During my friends 4th of July party, I focused on capturing interesting portraits with my new lens. I have been a senior portrait photographer for over a year now. This job involves trained me to look for details, capture the moments and what poses makes the photo. I also was reading tips and tricks on portrait photography during the last year to improve my photography. These are my top photos I took of my friends during the party. You will also see a photo of me blowing bubbles in the album. 

June 2021 was the last super moon of the year. With the Whaling City Camera club, we planed to meet up at a place with low pollution lighting to capture the full moon. Club members are slowly coming back for meetups after a year and a half of only online meetings. 
That night I used my new lens I bought the day before, Canon 70-200mm F2.8 lens. This particular lens is perfect for sports, wildlife and portrait photography making the background less stand out when capturing a subject. All these photos I took below were taken on this lens and I wasn't disappointed. What made the night more special is a couple was spending their 10th anniversary together paddle boarding under the super moon's light. 

June 15th to 17th, 2021

First vacation before covid started took me to North Adams, Massachusetts. Spending three days walking around the town, hiking two trails and visiting some great friends in the area. First day was spent exploring downtown Williamstown where I got to see local shops and a dog unwinding on it's bed outside a liquor store. After, I stopped at Spruce park where these marble lion statues at the road caught my eye. Then ended the day walking around North Adams itself before relaxing in a cute air bnb place right in the middle of town.
Second day I visited the only white marble dam in North America at the Natural Bridge park. The caverns had smooth formations that formed over hundreds of years. Middle of the day, I hiked the Cascade Trail right in the heart of North Adams. One hour hike through the woods, surrounded by nature, takes your mind off of life for awhile before arriving to the waterfall at the end. 
The final day I spent enjoying the relaxing air bnb place I was staying at and drove to Vermont for the rest of my trip visiting my best friend. This trip was my first solo trip. It was a good experience and I focused on capturing certain lighting in nature. 

In May, I attended a full moon photoshoot with my photography club. One of my goals is to attend more meetups. This way I can be around other photographers and see how they photograph the location compared to my view. Below are a few photos of Nobska Lighthouse located in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The full moon rose over the lighthouse which gave us a great view of the moon behind the lighthouse. 

Recently I have been going through my past photos and analyzing them. What can I do to improve these photographs? How can I step up my photography this year? These questions I will always be asking myself, but they mean something different every year. 
Studying more about photography during quarantine has helped me improve my skills. Now, when I look back at past photos, I notice how I could have framed them better or used different settings. This has helped me narrow down what to focus on and improve in 2021.
This past month, the Whaling City Camera Club of Dartmouth, MA; had a their annual photojournalism competition. In 2020, I did not focus on photojournalism since the world was under quarantine. Because of this I did not have any photos I could enter. I had the idea to use two hours of my free time between jobs to come up with a photo for the competition.  My photography job, which involves traveling to many cities across Massachusetts, sent me to Provincetown, MA. That day was the last day I could get a photograph to enter in the competition. I roamed the streets of downtown Provincetown, where a bunch of people were enjoying the beginning of spring sunshine. I succeeded in finding interesting people and the black & white photo I entered won 3rd place in the  WCCC Photojournalism Competition 2021! 
My goal was achieved that day, but I am not going to stop there. This year I have plans to travel to many places in Massachusetts to get the best photographs. Look out for a new blog on "Travel Photography" where I will be sharing my experience with the towns I have visited and what you won't want to miss when visiting that town. 

Whaling City Camera Club Annual Photojournalism Competition 2021
Won 3rd place.

To begin the new year, I have started making my new goal to promote my work more. I made new business cards, entered my photos into a few competitions and had my photos displayed for the public to enjoy. First display was two of my photos taken in 2020 hung up in a small business area of Dartmouth, MA. This center promotes artists in displaying their work every month that the public can stop in to observe while walking the streets full of mini stores. The next month I worked on displaying four photographs at a popular painting place near Patriots Stadium. I am excited to have my work seen by many people who come to this place to paint so many different scenes with their friends and families. 
During the next month, I will be focusing on what I want to photograph next. Either a place nearby or an idea I have in mind!  

Whaling City Camera Club planned an outdoor photo meeting focusing on Black & White photography. After their online club meeting a few days before, it inspired me to try Black and White photography again. I usually focus on color when taking photos, occasionally having one photo speaking to me for B&W. I walked around with my camera club members, socially distencing while taking different photographs. One of my favorite shots is taking this sleigh that decorates this park in the middle of the town around the holidays. Another is a light bulb surrounded by a plant displayed in a window. What captured my eye was the reflection in the light bulb of the buildings in town.  I am entering two of these photos in the upcoming Street Photography competition run by the WCCC club in late January 2021.

To finish the last month of 2020, I had a chance to visit Provincetown, MA. This small town at the end of Cape Cod has so many friendly people. Several of them told me all the best places to visit in downtown and it was the perfect day to go exploring. Not only did I get to see the ocean, I saw Cape Cods famous Lobster cage christmas decoration and huge sand dunes. I felt like I was in another country sanding in the middle of the sand dunes. I recommend visiting this place once the season is busy again.

The month of November was both my birthday month and beginning of the holiday season during a pandemic. For my birthday, I visited a new event that came this year to the Franklin park zoo, Boston, MA. The Boston Lights Event showed not only zoo animals, but a variety of sculptures to walk under. Some were a huge japanese lantern archway and a lite up shark. This was definitely an experience that I was happy to attend.
Later this month, my photography job sent me to Martha Vineyard for two days. Despite it pouring rain the whole trip, I got some free time to explore some popular towns such as Chilmark and Edgartown. Here is where I roamed the empty offseason streets. Hopefully I can come back to the island during the busy season to experience what it is like filled with so many people walking around.