was to take a few photos of the Canadian Geese who were wintering in Palm Springs.



They choose a lovely little golf course and call it home for a few months.





As you can see from the mess they make on the greens - they are generally NOT appreciated!



But it was just fine with me, because frankly, if I was flying south for the winter I think a golf course at Palm Springs would be the PERFECT layover spot!





In recent years, Canada Geese populations in some areas have grown substantially, so much so that many consider them pests (for their droppings, the bacteria in their droppings, noise and confrontational behavior). This problem is partially due to the removal of natural predators and an abundance of safe, man-made bodies of water (such as on golf courses, public parks and beaches, and in planned communities).

Desert Flora

 Recently enjoyed a weekend in Palm Springs - nothing quite like 80 degrees in the heart of winter...



The sun was out and the flowers were soakin it up!





(Can you tell from the background of these photos that I was shooting with my LONG telephoto lens?
It makes the backgrounds go soft, blurry and amazing!)



"Depth of Field (DOF) is that amount of your shot that will be in focus. Small (or shallow) depth of field means that only part of the image will be in focus and the rest will be fuzzy. Having your subject perfectly in focus but with a nice blurry background will ensure that your subject is the main focal point and that other elements in the shot are not distracting."