Columbus Ohio Photography by Danielle Neil

I will be out of the office from Thursday, August 26 – Sunday, August 29th with very limited access to email and phone calls. If you need to reach me during this time, please send me an email and I will be returning emails when I return Sunday evening.

And because no blog post is complete without a photo – poor Baxter had surgery yesterday. Nothing major, he had his dewclaws removed and they also removed of two growths. Baxter just turned 7 last Friday, what a lousy birthday gift this was! I of course had to take a quick pic of him while he was over-medicated on the couch. Now that all the drugs have worn off, he’s back to normal and has minimal discomfort. Funny enough, when I’m home alone with him he acts like he’s having a rough time, but when his “dad” comes home he’s much better. Smart dog, he knows that I’ll coddle him if he’s not feeling well!

Chrissy and I met up in Gahanna last weekend for some quick head shots before her vacation in California. The Creekside area was packed because it was such a beautiful evening. The light was great for her portraits and there was a slight breeze, it was perfect conditions. Here’s a few teasers for Chrissy who I hope is having a great time out in California — hopefully she’ll bring back some of that amazing weather to Ohio!

It always makes me chuckle to see blog posts from other photographers commenting on how hard it is to photograph their own children and all the great stories about how the sessions never go as planned. Since I have no children of my own, poor Baxter always seems to be my test subject. I was trying out some lenses and needed to borrow him as my “model”. He happily came upstairs to see what I wanted, but I think he *knows* it’s going to be trouble for him when I drag out the camera bag. In an instant he went from sitting dog to laying down and he refused to look at me! My silly guy was just not in the mood for his camera time. Good thing I was just testing my equipment and didn’t expect much from him! While I was looking though the photographs this image made me laugh – he looks bothered that he had to take part in modeling for me. I can only image what my photographer friends go through while they photograph their own children!!

The weather never cooperates how you want when you have something scheduled! Fellow photographer Melissa and I had planned on going out Saturday evening with a few models to practice with some lighting techniques. Friday afternoon was in the 80′s, sunny but windy. Saturday was like we walked into late fall weather: it was in the high 40′s, overcast with wind gusts between 25-35 mph. Lucky for us, the models were all still happy to participate and grabbed their wedding dresses out of storage to play. A big thanks to Christina, Kelly and Amy for participating in the colder than usual May weather for us to try out some new ideas. Here are just a few of the images I captured while we were roaming the streets of downtown Columbus. Also, a big thanks to Nancy of Michael David Salon in Westerville for styling the girls’ hair before the shoot!

I told Melissa to move the light closer, so she decided to jump into the image!