Yin-yang koi

The reflection of a footbridge over the water created this lovely contrast. Photographed at North Terminus Indian Creek Trail, the first canal in Alabama (1831).

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved. iPhone 6s / Snapseed border

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Scenes from a wedding: Shelly and Matt 3.16.2013

Here are a few shots of the bridal party, family groups and happy couple shots after the ceremony. We timed everything to be able to take advantage of the sunset when it came to doing the solo shots of Shelly and Matt. Perfect timing!—with very special thanks to one of Shelly’s brothers (a videographer and film maker) for moving things along by efficiently organizing the groups. How about that sunset over Huntsville?

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Scenes from a wedding: Shelly & Matt 3.16.2013

I don’t think I ever caught Shelly without a smile during the entire event. She was one of the happiest brides I’ve ever photographed (not to mention very photogenic, too).

© Cindy Dyer and Michael Schwehr. All rights reserved.

Scenes from a wedding: Shelly & Matt 3.16.2013

Shelly is the daughter of my friend, Sandy, in Huntsville, Alabama. Michael and I had the honor of photographing the wedding in Huntsville at Burritt on the Mountain, a beautiful park overlooking the city. Below is a collage of photos captured leading up to the event. More to come!

© Cindy Dyer and Michael Schwehr. All rights reserved.

Matt & Shelly, 3.16.2013

Michael and I drove to Huntsville, Alabama last weekend to photograph Shelly and Matt’s wedding. The venue was Burritt on the Mountain, overlooking the city. The venue was spectacular, the weather was picture-perfect, and you’d be hard pressed to find a more photogenic or happier couple anywhere! We took advantage of a lovely sunset right after the ceremony to create some portraits of the bride and groom. More photos to come…

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

The coolest bathroom hallway EVER

I shot this photo below of the restroom hallway in Longwood’s new East Conservatory Plaza. It is the largest “living wall” in North America, and was designed by famed British landscape architect Kim Wilkie.

This is the first time I’ve seen a living wall planted with ferns and other greenery (28 plant species and 47,000 plants in total!)—rather than succulents. (I blogged here about the gorgeous living wall of succulents on the facade of the Anthropologie store in Huntsville, Alabama). Watch the video below to see how the project came together and see the Longwood Gardens blog here for more information.

Sunset + (super?)moonrise on the Potomac River

Michael and I ventured out to the Mount Vernon Parkway before 7:00 p.m. this evening to scout out a good spot to wait for the much-anticipated and much-heralded “Supermoon.” I’m sorry to have to report that I was a tiny bit disappointed. I confess that I was hoping for that end-of-the-world-large-encroaching-orb-could-swallow-us-whole-fodder-for-a-science-fiction-movie effect, but it didn’t happen.

Yes, it was a lovely moon—slightly larger than usual and a bit brighter. I guess I was expecting it to flood the horizon so fully that I would have to take off my Nikkor 80-400 zoom lens and put on the 50mm just to catch it all in my viewfinder. So large that I would hear audible gasps from the neighboring photographers, then perhaps we would spontaneously hold hands and break into song (Kumbaya, perhaps?). Didn’t happen.

The moon I photographed in Huntsville, Alabama a few years ago seemed a whole lot larger and a lumen or two brighter than tonight’s “Supermoon.” You can view that posting here. I was, however, taken in by the sunset’s show earlier.

Hey! Guess what? I was just ready to publish this post and decided to Google this search: “supermoon was disappointing tonight,” just to see if anyone had the same reaction that I did.

I found this on space.com: On Saturday night, the moon will arrive at perigee at 19:09 UT (3:09 p.m. Eastern Time). Its distance from the Earth at the moment will be 221,565 miles. But just over three years ago, on Dec. 12, 2008, which was also the night of a full moon, the moon reached perigee at 21:39 UT (4:39 p.m. Eastern Time) at a distance of 221,559 miles, about 6 miles closer than Saturday night’s perigee distance. So it seems Saturday night’s supermoon will actually be just a little less super than the full moon of Dec. 2008. (You can read skywatching columnist Joe Rao’s full article here.)

Why do I find this so interesting? Well, I photographed that moon near the Huntsville Airport in December 12, 2008! So my eyes (and my memory) did remember a more impressive sky that night than tonight. Unlike tonight, I wasn’t even hunting for it—my friend Sue had picked me up from the airport and I asked her to pull over so I could get a few shots of the spectacular moon! Who would have thought that the moon being only six miles closer to the earth would make such a noticeable difference?

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.