Jodie Otte, Baltimore Maryland Child and Baby Photographer

Monthly Archives: April 2010

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Hatching Eggs - Trying to keep it interesting…

April 27, 2010 – 7:13 am

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…

eggs hatching

Glimpse of outdoors at the studio… Baltimore photography / portrait studio

April 21, 2010 – 5:05 am

Between shoots last Friday, I walked around and took some quick snaps of the studio property. Everything is starting to bloom and become green, and I am so excited to be utilizing these 8 acres for portraits this spring/summer. I already have a few sessions to proof done outdoors with children, but in the meantime, here’s a little quick tour in photos…. For the photogs - these were again with my Nikkor 135 mm/2.0 I truly love this lens!

commercial photographer

By Jodie Otte | Posted in The Studio and Monkton | Tagged brick, commercial, dogwood, magnolia, stream, trees | Comments (12)

Baltimore Children’s Photographer

April 20, 2010 – 2:46 pm

Well here we go, yet another gorgeous little one! My favorite has to be the ones with the hat - not many little ones will leave a hat on, and she did

children's photography
child photographer
children's photographer

By Jodie Otte | Posted in child photography | Tagged child in hat, children's photographer, girl with hair bow | Comments (6)

It’s Springtime!

April 16, 2010 – 11:07 am

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!

jumping horse
brand new foal
baby lamb

By Jodie Otte | Posted in personal/family | Tagged foal birth, horse jumping, lamb birth, muddy creek meadows | Comments (6)

Newborn on Saddle Revisited | Newborn Photographer

April 13, 2010 – 12:50 pm

We needed a counterpart to the original baby on saddle - so here we have a Western Saddle with the teeniest little sweetheart! She is so tiny, I had to have a closeup with this one. She’s on her Mommy’s saddle… so sweet!

By the way - Photographers - I shot this image during my most recent workshop at my studio. My attendees were able to experience all the secrets in posing as well as post processing here… We have 3 seats left in our June workshop - please go to http://www.jodieotte.com/mentoring.htm for more details!

Baby on Saddle

By Jodie Otte | Posted in Baltimore Baby Photographer | Tagged baby on saddle, baby photography workshop, baby saddle, newborn on saddle, newborn photography, newborn photography workshop | Comments (14)

Miracle of Life

April 10, 2010 – 9:19 pm

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.

candling chicken egg

By Jodie Otte | Posted in personal/family | Tagged candling chicken eggs, candling eggs, chicken eggs, incubator | Comments (3)

St. Michaels Maryland, Maritime Museum, Perry Cabin Inn | Commercial Photographer

April 9, 2010 – 3:45 am

The workshop where I was teaching last week was fantastic! I thought I would do a “big share” of some pictures I took while there.

We stayed in the Perry Cabin Inn. I have to say, the hotel staff was incredible. We arrived Sunday evening, running late… Dean and I had 20 minutes to run into the room, change, and be ready for the meet and greet. Wow… it was like a tornado hit the room, but we had to get going. When we came back to the room, all our clothes were picked up and put away, the bed was turned down, slippers on each side of our beds, bottled water on each side, etc. etc.

It was fantastic meeting all of the photographers and fellow speakers, and Marsha Mifsud (who organized the entire Savvy Sisterhood Workshop on the Waterfront) was just as sweet as I thought she would be. She sure knew how to treat her speakers and attendees!!!!

It did rain the first two full days we were there, so I didn’t take a lot of photos at the actual inn, but here are a few - view of part of our suite, and view from the balcony….

Perry Cabin

When I do get out with what little traveling I do, I love to capture the feel of my surroundings. What may look ordinary to some, I want to make extraordinary in pictures… here are random shots mostly from Talbot Street in St. Michaels, but also from the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum and surrounding areas…

Photographers: For these images, I believe all were shot with the Nikkor 135mm/2.0 This was the first time I have brought that lens out; I have to say, I love it, and it will probably be my go-to lens this spring and summer outdoors at the new studio…

St_michaels

Eastern Shore Brewing

maritime museum

St michaels

By Jodie Otte | Posted in commercial photography | Tagged boats, chesapeake landing, eastern shore brewing, fishing net, mallard duck, Perry Cabin Inn, rope, st. michaels | Comments (14)

Gorgeous | Baltimore Newborn Photographer

April 8, 2010 – 3:40 am

Gorgeous. Yes, as absolutely stunning this baby is, she will have you all fooled in these pictures. She is up there as one of the top two most difficult newborn sessions I have ever had! This was the session that I didn’t get out of my studio until midnight…. yes, sure was! Could you guess this was the case? She just looks so precious, doesn’t she?…

newborn baby

By Jodie Otte | Posted in baby photography | Tagged baby, curled baby, natural looking lighting, texture | Comments (14)

Spring Project here at the Ottes

April 7, 2010 – 8:02 am

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.

eggs in incubator

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.

broody silkie

By Jodie Otte | Posted in personal/family | Tagged broody silkie, chicken eggs, egg turner, incubating eggs, incubator hovabator | Comments (8)

Baby Curl | Baby Photography

April 6, 2010 – 9:34 am

Yes we did… we curled a 5-1/2 week old baby on a saddle. Photographers know how difficult it is to curl a baby over 2 weeks old - well, it’s definitely not impossible.

baby
baby