Mommy To Be!

When I was in NC earlier this fall, I had the chance to meet up with my friend Jennifer from NC who happened to be in the area at the same time (visiting from CA!!) I learned that she was pregnant earlier this year and knowing that she was several months along at this point, I insisted that we meet up and I take baby bump photos for her! So we gathered at the American Tobacco District in Durham to do a mini-session.

Unfortunately, I only have time to post a couple photos tonight, so here are some of my favorites.





Thanks for letting me take your photos, Jennifer! :D And congratulations on your baby girl!! I expect to see photos of her beautiful little face soon!

Sneak Peek: An Engagement - Sookie & Mike

Wow, it's been a long time!! :( I am way behind on posting, so I wanted to quick put up a couple shots from an engagement session in NYC!!

It was so much fun, not only going all over NYC, but hanging out with Sookie and Mike! :) These two are so fun! I knew that before, but it was reconfirmed after shooting their engagement!

Thanks for spending ALL DAY with me!!

Just a sneak peek! I hope to get the rest up soon!

EDIT: a few more...because I'm so excited about them I can't stop editing them!! :D

A Mysterious Newborn

I wanted to share a couple photos from a quick newborn session I did a few weekends ago. The parents don't want his/her identity to be revealed, for fear of the public harassment they'd get for having such an absolutely adorable baby!!! :) I love this family and I was so thrilled to be able to take their first "professional" photos. Thanks to the parents of this cutie pie. :)

Modeling the pensive look.



Now dancing a jig! What a talented baby!



By the way, I made a new logo. Any thoughts/comments on it? Too girly? Too simple? Too...some other word I can't think of? If you're unsure about why I decided to brand myself as "13:8," look up 1 Corinthians 13:8a.

"So hot we'll melt your popsicle"

What a catchy song. Sometimes I'll find myself singing it without realizing right away what song I'm singing! I think it's triggered by the heat outside. It has been so hot that it'll melt my popsicle!! (That was cheesy...)

I took a walk Friday evening because it was so beautiful out. It was a much needed break and time just for myself to enjoy the beauty outside 4 walls and a roof. I realized though, that I'm not much of a landscape person. I can definitely enjoy it, but in terms of capturing what I see and how I see it into a photo...I'll leave that to the experts.

The absence of people in my photos from that day are obvious to me. I kept thinking how the scene would be completely different if I had subjects in there to work with. Oh well. Next time I can get someone to model for me, I'll know where to take them. :)



Each row, from L to R:
1. Drove down a would-have-been-creepy-if-it-were-nighttime gravel road that led to a HUGE lot of land. I pulled over and started taking pictures...in the back of my mind scared that someone would run out with a shot gun and chase me away. EEP!
2. Beautiful...weeds that seem to grow everywhere!
3. Rodale Park: I drive by this park several times a week when the sun's starting to set and I always want to get photos with the fences. AH. Beautiful.
4. Right next to Rodale park, the tops of the Fred J. Jaindl Elementary School.
5. The road passing by Rodale Park and the Elementary School.
6. I pulled off to the side of a tiny road where there was this empty field where a house used to be (there were still some of the house foundation left). I really wanted to have a model to photograph in this scene...
7. Tracks from a construction vehicle in front of the Elementary School.
8. Fields in my neighborhood.
9. When I drove to the end of my development, I saw this STOP sign set against the backdrop of the acres of farm land and loved the contrast of it.

If you, or you know of anyone who wants portraits taken, let me know! I miss photographing (new) people (--because my nephew's a person too! :P).

Happy weekend! I hope you get a chance to stop and take in what's around you. :)

Perfect Day for an Outdoor Stroll

Actually, it was a VERY humid day. My guess would be 100% humidity. Goodness. In northeastern US? Probably, but it's been a while since I've had summers here.

My mom and I took Cason for a wagon ride one afternoon, and he LOVED it! He didn't mind the humidity at all. :) This is how happy he was:



Or he could have been thirsty and hyperbolizing his parched state. Anyway, I thought this photo was super duper cute and I wanted to share our happy day with you.

I also made a wallpaper from a photo from that day. Nothing major, but it serves as a good reminder when I close all my windows, about to get off the computer:



(If by chance you want this wallpaper, or just a blank version of this wallpaper, let me know and I can give you the full size!)

Happy Thursday!

Rubber Duckie, you're the one!

I'm so sorry I've been neglecting this blog!! I have so many personal photos to catch up on, it gets kind of overwhelming and I just don't know where to start!!!

But here's a photo taken a while ago when I first got my 105 2.8 Macro. Oh, by the way. I got a Nikon 105 2.8. :)

[Enter caption here.]

My family and I have all been pretty under the weather lately...figuratively and literally. We all got sick with a combination of stomach viruses, colds, ear infections, and pink eyes. All of that while we were snowed in. Thankfully we didn't need any emergency visits to the hospital (for the most part...). Anyway, being sick, I haven't been feeling up to going out to take pictures in the snow, let alone play in it! Sad.

Well, this photo has nothing to do with the above jumble of text. It just makes me happy. :) I hope it makes you happy too!

What I also love about this photo is that there is such an array of photo caption possibilities. What would you have it say?

Merry Christmas!!

This winter, my family and I will be heading to Pittsburgh to celebrate the holidays! I've never been to Pittsburgh (minus Fallingwater...is that Pittsburgh?), so I'm very excited to see what it's like on the other side of the state! I'm hoping for lots and lots of delicious food, warm toasty fireplace fires, and just a great time with family and friends. I'm NOT hoping for weight gain and food comas, though I have a feeling those are inevitable, at least for me.

I may be taking a blogging break for a little bit because as soon as I get back from Pittsburgh, I'll be heading to NYC for the week! So expect some personal pictures when I return. :)

Merry Christmas!!

The Santos Family

Here are some more pictures from my previous post of the Santos Family--Melissa, Alex, and Jared.

Meet Rocky!


After leaving the luxuries of a heated home, we headed out into the cold outdoors to Melissa's grandma's cute little farm! And to our pleasant un-surprise...it began snowing!!!


Kissies for Daddy.


Since it was so cold, they had to find some way to stay warm! :)


I love this family!

FIRST SNOWFALL OF THE WINTER

I loooove winter...but only because of the snow. If it was just cold all the time, that wouldn't be fun. But I had a shoot today with Melissa, Alex, and Jared (and their own little pet farm), and we got to go out in the snow and play a little bit. I've only briefly, very briefly, looked through the photos and this one just stuck out. I absolutely adore it. I snapped it when we were getting in our cars, ready to part ways! So it almost didn't get in the mix of photos!



By the way, taken on my D700. The bokeh and the colors are SO yummy! MMmmmm. :)

Thanks Melissa, Alex, and Jared for letting me take your pictures today! I'll post more up soon!

Thanksgiving Festivities

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I had a lovely time making my food belly with delicious food in the company of great family! Even though it was an overcast and wet day, I still went out with some relatives to take photos of their kids in the park. The shoot didn't go as planned--kids wanted to run all over the playground and wouldn't sit still, then they got cold and wouldn't sit still, then they got tired and wouldn't sit still. Oh well, you gotta roll with the punches! I managed to snap a few pictures, and here are just a couple for now.

This is Nikki, blowing kissies like her daddy told her to.

Her little brother Brandon, who's a little too small for the swing, but luckily his overly large coat kept him in there pretty snug. :)

And this is Alice...at least her cute boots! You'll meet her later.

Sorry!

So it's been a little while since I've blogged...sorry about that! To try and make up for it, here are some old(er) photos that I haven't put up anywhere. :) Please enjoy!

This is my grandpa, my dad's dad, Cason's GREAT grandpa! I love my Yeye(grandpa in Cantonese)'s smile in this photo.

He used to love this chair--now he won't sit in it for more than 5 minutes!

And he's also outgrown his cute little shoes we put on him just about everyday. :(


Can you tell I love my nephew? :)

Birthday Blue

Sometimes I just get bored and find things around the house to photograph. Who DOESN'T do that right? On the eve of my birthday, I decided to play around with ring shots, but of course without having access to a macro lens to take these said ring shots. AND I didn't have an engagement ring to take pictures of. But, thinking it was appropriate for my birthday, I took ring shots of my ring with my birthstone! :) And my hat that I never wear but desperately try to find places to wear it to. I told you I was bored.



On another note, there's a baby toy downstairs (that belongs to my nephew) that apparently started malfunctioning this weekend, which I didn't know about and found out after the fact. But last night, it went off and my first thought was, "Is the ice cream truck passing by outside??" Of course this would be the first thought ANYONE would have had past midnight. But I saw that no one was downstairs and all the lights were off. All I saw was the glowing red light and all I heard was the happy-when-it's-during-the-day but creepy-when-it's-at-night jingle going off. Oh man, FREAK ME OUT! It's going off now and I just have to laugh at myself how I am still such a big baby sometimes.

Thanks for reading through this nonsensical post. :)

Cason and Fall Leaves

So if you've looked around www.thirteeneightphotography.com, you've seen the baby in the "little ones" section of photos. Well, that adorable little cutie patootie is my nephew! And I certainly do take lots and lots of pictures of him. This weekend, I had another opportunity to take photos...in the leaves! A cute little face and beautiful fall colors to surround him with! Here are just a select few from that session!



The picture that I took after this one (not shown here) is his daddy pushing those leaves away from his mouth. At this age, he puts everything in his mouth!



We also put him in his cute little Halloween monkey outfit, but he started to get grumpy. :(

Jen & Allen Wedding

I had the opportunity to fly down to NC to shoot a wedding with Ashley of the Story Photographers. Tangent: I was at a coffee shop and saw these neat little business cards for a photography company. I started following their blog, recommended them to my friends who were looking for a wedding photographer, and the rest is history! :) (Thanks, Ashley!)

Anyway, we shot Jennifer and Allen's wedding in Emerald Isle, NC. It was supposed to be an outdoor beach wedding but the wind and rain had other plans for us! The wedding was moved indoors but it was still a beautiful and moving wedding as you will see in these pictures.

Here are a few that I love from the wedding!

(Warning: LOTS of images.)



The bouquets were so pretty!





Gathering her "something borrowed, something blue, something old, something new." :)



Let me tell you, this bride was a trooper! Even with all the bad weather that day, she didn't freak out. AND when the weather let up for 5 minutes, she went out in the high winds to get those beach pictures she wanted!



Remember how I said the wedding we very moving? Well, the groom was very emotional (which is the BEST!) and fought back tears the SECOND he saw his beautiful bride walking toward him.







The best man wanted to join in on the first dance!



Everyone at the wedding were dancing machines!! They danced for hours and hours into the night!



And of course they did choreographed dances: Thriller.

Website!

So I've added some new photos to the website. I'm still working through editing a couple weddings. Progress has been a bit slow because everyone in my house is sick!! That's 6 people (including 1 baby) all sniffling and coughing = spreading more germs in the air!! Luckily for me, I seem to have the least severe symptoms, though I think it's slowly creeping up on me.

Anyway, here's a peek at some photos to come from Alen & Cyndi's wedding!



And who doesn't love spinning? This little girl sure didn't hesitate to in her pretty new dress!

The start of something new...

If you're here, it's likely that you've come from my photography site! I'm glad you're here...but I'm not quite ready yet! Things are still being set up around here if you couldn't already tell. Please excuse the...barrenness while I finish getting everything together.

Cheers!
jen