Last Saturday, I went to Carter Mountain Orchard with a couple of friends from home. I am from Charlottesville and the orchard is right outside of town on a nearby mountain ridge. It has fantastic barely-obstructed views of the mountainous terrain to the west and the flat lands to the east that stretch to the coast. I think on a good day, the visibility is probably more than 20 miles in each direction.

So anyway, I meandered (cool word, eh?) back to Charlottesville from Harrisonburg, where I live now, for the day and night. We went to the orchard early in the afternoon and it was very busy with families and kids. The apples I picked straight off the trees for cooking were huge! They were possibly twice the size of the store bought ones sitting on my kitchen table right now. So my friends, Peter and Yarden, and I adventured straight downhill to the east and discovered a pond. We explored through some of the rows of apples and took a gander (another cool word) at the abandoned apple truck up on one of the dirt roads. It was a lot of fun – we had plenty of fun teasing each other and making each other model for photos. Ha! I am a terrible model, because there is a certain side of the camera I like to be on and it’s not on the same side as the lens.

My style of photography tends to be a mixture of candid and posed. I may direct you were to stand and may even give you some guidance in how, but I want your facial expressions to be genuine. I love it when a photograph shows genuine personality and expression  – I am interested in seeing who someone is, not what titles they may have… I do not care if you’re a senior or if you are getting married, I want you to be able to look back, into the photograph, and see in that moment, there was integrity. I do not believe in photographing fake smiles and tears. (You know those studio settings where some guy is directing the exact angle of your body and how much of your teeth you show…. that makes me sick. It just takes all of the art and joy out of photography.)

I will not continue to bore you with small talk and such. So here are some photos I took while adventuring around the orchard with spunky, fun company:

By the way, I can spot poison ivy incredibly well (don’t doubt it) and this orchard has a lot along the paths. So if you go, wear long pants… good precaution against both poison ivy and ticks. Poison ivy = itchy, open sore rashes. Ticks = lyme disease. Best to be avoided. :o)

Yarden and I have been neighbors and friends for 14 years now! Incredible.