The sea casts its net

Last October we were blessed with a week of Fall Break and decided to visit Hilton Head, spur of the moment.  Earlier in the month the Little Lady was a flower girl in a dear friend's wedding, and wore 

this amazing Fairy Tale chiffon dress

.  I simply fell in love with it.  I confess, it hurt (a lot ) to spend that much on a dress for my five year old.  I don't think I have ever owned a dress that cost that much!  However, after seeing her in the wedding, and then taking her out on the beach for an evening session, all about her..... well, it was worth every penny.  Every single one.

"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever". - Jacques Coustea

Both of my children utterly adore the ocean.  What a treasure these fairy tale images of my little princess are, that capture her love of the ocean with the beautiful sunset light.

This last one was one of the first I edited after we returned home.  The sand at Hilton Head isn't brown - it is gray.  But I wanted this image to have that warm, ethereal feel to it.  So I changed it. Sometimes it's fun to just play in photoshop.

I shot these with my

Nikon D800

Nikon 85mm f1.8

Nikon 50mm 1.4D

Sigma 30mm f1.4

Rewind - 2011 Topsail Island Vacation wrap up

Our last day on the beach, some pool time, and exploring the fishing pier.  It has been so fun to look back on this vacation from 2011.

The grown up guys did a lot of beach fishing on this trip, and ended up catching this little shark.  For real.

Of course Shawn had to bury the kids in the sand.  They loved it.

This was the trip where we really took off on learning to swim.  Fun to see him when he was much more hesitant.

And the pier, as we were heading out of town.

Rewind - Topsail Island Beach Vacation in 2011

I remember being so excited to take all the kids back out around sunset, back in June 2011, when we were visiting Topsail Island, NC on vacation with our good friends.  It was such a fun evening.  We played and enjoyed the beach when sun wasn't the big concern.  We played a lively round of Duck Duck Goose, and let me say, that the ocean and sand and duck duck goose make a fantastic combination.

All of these beach images I've been posting were batch edited.  It comes down to a matter of time for me.  Also, they were batch edited back in 2011.  I see now as I look back how dark they are - under exposed.  My poor little D90 was trying as hard as he could.  The ISO is the part of the D800 I love the most.  But I also see as I went through the images to select the ones to show here.... my D90 was struggling with focus, even back in 2011.  Soooooo many images the focus was soooo terribly wrong.  Amazing how clear it is when I look back - how long I struggled as an artist when it was the equipment that was failing me.

What I love most about these images in this post is how they transport me back in time to that amazing evening.  Yes, of course, I have the memory of the night we spent at sunset on the beach.  But seeing the images - now I remember the ramp down to the beach, the perpetual grin the Little Lady had on her face when she saw the ocean, how Little Buddy refused to hold still and let me get a shot of his EYES, so the one I ended up getting has him pretending to pick his nose, the Duck Duck Goose, the splashing, the JOY.  It is this that makes me fall in love with photography every single day.