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Personal Mini Family Vacation to Washington, D.C. Parts 3 and 4

July 19, 2017/0 Comments/in personal /by Deirdre Ryan

Mount Vernon is a gorgeous place to visit and the last time I was there was with my father and grandparents in the 1990’s. Since then, they’ve built a beautiful education center and museum. And I completely forgot to mention the weather, warm, breezy, but not humid! Very “un-Virginia” for early summertime, just beautiful and perfect! If you don’t know already, Mount Vernon was George and Martha Washington’s estate on the Potomac River. You are not allowed to take any photos inside the main house, but anywhere else you are.

To see the beginning of this mini vacation click here.

Different areas has archaeological digs going on, including at the Slave’s Burial site.

We met a little friend at the original family vault. Can someone identify this lizard?

Inside Washington’s Tomb is both George and his wife Martha.

Visiting the Slave Memorial and Burial Grounds.

After paying tribute to the Slaves Burial Ground, we walked down to the river and then to Pioneer Farm.

Here, a gentleman demonstrates to the children how to separate the wheat in order to eat it, as an example of what threshing does in the replica of the 16-sided barn designed by Washington for treading wheat.

I asked if I could take his portrait, and he was very happy to let me, his wife is an artist as well.

Inside the 16-sided barn.

An example of a cabin that the Washington’s slave had lived in.
We took the wooded trail back to the mansion and to meet up with the rest of our family for lunch.
I wanted to wander around a little before eating….

The buildings were getting repainted while we were there.

As I was wandering around, I spotted a deer near the estate.

On the way back to my aunt and uncle’s home, we stopped at Jefferson’s Memorial. I had never been here before and it was on my list for a long time.

My daughter checking out the view.
It took a while, but after patiently waiting, there was a break in the crowd of people, and I got a shot of President Jefferson’s statue without anyone in it.

An engagement session, the light was perfect for it.
Across the river you can see the Martin Luther King Jr. Monument.
Can you guess whose statue is shown below? Tell me in the comments.

We had done a lot of walking that day, but I want to go back, because I felt that I missed on so many things. Taking my daughter there was great because she had been studying the Revolutionary War and seeing everything that day was important to her.

Hey everyone, I need to put this on my blog posts. I’ve been burned horribly, but understand it’s a legal thing I have to do to protect myself. Thanks for your support, here it is: All photographs appearing on this site are the property of Deirdre Ryan Photography. They are protected by U.S. Copyright Laws, and are not to be downloaded or reproduced in any way without the written permission of Deirdre Ryan Photography. Copyright ©2017 Deirdre Ryan All Rights Reserved.

Personal Mini Family Vacation to Washington, D.C. Parts 1 and 2

July 19, 2017/0 Comments/in personal /by Deirdre Ryan

I’m very lucky to have close family who live in the Washington, D.C. area, growing up we would visit often, and I have been to just about every museum there. But each time I go, there’s always a surprise that I haven’t seen before. Earlier this summer, my mom and I, took my daughter for the first time and she had some requests on what she wanted to see and loved it.

I didn’t take my Canon gear, just my mirrorless Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II, and the Olympus M.Zuiko ED 14-150mm f4.0-5.6 II lens. Yes, one day I will get some faster glass for it 😉 I did consider renting for this trip, but at the last minute didn’t. These are just personal, travel photo snapshots, I have more to show you in other posts coming up.

Hey everyone, I need to put this on my blog posts. I’ve been burned horribly, but understand it’s a legal thing I have to do to protect myself. Thanks for your support, here it is: All photographs appearing on this site are the property of Deirdre Ryan Photography. They are protected by U.S. Copyright Laws, and are not to be downloaded or reproduced in any way without the written permission of Deirdre Ryan Photography. Copyright ©2017 Deirdre Ryan All Rights Reserved.

When we arrived, we took a little break, then headed out to the Capital to view the monuments at sunset and in the evening lights. The last time I was here at the Vietnam Memorial was to see my father, a Vietnam Vet, in the parade back in November of 1982. He is in the front row for New Jersey(each state had a section in the parade) for helping to lead and contribute to this powerful wall. Many didn’t want this and didn’t like the design. Each item that is left at the wall is kept safe by the National Park Service. I still can’t find any full length video of the parade from the 1982 dedication. If you’re interested, C-SPAN has the dedication in their archives. If anyone who reads this does have the parade in full, I would love a link to it for my father and others, please leave a comment below.

My dad is right in the middle wearing a long beige coat and has a camera around his neck, on either side of him are two men wearing camo fatigues as he’s in the parade for the Vietnam Memorial Dedication and for all of the men and women who served in the war, they finally got the welcome home they deserved. But there was still a long way to go at the time, and to this day.

That’s me in the blue sweater holding my cousin’s hand with my Grandma Martin at the Vietnam Memorial for the first time, I think I’m around 8-9 years old.Here I am with my Grandma and Grandpa Martin, holding my cousin’s hand. I was also biting my nails, and it looks like grandma had something in her eye. The Washington Monument is behind us. And yes, I’m wearing saddle shoes, I was really into them at the time, I loved those things 🙂 I’m not sure who took these photos, my Uncle Bob and my Grandpa Martin, or my mom. We had a lot of cameras as you can see. Grandpa Martin also shot a lot of Kodachrome, so one of these days I would love to see what he captured, I have his cameras as part of my collection. The watermark is there to “hopefully” deter people, no matter who shot these pictures.

These images shot at night were all handheld.

Our daughter is really into spies and mysteries, so the International Spy Museum was at the top of her list.

They have a really cool James Bond 007 exhibit, I didn’t post everything, so that I won’t spoil it for you. But I couldn’t help but post Jaw’s teeth!

Oh and this mask, can you guess which James Bond film it’s from? Tell me in the comments below 🙂
After the spy museum, The National Portrait Gallery is right across the street, so we ate some lunch and went there. I haven’t been inside since I was a little girl, the courtyard didn’t have the roof overtop of it back then.
First, the Hall of Presidents, this is a Chuck Close portrait of President Bill Clinton.

Then we wandered around, taking in as much as we could.

One of the current exhibits is called The Face of Battle: Americans At War, 9/11 to Now. It had different sections, and then this one had mini hand drawn portraits by Emily Price, called: American Servicemen and Women Who Have Died in Iraq and Afghanistan (But Not Including the Wounded, Nor the Iraqis nor the Afghanis). A young man named Benjamin Moore came home far too soon, to our town. I photographed what was going on, also that horrible cult that goes to military funerals, were threatening to show up, and I heard that they did at the cemetery, but later left. I decided to see if he was on this wall and sure enough, Ben was there. I’m friends with his family and friends, sadly, I never got to know him. But from the stories, he was an exceptional young man.

Hey everyone, I need to put this on my blog posts. I’ve been burned horribly, but understand it’s a legal thing I have to do to protect myself. Thanks for your support, here it is: All photographs appearing on this site are the property of Deirdre Ryan Photography. They are protected by U.S. Copyright Laws, and are not to be downloaded or reproduced in any way without the written permission of Deirdre Ryan Photography. Copyright ©2017 Deirdre Ryan All Rights Reserved.

The First Day Of Snow

January 18, 2017/0 Comments/in personal /by Deirdre Ryan

This winter has been so far very mild and hardly any snow at all. So when it does come down, we get a “little” excited around here. I took my new Olympus E-M5 MarkII out in the wind and falling snow with the Zuikio 14-150mm f4 lens, the combination makes this perfect, as it’s weather sealed and freezer proof. But it’s a slow lens…and once you’re used to faster f2.8 lenses then having a slower lens is hard to work with at times. But, I’m saving up for better glass and renting when I need them for this camera. In the meantime, it’s not like I don’t have excellent camera equipment already, I do have pro Canon full frame DSLRs and fast L glass. It’s just nice not to have all that weight every once in awhile.

The day was pretty overcast and grey, and I wanted to test the focusing with the snow. So I went across the street from my house, and down to the creek. It was bitter cold out!

It was 25 degrees and very windy outside! But that never keeps kids and adults from sledding down the hill! I ran into some friends of ours and took some shots of them.
Bros in the Snow!
The next day, the sun was out, but it was colder, the temp was 20 degrees but felt like 15 or less! Still, it was gorgeous, and the conditions were perfect!

Overall, the camera did really well, I was surprised! Some shots were missed, and a little soft, possibly my fault and getting used to the system. But I’m really pleased so far.

My Personal Favorite Images of 2016

January 5, 2017/6 Comments/in Business Portraits, Editorial, event photography, Music Photography, personal, Photojournalism, Portraits, Volunteering /by Deirdre Ryan

As we begin 2017, I want to acknowledge all of my clients who helped make 2016 a success. First, thank you for your business and for the opportunity to help in creating and presenting your business brand. Here’s to your continued success. For my future clients I look forward to working with you and doing the same.

Happy 2017!

These are in no particular order, just my favorites from 2016.

This was for a husband and wife team, they needed images for their website and branding for their new business. One is a personal trainer and the other is a therapist and life coach. Working with them beforehand, they knew what they wanted, and it ended up being an amazing environmental photoshoot!

Christine who is a sleep consultant, photographed in her home office and in her yard. In her home office, her true personality shone with her witty sense of humor. Click here to see the full session.

My dear friend, Roseanne, let me photograph her one day, trying out some new techniques that I wanted to try. They show off the two sides of her, both are strong women, but in different ways.

A real estate salesman needed his headshot like “yesterday”. This is his second career after many years doing something else. I didn’t have time to get set up in my studio, so I did this in my living room/foyer. He loved it, and so did I, it shows his true awesome personality.

Our daughter ran her first 5K with Girls on the Run(GOTR), when she was in the 4th grade. They work with the girls each week to empower, embrace, and create a positive place for the girls to achieve something that they may have never done before. Here you see my husband spraying her hair purple, and then later they had facial paint and accessories to have fun with before the race. She finished, even beat her practice run time, we were so proud of her!

My friend Dr. Sarah Meanor is a Chiropractor and hired me to photographer her and the office for her website. I love this image as she is working on a patient’s back and shoulders.

The day before the 2016 Presidential Election, I was fortunate to drive down to Philadelphia, PA with some friends to see and hear President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and Madame Secretary Hillary Clinton speak in front of Independance Hall with roughly over 30K people. We couldn’t get very close, but I did capture this image of a child singing how we were all going to Hell as sinners, etc., with an extreme “Christian” group. You see plain clothed PPD officers guarding them. I can only assume the man with her is her father. And I say it like that because as a liberal Catholic, I don’t believe God would like this at all.

We spent a week in Ocean City, NJ over the summer, got horrible news about a dear friend passing unexpectedly the day we were traveling down. The next day we had a wonderful photoshoot with my friend. The image above is this young lady’s first time ever flying a kite.

Every morning in Ocean City, NJ I woke up early, got my coffee at OC Coffee Roasters on the boardwalk and read my book on the beach. This one morning, the sun and the clouds made it look “almost” like the afternoon golden hour sunset.

The above image was for at first a dating profile, but then became a lovely collaboration for yoga and a gorgeous glam shot outside!

Another collaboration for marketing and branding. I love this because she is sitting in a bronze statue on Princeton University campus, the colours, her expression, she is such a free spirit! Click here to see the full session.

We went canoeing on the Delaware River and Crosswicks Creek with our daughter’s 2nd grade teacher. I love how the light hits them both, so peaceful as we were rowing back.

I shot these headshots during a workshop and I just love how they turned out. All natural lighting, indoors, and working with these gentleman turned into great images, and I can work anywhere.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie came to my hometown and did his town hall meeting. He was there to discuss his Fairness Formula to NJEA teachers, staff, residents of Bordentown, and those from other towns. I love this because it shows how he sometimes talks to people, there was another person who asked hard questions that he didn’t seem to like either. But when he talks, he asks for no interruptions.

The day after the Presidential Election, I was really feeling down and depressed. I’m still not okay, but that day I went for a walk shot some images…. The woman just happened to be jogging right past me and I found it perfect. Reminding me that we need to move, and make a difference in our own ways to get things done.
I was bored one day, and needed to get out of the house. I did a model call on Facebook, and my clients gave me a call to photograph their new puppy. I had done their portraits before with all three of their Great Danes when they had their oldest, but unfortunately he passed away. They knew that his day was coming, but that doesn’t make it any easier…I used two kinds of lighting with each image. The first, I adore the look George was giving his owner in the golden sunset light. In the second, I used 2 lights and in post I Photoshopped the leash out of the image, it gives him a regal look.

My dear friend Randy brought one of the Ghostbuster’s ECTO – 1 that was used in the new movie that came out over the summer.
I love the look of the these headshots that I did in the park for my fellow networking business colleagues. They are bright, pleasing and make my clients look amazing. Click here to see the full post!
Our daughter is a Junior Girl Scout and every year, she and many other troops as well as Boy Scouts from all over, come together to place flags on the graves of veterans at the Brigadier General William C. Doyle Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Wrightstown, NJ. The image below is with my father, her grandfather, a Ret. Lt. Col. Army.

My clients, NJPAC, invited me to photograph their Martin Luther King event. I had been there before for their Kwanzaa event, and each time I’m there, I have such a good time! The energy of the choir director for the children’s choir is amazing.Randy Now brings a lot of great acts and musicians to our area. This was the Killer Triple Bill Concert at the Performing Arts Center in Bordentown, NJ. Here you see The Doughboys, Jet Weston and His Atomic Ranch Hands and The Sharkskins. I get my rock photo influences from the 60’s and 70’s and I like to work this into my work.

These in yellow I had the wonderful opportunity to photograph these beautiful women in pin up genre, it was full of playing dress up with the clothes, makeup and hair. This was in a local store in my town and I hope to do this again as it was a lot of fun and the women all enjoyed themselves.

We went to Asbury Park, NJ with friends and I was able to get this shot of our daughter <3 She is my world!

Ask anyone who knows me, I love cars! And lucky for me, we have an annual car show right here in Bordentown, NJ and I get to volunteer for it!

This is my dear and one of my best friends, Lisa. We have known each other since HS, she was a Freshman, I was a Sophomore and now lives in Austin, TX. She was in town for barely 2 days, but made time to see friends. We took a few moments for a fun shoot, this was right before a bikini body competition, and I had to spray her with a lot of bug spray LOL!

The Bordentown Board Of Education asked me to photograph their Annual St. Patrick’s 5K Run. I love this because it shows my friend helping his daughter with her shoelaces right before the race is about to begin.

I was invited to photograph the NAWBO-NYC Chapter’s 3 Hour Boot-Camp-Full Morning To Grow Your Business at the Microsoft Building in NYC and they had a fabulous guest speaker, Stephanie Breedlove. She had just sold her company care.com and hearing her speak as a woman entrepenuer was inspiring.

This last image was for my first clients of last year, Pinot’s Palette of Princeton. They had their Grand Opening, and I was invited to photograph the event.

Ocean City, Part 2

August 11, 2016/0 Comments/in personal /by Deirdre Ryan

Tuesday was a full beach day. Of course I started my day early, got my coffee at Ocean City Coffee Company, my book, camera and sat on the beach to read before it gets crowded.

Now I really enjoyed and loved the Panasonic Lumix 100 LX camera and for this vacation it had everything I needed. A fast lens, large enough sensor, shoots in RAW, etc. However there was a quirk that I had no idea about until much later and I’ll get into this later on.

After spending the day on the beach we ate dinner at Ocean Cafe, and this time with the entire family. While waiting for our food, we heard the Mummers on the boardwalk stop right outside the restaurant. It was really cool!

Found this original Pacman and Ms. Pacman machines… We let her play a few more games including the Batman pinball game, and by then we were exhausted and wanted to get back to our rooms. We had spent the day bodyboarding on the waves, looking for shells, and walking the boards after dinner.

I let my husband take a few pictures.

The next morning I again woke up early to find that after it rained, there were these cloud in the skies that lingered and it looked like the sun was setting, when in fact it was rising. So before getting my coffee, I headed in the opposite direction towards the rising sun to capture these images:

I kept chasing the light and so I found a spot and sat down, putting the camera down on the boards while people were jogging and riding their bikes around me. I shoot in manual mode, so these were almost straight out of the camera with some adjustments.

Then I went onto the beach and continued:

And that’s when I noticed a lone horseshoe crab. The tide was already out, and by the time the beach crowd arrived, I know that someone would try something with it. I man came by and he took off his shirt, placed it around it, and then put the crab in a spot so that it could safely get back into the water. But I first took some shots:

Here’s me taking a selfie with my iPhone SE, no filter in front of the Ocean City Music Pier. I remember when I was a little girl you could set up for the day underneath that pier. Also you could walk underneath the boardwalk, and myself and other kids would throw up sand between the boards at people as the walked above us….but I guess Hurricane Sandy changed all of that.
I started to walk along the beach to go get my coffee and I found another one, but this one was on the move…

I couldn’t get enough of the light that morning, it was just beautiful!

It was super hot and muggy every single day. Even early in the morning, you could feel it. This was the week of that super bad heat have…

Now back to the one quirk that I found really annoying about that camera:
Even though I had the image settings set to RAW, I found out that for some reason the camera was defaulting to jpeg every time I turned it off. I brought my laptop down with me to back everything up, however I thought that I had the proper adapter, when in fact it was my old black Macbook’s. So I had Amazon Prime send another one, but I didn’t get it until Wednesday. Once I got it, and opened up the images, THAT”S when I saw that pretty much ALL of my images were jpeg and not RAW!!!! The evening shots on Sunday? Jpeg. Everything from Monday? Jpeg. The mummers? Jpeg. Those sunrise images? Jpeg. So every single time I turned off the camera for any length of time, I had to keep putting it back to RAW even though my settings were set to RAW, it still defaulted to jpeg. I couldn’t find a way to fix this 🙁 If anyone here knows what to do about this, please leave a comment…or if you’ve had a similar experience I would love to know about it.

Later on that day, we went to Castaway Cove so that we could go on some rides. It’s pretty much next door to our motel.

These are video stills:

Taken from the top of the ferris wheel.
Of course we went back to Shriver’s for some fudge…They still make taffy and fudge on the premises.

Eventually I’ll get to the video, but for now these are what happened on Tuesday and Wednesday of our week’s stay. If you missed my last post click here to get caught up, thanks!

Ocean City, NJ Part 1

August 10, 2016/0 Comments/in personal /by Deirdre Ryan

We had just visited my grandfather at Vet’s Memorial Home in Vineland, NJ and driving to Ocean City, NJ to start our family vacation for the week. My friend Veronica, a professional photographer, was coming down the next day to take family portraits of us, Tuesday was my parent’s wedding anniversary, and most of all…we wanted to have fun.

I saw the message on Facebook’s private messaging app…something like if this was a sick joke..but sadly it wasn’t. Our dear friend Patrick Cashin died suddenly in his home. http://www.clownlink.com/2016/07/rip-pat-cashin/

He was only 47 years old, married to the love of his life, with 2 boys and was a professional clown. His memorial will be this Monday.

We got unpacked at our motel, The Coral Sands, got our daughter settled, and then my husband and I broke down and cried. Pat was his childhood friend, and his sister Lillian’s best friend, so they grew up together. My friend here in Bordentown just so happens to be married to his best guy adult friend, John.

Pat would’ve wanted us to have a great time in spite of what happened. Regardless it was very hard to do, neither of us wanted to be online with Facebook unless it was to interact with our friends about our friend.

So here I will now continue, to post….
I rented the Panasonic Lumix LX 100 and my husband rented a GoPro from www.borrowlenses.com. I didn’t want to walk around with my large DSLR and lenses for this trip.

So we went to go eat dinner at Ike’s Seafood and then had a gelato at Shriver’s. We stayed up pretty late, but that’s what you do when you’re on vacation down the shore 🙂 The next morning I woke up wicked early, got my coffee from Ocean City Coffee Company(they were handing out free coffee samples that morning) on the boardwalk, read my book on the beach. Then I met my husband and daughter, and we rode our bike to Ovie’s for breakfast. At 8:30AM they raise the flag every morning on top of Maui Wowi’s.

She wanted to wear that thing on her helmet….

Later we really just hung out inside our room, getting ready for our photoshoot. It was REALLY humid, so since my mother and I have naturally curly hair, we stayed inside until it was time. We met my friend in front of Shriver’s Salt Water Taffy and Fudge, while we waited I took a few photos.

We brought our $5 kite to use as a prop and I took a few photos of our daughter flying it while my friend took pictures of her as well.

She brought an assistant and she had fun flying the kite too 🙂 My husband helped with the reflector a little, he is my assistant as well, so he knows what to do! Here Veronica is posing my dad and our daughter.

Afterwards, there was a major storm coming, so we went to dinner at Ocean Cafe on the boardwalk. Here you can see the clouds forming…it was coming and it did, although not as bad as it hit the rest of the state that day and night!

I’m going to continue posting about our vacation, but please remember this:

Laugh at your mistakes and at yourself, say I love you and hug your loved ones every single day.

Posts

Personal Mini Family Vacation to Washington, D.C. Parts 3 and 4

Personal Mini Family Vacation to Washington, D.C. Parts 1 and 2

The First Day Of Snow

My Personal Favorite Images of 2016

Ocean City, Part 2

Ocean City, NJ Part 1

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