Bouquet of lilies taken in a softbox

Hope Your 4th Was Great!

I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July. As I'm writing this before 6 a.m. this morning, I'm pretty tired. 

I love the 4th and I love fireworks but I don't like how people stay up all night shooting them off in my Atlanta neighborhood. 

My poor dog was a wreck and was huddled down tight next to me all night shaking and shivering which meant neither one of us got much sleep. The popping noises had me waking up on and off past 3 a.m. and that was with earplugs! 

It's strange how the noises invaded my dreams. I can't quite remember them now but I had vivid dreams that included fireworks. 

Well, enough of that. 

I know this isn't exactly a 4th of July image for the blog cover but I wanted to put this up because it's something I've been working on. 

I've always loved photography and have found it hard to niche down into one genre or type. I've always been drawn to street photography because I love being out and I love bringing out the extraordinary in ordinary everyday scenes. 

I also love making composite photos of scenes that are more fantasy-based like this photo:

A photo like this takes hours from the setup to the editing but I love creating them. 

Right now, I'm delving into another photography love. I recently built my own softbox so I can do product shoots and still-life photos:

The flowers in the image above were taken inside the box with a light setup on either side pointing through the white scrim.

I covered the top opening so no light was coming in through the top and I added another sheet of black paper to make the entire back of the box black. I had a lot of fun with this shoot. 

I'm definitely keeping busy! 

I'm excited about adding this to my repertoire of photography services and the types of photos I shoot. I've always done this type of photography but never seriously and never with the softbox. 

What do you think?

Enjoy your day, and see you between the raindrops of which we've had a few lately!

xoxo,
Susan