Certainly three of my favorite images from the year. Bree is a gorgeous bride and Bunny makes a stunning Dog-of-Honor. Or was it Best Dog? I’m not quite sure.

Ahhh, finally! It’s that time of year when I have just a wee bit of time for personal projects. Albums from last year’s weddings are pretty much designed and done. 2012 weddings and portraits won’t start for a couple of more weeks. Now is the time when I can do a few things that I’ve been putting off for a while.

This year I’m working on some books and the first one I want to get done is a jaunt I took to Asia back in 2006. I can’t even believe that it’s been over five years since that trip so I’m thinking it’s actually time to go back and visit a few places I missed.

I’ve started this project a couple of times. The cover is designed. A lot of the images have been prepared. But, there’s still some work to be done and then I have to put it all together. In going back through the photographs it’s kind of interesting how time changes your perspective on things. You forget some things and thankfully we have photographs to pull a little bit on the memory and bring things back. Forgotten but not gone so to speak. And then there’s the photographs that really didn’t speak much to me when I first edited them shortly after returning from the trip. I’m seeing some of them in a different way and I’m actually glad I let a little time go by before I finished this project.

Anyway, here is one of my favorites from that trip. It was taken in a market area in Hanoi, but this little area was tucked away from the craziness that exists in most of these markets. It was a quiet little courtyard with beautiful light and I’m sure that the vendor enjoys this little place where they prepare their foods for sale out on the street.

These were the flowers from yesterday’s wedding, the first wedding of October which is one of my favorite wedding months. I love the fall colors and weddings always reflect this time of the year, even when things may still be a little green. Mark Frye and his talented crew at Creative Occasions did these and  I have to say I thought they were spectacular. Rich with color and texture and set off by my favorite of all colors….purple. I just had to share a peek at these.

So normally this time of the year I’m all about sunflowers, but this year I got a hydrangea bush and I’ve never had one before. So, I’ve been pretty impressed by how long the blooms actually last on a hydrangea bush. It’s amazing that these big, huge beautiful flowers last weeks and in living color the whole time. My bush currently blooms from pink to lavender-blue, and I’m hoping the pH where I planted it is going to be able to keep the color same cause I think they are just about the perfect. Here’s one of the shot I liked most.

So, I went to Fairystone State Park for a weekend of camping with friends and we went on this short tour looking for the rare mineral formations called staurolites that the park is named after. There are a few different kinds, the most famous taking on the form of a cross. I didn’t find any of those but I did find a few of the most common type and this was one of them. I still thought it was interesting so I plopped it up onto a moss covered root and took a shot of it with my 85 1.4.

It’s really not much. But it just caught my eye.

Well, the sugar maple is starting to lose its leaves and they are a nice golden color now. Very pretty in the morning light from out my back window.

This is a beautiful sugar maple that is in the park behind my house. I think we are in the midst of a spectacular fall!

I just spent a fantastic week in Ocracoke. The weather was perfect, the water was warm, and I didn’t get eaten by a shark. I call that a great beach trip!! These are just a few more that I thought blog worthy.

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