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There are of course more pictures from vacation, but I’m going to wrap this up because I have tons of client images to share, and not enough time in the day! 
Love these birds - as they scoop the water…
The ONLY way to do the beach! This year was way too rushed…
And the secret to how I got so close…
Well, we had planned on chartering the Godspeed, and finally having our deep sea fishing experience (complete with seasick patches), but it was canceled early in the morning due to 6-foot waves. One of these days we will do this! Captain Dave has been absolutely wonderful, though, watching out for us and giving us great advice as he knows some of us…… ahem…. ME especially, gets seasick.
So out of nowhere, Dean decides we are going to get into a teeny tiny little metal box, and fly over Hatteras and Ocracoke.
My kids have never flown, and well, we all know I hate to fly. But I’m going to suck it up in the name of fun, and deal with this, right?
I’m happy to report, I made it through - but I know deep down inside the only reason I didn’t freak out once we were up in the air was because I was trying to remain sane for my little girl sitting next to me, and I did have a need to photograph this, as it may be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
I was very surprised, as I have never done any sort of aerial photography, that depending on the direction of the sun was how vibrant the images turned out.
This is the plane we were in…
If you haven’t been to Cape Hatteras, it may surprise you that there is one road right in the center of the island, and there are places that while you are driving, you can see the Pamlico Sound on one side, and the Atlantic Ocean on the other at the same time. It definitely makes you feel quite vulnerable, and no, I wouldn’t want to be there during a hurricane.
This is where we usually drive our cars onto the beach and swim/fish - no lifeguards. It can be a little scary at times depending on the rip currents.
The Southern end of Cape Hatteras
Beach Houses
This is the Northern tip of Ocracoke. Notice how the waters of the Sound and the Ocean swirl around together. When we were in the Godspeed last year (when the seasickness nightmare began), crossing where the two bodies of water met was a pretty incredible experience with 6-10 foot waves It makes you really appreciate the power of nature.
Up top of this image is where the Ocracoke ferry brings you in. This is the one road on Ocracoke that takes you to civilization (and the famous Howard’s Pub of course…).
Sound side. The Pamlico Sound is at the bottom of this image, ocean at the top
I think this is the Frisco Pier. I don’t remember what the pilot said at this moment in his comforting and mellow voice as right about here, we hit some (in my opinion MAJOR) turbulance that made us drop (i.e. free fall) about 3 feet. At this point is when my motion sickness started. Erynn decided this was the metal trap of death at this very moment.
Hatteras Lighthouse… Pilot said, “I’m going to circle around the lighthouse again” and my mind was screaming PLEASE DON’T as we were practically sideways in the air…
Landing… *whew*
Just walking around Ocracoke and shopping…
One day we decided to hike up Jockey’s Ridge in the heat… ack! We hadn’t done that for a few years.
I’m not afraid of the dark. Nope, not since getting the Nikon D3. This thing is incredible, pushing the high ISOs…
One of the days we went to the aquarium in Manteo. It’s a small aquarium, nothing like Baltimore’s, but it was definitely fun capturing a few critters…
Yup, that’s me in there too…
I’m impatient, I wanted to share these now. Right behind the Jolly Roger on Ocracoke Island is my secret little spot to photograph pelicans. They are always there. Erynn and I walked up on them and I started shooting. I absolutely LOVE the detail of pelicans - they are incredible to photograph. I only spent about 5 minutes shooting, and it was hard to pick the favorites from the batch.
We are back from Cape Hatteras in the Outer Banks, North Carolina. I’m wading through all the emails and voicemails, so I will be getting back with everyone ASAP!
Hopefully, if I can get to it, I will be sharing some photos that I took while down there.
Every year, for the past 9 years, we have gone down to the Outer Banks. We have found we like Cape Hatteras and Ocracoke the best. This year we stayed in Frisco, Soundside - we prefer Soundside as we can kayak and fish right off the back of the beach house, and then we drive out on the beach for some ocean time, although we may have messed up my suspension this year *sigh* driving through the sand.
The theme this year seems to be birds and fish - you’ll notice as I share, this is what I photographed the most… I guess that was what I connected with this year….
So to start out, here’s the house and the view…
This is a reminder that the studio is closed until July 21st so that I can spend some much-needed time with my family. If you just had your baby, please call me at 443-299-2752 and leave a message, and I will get back with you right away. All other questions or session inquiries, please email theblackhorsestudio@verizon.net — I will have email access periodically during this time and will answer you as soon as possible.
Okay, it’s that time of year. My daughter, Erynn, is back into a few horse shows. This weekend, we went to Olney Farm, and she did a few Jumpers classes. She received a 3rd and a 5th in jumpers. This is only the second time she has ever shown her horse, Stormy, in any type of jumping. She jumped 2 feet and 2 feet, 3 inches for this…
Approaching…
Will Stormy make it over the scary horse-eating flowers? She sure does…
See that smile on Erynn’s face? She knows she is doing well!
My favorite picture of the day — we’re going to enlarge to at least a 24×30 for her bedroom wall…
LOL - well…. everyone has been asking to update on the chicks. Yeah, lemme tell you, I was told that I should set double the amount of eggs that I wish to have chicks. I was told 50% hatch rate. I figured I could take another 14, minus roosters, so maybe I would end up with about 7 to 10 new hens… sounded good. So I set 28 eggs in incubators. I ended up having 26 out of those 28 hatch. Ummm… guess I’m not a bad chick momma? Of course, this entire process was not without other interesting factors…
One of the chicks was born deformed (this was a black and copper maran that I had the eggs shipped from E Bay) and unfortunately, we had to face culling the chick after I tried a little “chicken orthopaedics” which included splints and a teacup (long story). Some of the chicks were “shrink wrapped” and I was performing “surgery” on them to remove the shrink wrapped membrane. The chick below hatched too early, and had some bleeding, so I had to carry it around for a while, keeping it warm until the bleeding stopped…
We just finished finding homes for 9 of the 26 we had, but then a bearded silkie hatched underneath one of my broody hens out in the coop, so I had to rescue her once she was pecked in the face… she’s doing very well now… anyway, I snapped a few natural light images the other day of a few of our little ones…
This is an “olive egger”. I bred our ameraucana rooster with both barred rocks and rhode island reds, so this is one of the rhode island red crosses, and should have olive-colored eggs. The barred rock crosses are all black with a little bit of white on them (not shown)
These are ameraucanas on the left (they lay blue eggs) and two black and copper marans (from E Bay) on the right (they lay almost a chocolate brown egg)… Do you see a theme? I’m collected all different colored egg layers. Hopefully by fall, we will have white, pinkish cream, beige, blue, olive, and chocolate brown - and yes, of course, I will update with egg pictures
And here’s our little designer chicks for fun… these are bearded silkies, assorted colors… all six that I set hatched out just fine… When these grow up, you will not see their eyes… the tufts on their heads and beards under their beaks will make them look like a fluffball with a beak… LOL!
I might not be able to post to my blog every day, but I am trying to keep it interesting :) I love to share client work… but I do like to share my personal stuff here as well, because I need to force myself to bring out the camera during non-work time. My original love was photographing nature, so somehow over the past 2 years, I have lost track of that…
I shared our spring project a few weeks back - we took some eggs from our chickens to hatch… We have our first batch of 14 hatching as I type ;) I woke up yesterday morning at around 4 a.m., half dreaming I was hearing chirping. I stumbled down the steps and looked in the incubator. I saw nothing unusual but could actually hear peeping. This meant that one of the eggs pipped through its membrane and was breathing air from the air sack. Even though it was a day away from due date, looked like something was going to happen.
I fell asleep on the couch, and Dean checked on the eggs before going to work and told me he saw a hole in one of the eggs. Yep, we had an external pip!
Almost 12 hours later, my stepdaughter, Ally, came over so we could go to her riding lesson, and it was perfect timing. The first egg hatched out! Since then, we have had 8 more fully hatch, and signs of a few more hatching… 9 out of 14 so far… not bad for my first hatch!
Here’s progression of the first one to hatch… I’ll post more pictures later when I can take them out of lockdown and once they get fluffy…
It’s definitely springtime, and now we finally are able to get outside and enjoy it completely! We’re finally back outdoors riding, and what a lovely surprise at Muddy Creek Meadows last night. Erynn and I went for our lessons, and one of the horses had a brand new baby boy…. and then… someone mentioned they saw a new lamb - apparently, nobody knew a lamb was coming, and there it was, freshly born… yes, it’s spring… and more babies on the way!
When I was about my daughter’s age (she’s 10), I found a robin egg that my dog had just knocked the nest down. The egg was still warm. I ran into my house and held it over a lightbulb and I saw a heart beating. As an animal lover, I wanted to hatch that egg. I got an old aquarium and an old lamp and set it up in my room (the lightbulb for heat), and even though the light was so bright and annoying while I was trying to sleep at night, I was determined to hatch this egg. Every day, I would carefully hold the egg up to the light and see that little tiny heart beating. So exciting! Of course, I had no idea what I was going to do when that egg hatched, maybe I would crush up worms and try to feed it by hand? It didn’t matter, I was determined to help this poor little baby bird.
I woke up one morning, and the lightbulb had gone out. I held that tiny egg up to the light, and the heartbeat was gone. I was crushed.
A few years back, my daughter tried to rescue a robin egg, and I knew how she felt, but there was no hope for it, and I told her that… but she tried to keep it warm… in a box… no amount of compassion she had for animals was going to save it, but she finally gave up when it started to stink… lol!
Whether we are discussing baby humans or baby animals, the miracle of life is simply amazing. While my son (age 13) acts all calm and cool about the whole thing, I know both of my children are pretty fascinated as well, and I am so happy to be able to share the experience of new life with them…
Can you believe, Day Four of our experiment with hatching chicken eggs, and we have already seen life by candling the eggs (holding them over a very bright light)! There is slight movement. I am not sure whether that is the heart beating, but that would be my guess, as it is a pulsating appearance. So far, we can definitely see that 13 of the eggs do indeed have life in them. We’ll check again in a few days and see if we have more.
Okay, it’s no secret we love animals here… Last year, we bought chicks, and it has been really a great experience raising chickens. They are SUPER easy to care for, don’t require much at all. I have to say they are way less complicated than dogs or cats or even guinea pigs by far.
On a whim (isn’t that how I always blame these decisions?), I decided we were going to hatch some eggs. Do we need more chickens? No, but our kids are only young once, why not let them experience things that they may otherwise never experience? Well, as usual, it’s a little out of control…
We have 30 eggs in the incubator now. My goal is to get some eggs of different colors. We have two Ameraucana hens (one lays pinkish eggs, the other blue) amongst other hens, and an Ameraucana rooster, so we know the blue and pink eggs are going to be little Ameraucanas (laying anything from pink to blue to green eggs). I also took cochin eggs (we have one blue cochin) which obviously have an Ameraucana father - our hope is that any hens we receive from those eggs will have olive green eggs - that’s the goal anyway. I also have black and copper maran eggs on the way to incubate. They produce very dark brown, almost chocolate-colored eggs.
Okay, now that you are shaking your head thinking we are crazy, I’ll share some pictures…
Eggs in the incubator - expected hatch day April 27th.
This little mop in the corner is a silkie hen that went broody. We’ve never seen a broody hen before. Wow… they are hilarious! She was broody prior to us going away last week, so when we returned, I decided to just let her try to hatch her eggs. She currently has six under her. I shoo-ed her off of her nest the other day to count, and she growled at me. When she returned, she caught sight of her eggs and started to talk to them… cooing sweetly to them. She then arranged herself on top, and carefully tucked all the eggs beneath her with her beak. Then, she went back into her trance as you see here… Expected hatching date on these would be April 21st.
Although I do enjoy being a baby, child, family photographer, my original love is photographing my surroundings. I really miss it. It has been a long time since I took out my camera for my own enjoyment and photographed nature, animals, and/or just things in general… I need to somehow in my busy schedule make some time for the “me” shots. I love to capture the essence of my surroundings.
At any rate, my husband and I are heading out to St. Michael’s Maryland. I’m teaching photographers at the Savvy Sisterhood Workshop on the Waterfront at the Perry Cabin Inn (the beautiful and amazing Inn used in the Wedding Crashers movie).
I want to blog while I am gone, but not sure if I will have the time or not, so no promises, but I’ll definitely share when I get back.
Until then, here are some images that I took the last time I was in St. Michael’s…. enjoy! 
…and guess what? More snow in the forecast for Monday…. And so it continues… having to re-dig-out. Some snaps from yesterday…
My house snow-covered…
Looking through the garage door…
Out back…
Bird tracks…
Dean with the snow blower… what a disaster…
Bored of having to dig out again to the chicken coop, I decided to dig some stairs…
This was our little pond….
The dove I rescued…
Erynn figured out if she crawled on all fours, it distributed her weight more evenly making it easier to cross the yard…
Barrett’s favorite job…
We sure didn’t have a shortage of eggs…
And introducing for the first time…. Drum roll please…. Dean’s beard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL
I am such a bad blogger right now! I have not been able to keep up. I have, however, been able to keep up a little more with Facebook - so see below if you want to reach the fan page for J. Otte Photography… been showing all sorts of old photos of the historic building we are now preparing as the new studio. It’s turning out lovely - but lots and lots of work between photo sessions. Every spare moment is now being spent on painting and decorating the new place. Photos on the progress have been placed on the Facebook page, will post more here at a later date.
In the meantime, Marylanders, are you about out of your minds? What’s with these blizzards? I’ve lived in Maryland all my life and never saw so many blizzards in one year. We’ve been rescheduling photo sessions like crazy!
I did manage a few snaps this weekend - nothing spectacular, I think everyone is worn out and sore from shoveling!
Just thought I would take a moment and share —
Nothing like a morning shoveling to the chicken coop… I kept thinking - almost done, almost there… and then realized I had to cut out for the door, and then another path to the feed, and then another path to the door to the run…
My poor puppies couldn’t figure out the snow up to their necks…
My boy… hating his chores…
We were finishing up last night, and we heard whinnying… two Arabian horses slid down our driveway (yes, slid… it was very scarey) and into our front yard… they seemed to like visiting. Dean and I had to put a halter on one and get them back to their owners. One stepped and fell into our little koi pond… Dean said - that would be just right, all the work we put into digging that pond… “Hey, how did your pond break?” “a horse came out of nowhere and stepped in it….” LOL!
So here we go… round 2 of this weeks blizzards - calling for 16 to 24 inches tomorrow night. Wow… and I hear a little rumor more on Sunday/Monday????
So we made it outside yesterday after the snow finally stopped. That was quite the dig-out. Here are a few pictures…
Out the back door…
Yes, my kids used a kayak to sled in… it was too deep for anything else.
Our chickens refused to come out of the coop…
Erynn made herself an igloo
This is my bedroom window — notice something odd about it? That’s over 2 feet of snow piled up against the window… and yet it’s still snowing! I promised myself I would take lots of pictures the next time we had a real good snow, so be prepared - I’ll be shooting and sharing quite a bit tomorrow between snow boarding with the kids (if I can find our old snowboard….) and hot chocolate… and pumpkin bread…. yeah, I need pumpkin bread… in fact, I think I need that right NOW!
Well, on Saturday up here in the cornfields, we had a little over 6 inches of snow. The ground was warm, so it didn’t lay on the ground like it laid on the vehicles - but putting a ruler up on top of my jeep, it was a little over 6 inches. Can’t wait to see how much snow we get this year!
My backyard Sunday morning…
While recovering from the virus attack (per the post below), I was reinstalling software last night which can feel like it takes forever! I decided to do a bit of cooking. I do like to cook when I have time, although my husband, Dean, has the natural talent for it; but I live the life of busy and stressed business owner, and I don’t have a lot of time for cooking. Well, here’s multitasking at its finest - software uploading and cooking an Autumn Bake at the same time
I’m not a vegetarian but I do enjoy variety.
Four main ingrediants - Millet, Cranberries, Pumpkin Seeds, and Butternut Squash
Probably turned out a bit too liquidy but I thought it was pretty good myself… definitely goes well with the fall colors outdoors.
A weekend ago, Erynn (my 10-year-old daughter), Ally (my 20-year-old stepdaughter), and myself had a girls’ day out on an almost 5-hour trail ride through Pennsylvania. It was an absolutely beautiful day! There were 53 riders altogether - yes, 53!!!! Here are some pictures I took that day while riding - Hey photogs — it was a true “shoot from the hip”. I couldn’t look through the viewfinder, so I literally just clicked the shutter in full sweeps in all directions… here’s what I managed to get out of it… this isn’t with my professional camera, I wouldn’t bring my professional camera out on something like this ;) Also, our nightmare - shooting at high noon with a camera that doesn’t handle dynamic range very well… boy was it bright.
Where are you going? Can we come too?
When I finally felt comfortable enough to start shooting.
Ally (on left) did really great. She had a crash-course in riding that day only after two real riding lessons. She cantered for her first time as well as jumped for her first time. Erynn (on right) on Stormy.
buzzards
True photographer’s child - hard to get her to look at the camera.
Please vote every day for the next few days - it’s almost over!
We’re going to back up just for a moment… I can’t believe that fall has really arrived. I’m loving this cool crisp weather! So I felt like the Cape Hatteras Storm pictures would have to be shared before it gets too cold! This was our last evening in Hatteras - we watched an amazing storm come through from our deck…
You’ve probably seen our “chicken adventure” this year (if not, just type in chickens in the search box, and you’ll see… ;)) We purchased chicks back in April, and we are finally getting eggs. We have a nice little flock of 13 hens and 1 rooster. We did lose a hen a month ago to a racoon, so we had to reinforce our chicken run yet again… Those are VERY smart creatures. They can reach through fencing and grab chickens by their necks and “disassemble” them through the wire. That’s probably more than you wanted to know - believe me, it was more than *I* wanted to know as well. At any rate, it was a beautiful evening, so our chickens looked so bright under the evening light… we’ve been letting them free range a bit in the evening. Erynn stands guard and watches them carefully, herding them back to safety. That’s usually the job of the rooster, but he is a very gentle roo, and I’m not sure he fully understands he is supposed to protect his girls
A couple weeks ago, Dean and I did “The Otte Triathalon”. We took a day together, the kids were in school, and we did our own version of a triathalon. We started off dropping our kayaks in up in Wrightsville, PA on the Susquehanna River… (these were taken with my waterproof point and shoot camera).
Next, we stopped back at Muddy Creek Meadows, and got our horses, and headed out on a couple-mile trail. This is why I don’t like point and shoot cameras… riding horses, taking pictures with that horrible shutter lag, and this is what we get… so all the photos were pretty fuzzy…
but an aside… speaking of horses, we have a new one… This is Jet. I introduced Dean to him when we were coming back from the trail. He had no idea - I simply asked him what he would name a horse like that if it was his… he eventually got the hint and was a bit surprised! We’re still getting to know Jet. He’s supposed to be a quarterhorse, but since he came from auction, he’s very skinny and needs some fattening up. Hey, I guess he is the “official” black horse
After that, of course, the third part of the triathalon? Sushi at Umi Sake in Timonium!!!!
I noticed beautiful pink tones coming through my front windows last night, just as Dean told me to look outside, the sky is beautiful. He was right - directly in front of my house above the cornfields, the sun was setting. Such a beautiful night led to such an ugly rainy morning…
I feel like I am constantly apologizing for not keeping up with my blog. Between getting my 5th and 8th graders back to school between photo shoots and squeezing out the last bit of summer family stuff, the blog is what had to suffer - but I should be back to blogging regularly here shortly. I just got out of Jury Duty today, add that to the pile and am getting ready to answer phone calls. In the meantime, this is five months in the making. I shared our little chicken journey (although I don’t remember posting pictures of the second batch of chicks… hmmm… no, I don’t believe I did… at any rate, we now have 13 hens and one rooster) So five months in the making, the first egg was found last week…
Well, it all went crazy since then - no, it’s not Easter, these are really the rainbow of eggs that we’re finding daily! And to answer the question - yes, the green/blue eggs are totally edible, in fact, they are supposedly better for you than any of the others! Truly, we can now have Green Eggs and Ham for breakfast!
Ahhh I’m so sorry, haven’t been keeping up with this again. Had a bunch of newborns arrive right after I came back from vacation, so have been catching up. Also, my kids are now on their last two weeks before school starts, and I of course, have a million and one things to do with them
Here’s a few more shots from our vacation… of course, there are still many more. I need to catch up with posting some client work as well - I wish I could share images from every session, but it seems that I’m barely hanging on to this blog sometimes, and I’ll never have enough time in the week to share every session. I’ll share some glimpses of sessions next week some time as the rest of this week is planned already ;)
These three I took on the last day as Dean and Barrett were securing the kayaks on top of our vehicle before driving through a nasty storm…
Before I share some more vacation photos, I wanted to announce that the studio is now back open after our much needed family break. All emails and phone calls will be returned today! If for any reason we have missed your message, please contact us tomorrow (Tuesday).
Of course I still have vacation pictures to share ;) Here’s some of the food we had while in Cape Hatteras. We love seafood, but it is so nice to get it absolutely fresh! We brought some littleneck clams back to the beach house and steamed them with melted butter and garlic…
Then, we brought back a half bushel of oysters. They were so good, but wow, what a lot of work shucking them! Lots of people feel that eating raw oysters is gross. Okay, you haven’t seen gross until you open up one of the first oysters you have ever opened up yourself and find legs squiggling around in it! Oysters don’t have legs! Oh, but this one did… I immediately started squealing, feeling completely gross!! Even Dean’s stomach was turning as he lifted a small soft flesh-colored crab resembling a very fat spider, out of the oyster. Our kids rescued the crab and returned it to the Sound. Now unfortunately, that image of an oyster with squirming legs is etched into my brain…
An underwater seascape?
No, a few of the oysters had a full underwater environment on their shells!
Before I show the beauty of the beach, I wanted to share this interesting waterspout that was next to our vehicle - I took this picture through the driver’s side window as we were driving down the main road of Ocracoke Island, heading towards Howard’s Pub. Dean noticed it first, so I got my camera out just in time to see it turn into a full fledged waterspout that touched down onto the water…
If you are a Marylander who has only grown up going to Ocean City, you are missing out on something amazing… I’m a beach snob, okay, I admit it. I like privacy, I don’t like crowds - I enjoy peace and tranquility and personal space! LOL!
Here’s how we do the beach…
Let a little air out of the tires, and head right out on the sand… One year, the sand was very very dry and deep and we didn’t let some air out of the tires and got stuck. My husband with his amazing super-human strength ;) lifted the back end of our vehicle out of the sand just enough for me to depress the accelator and get us out…
So here’s the view… We have learned from other’s mistakes and now know that you must not back your vehicle too close to the waves, and be very careful as the tide comes in to get back to the paved road before you get trapped!
Ahh… and ahead of us lies the ocean….
Next, you set up right out of the back of your vehicle…
Beaches should have plenty of seashells…
And lots of teeny colorful clams that move before your eyes, digging back into the sand after every wave…
Don’t forget, you are never too old to dig for sand crabs!
Ahhh… the sea birds!
Frisbee anyone?
There’s something about sea oats and dunes that fascinate me…
Did I mention this is the only way to do the beach?
