More Amish Portraits

Note: I was given permission to take these photos of my Amish friends and post them on my blog. As many know Amish people do not like it when people take their photo, their faith says not to be vain and having your photo taken is considered vanity. So obviously they find it disrespectful when people (tourists) keep taking their photo. That is why I make it a point to tell you, again, it was with permission.

Amish Portraits

Note: I was given permission to take these photos of my Amish friends and post them on my blog. As many know Amish people do not like it when people take their photo, their faith says not to be vain and having your photo taken is considered vanity. So obviously they find it disrespectful when people (tourists) keep taking their photo. That is why I make it a point to tell you it was with permission.

You Capture - Peace

I love this weeks Challenge @ You Capture. It's about capturing Peace. I just game home from my vacation and one of my highlights was visiting my Amish friends. It is all about going back to the roots of live. In everything! I found such peace being with my friends, not having much noise around me except for nature sounds, cooking what we just took from the garden and traveling with horse and buggy. And than I haven't even mentioned the surroundings, it is SO beautiful out there in Lancaster County, very peaceful indeed.

Confession

I have a confession to make. I did not take a lot of photo's during my vacation, at least that is my take on it, I know I posted quite a few the first few weeks. I needed my vacation to be a break and it turned out I needed a break from everything. I didn't expect it to happen but picking up my camera was a chore and so I let it be. This time away was about not HAVING TO DO at all. It was weird, with the new lenses and all and what did it say about me? Am I a passionate photographer when I am not taking photo's while on vacation? What did it mean? But whatever it means, it was nice to relax in a way I needed to. Just doing what I felt like doing and photography was a little too close to work for me during the vacation. Soon I will share the few photo's I took, I have some favorites.

iHeartFaces - Silly Faces

And of course i♥Faces has a contest going. It's all about the silly faces. Check some of the other contestants out, it's so much fun.

iHeartFaces - Pets

This week in i♥Faces we can show off some of our animal photo's, and this time they don't necessarily have to be your pet. Which makes me happy because I happen to love cows, yet don't have any (yet.)

You Capture - You

Ok, so no using photo's from your archive. I have to say that sometimes when I am really busy I do just that. Just because I like these challenges and if I haven't done anything with photo's from the past yet, why not? But this time I really wanted it to be a challenge and so I had to wait for a good time to put some effort into this weeks You Capture. The challenge is to take a series of shots of..... yourself. Not all that easy. So I planned an outing today hoping to make use of the sunshine which was and wasn't there today. In my opinion it is quite the challenge to take a photo's I like of myself, and I didn't just want to use the obvious mirror. And so this is what I came up with. I made a lot more and decided for once, to make up my mind and just post my favorites.

Walking with my friend's dog Jessup. I was combining this challenge and treat the dog and myself to a nice walk in beautiful nature. It's my favorite.

I love the light through my hair here.

iHeartFaces - Summer stories through photos

The theme this week at iHeartFaces is Summer stories through photos. BUT I just placed lots of photos of my summer and thus vacation right here on this blog. Should I repeat them? That's kind of useless. So just scroll down to see lots of my vacation time.

I have been working hard, too hard, way too hard. So my time here is about doing nothing and doing what I just feel like doing. I know the country really well so it's not like I need to sightsee or anything. It's not overly filled with activities, but the things I do, I am enjoying to the max.

What was really exciting was buying camera gear. I wanted to expand a little.

I spent hours at the store investing and eventually made up my mind. My wonderful friend Gretchen (a photographer) joined me in the fun.

One thing I was quickly set on was a 105 mm Macro Lens and I am still getting to know the guy, but here's what it can do, 5 photos.

These flowers aren't that great but it was quickly used in The Common, just for the sake of using the lens.

And this little guy is overly cute. Both in real life and on photo's. I miss you little Adam!

Taken right there in the store. My wonderful friend.

Going to the common to try out our lenses.

Since my gear is increasing I needed a better and more comfortable and bigger bag, also part of US vacation fun, the buying for a very good cause and for less money.

Just to make sure you know where I am.

To me, summer without swimming is no summer at all. At home it's always very questionable if there'll be a summer, summer season are filled with rain and clouds. Not here, so I loved going to swim with my friend Sara and her 4 boys, one of them being a dare devil.

I love visiting the Cape.

I love getting to play. We don't have these batting cages at home so I try to get as much in as humanly possible

And summer continues, just in a different State.......

(All photo's are SOOC.)