Young Bridesmaid

Today I got to watch a wedding through the lens of my camera, and it was an amazing experience.

Chair Alternate Perspective

Here's a different perspective of the chairs from my post a couple days ago. I liked the composition of both of them. This one was without the overhead lights in the picture and gives more of a feeling of symmetry of the chairs and keeps the focus on them.

I'm shooting the rehearsal dinner tonight for the first of many weddings this year and I am totally geeked about starting the wedding season off. Stay tuned for some shots from this wedding.

Caramel Macchiato

The sunset was hitting my Carmel Macchiato just right and this drink was begging me to take it's photograph. Whenever I am in the mood for a desert coffee I very often hit the Starbucks and order one of these. I'm sure the barista is not very happy making it, but it sure tastes good.

Max & Ermas

One of my favorite everyday restaurants to go to is Max & Ermas. Their tortilla soup is literally what brings me back every time. We arrived before the lunch crowd (about 11:00 am) so the place was not bustling with people yet. The symmetry of these chairs was too much for my photographic eye to pass up.

Cranbrook Location Scouting

I'm always on the lookout for a great location to take portraits. Something with a lot of textures and character to enhance the image. Today I visited the grounds of Cranbrook and it really is an amazing place. The architecture and the art alone are a great reason to visit. Hearing the wind through the trees without the noise of roads going by was an added bonus.

Red View

Took some portraits against this red school house today. I loved the textures here and the rich color. Made for a great winter portrait session.

Wake Up Ed

Stormy Night

High Bar Determination

The sport of gymnastics really has a lot to offer for youths (By the way I can't type that word "youths" without thinking of the way it was said in the movie My Cousin Vinnie, Youts, Yuts, Youths). The sport provides strength, determination, sportsmanship, flexibility, friendship, and the spirit of competition. Here is one such youth from last weekend who was exercising his determination to complete the high bar event.

California License Plate

I have been back and forth to California many times in the past few months and I have been seeing this shot with every rental car that I've had. There's something about the Cali license plate that speaks to me. Maybe I should move there some day. This was taken on a nice cloudy day so it was a giant soft box for this shot.

High Bar Grips

One theme that I have been incorporating in my gymnastics photography this year is to focus on the hands and where they meet the aparatus. This shot is a boy on the high bar at a gymnastics meet this past weekend.

100 Step Challenge

I am continually testing my creativity and continuing to practice my craft of photography. The following was a 100 step photo challenge that I gave myself. Basically the premise is to take 100 steps in any direction and stop. Where you stop is where the photograph needs to come from. The following is my attempt at this challenge yesterday. Not the most interesting photos, but I do love how blue the sky was on this day.

Stuffed Animal Guide

I haven't quite figured it out yet, but this stuffed animal needs to be near a particular gymnast during every event. I thought that the animal needed to be the focus of one of my shots since it was a part of the story of the day.

Grasping the Pommel

I have many photos of the full body of a gymnast performing this move. The whole gymnast fills the frame and you can see the skill. So in this shot I wanted to focus on just what the hands were doing to give a sense of strength and positioning to the event.

Charlotte Airport At Sunset

I travel a lot. Airports are second nature to me, and photo opportunities present themselves in airports all over the place. I have been seeing this shot for the past two years and never had the opportunity to capture it in the way I thought it looked best. Finally while traveling this past Sunday the conditions were just right. The sun was setting, the light was reflecting off the floor, and the people were walking by. The only thing I may improve on this is the lack of illumination of the ceiling, but in many ways I like it just the way it is. Tell me what you think.

Inspire Challenge

What do you do when you have a photo challenge (had 2 weeks to do it,) and you work and travel? Write the word INSPIRE with your iPhone in the hotel room. I had two weeks to get this right and I took pictures of each of the letters in the word. However, I never got the letters I was looking for, or maybe it didn't seem right to me to stick with the expected. This idea came to me while looking at the moon and I thought, how about writing each of the letters with a light. The only light at my disposal was an iPhone with a flashlight application. This was the photo challenge, and althought I don't think this is my best image, it was a good exercise in creative thinking. I like my snow written INSPIRE a lot better than this, but the idea was to patch together each letter into a single image. Please see Kevin's Blog, and Milestones blog to see how they interpreted this challenge.

Absolutely No Boat Launching

Seasonal signs are fun to play with. I'm quite sure this sign is doing it's job right now.

CJ's Lakeside Grill

One of our favorite breakfast places in Lake Orion is CJ's Lakeside Grill. The coffee is great, the food is spectacular, and the people are friendly. It's a real hometown feeling when dining there and that's where it gets most of it's appeal for us.

Inspire the photo challenge

My current photo assignment is the word INSPIRE. Each individual letter needs to be a separate image, and the images will be put together to form the word INSPIRE. I have found this challenge to be very difficult because I want the letters to each mean something to me. The assignment is due on Monday Feb 9th, so stay tuned for what I am able to come up with.

Long Lake Winter

This winter has been harsh, this winter has been cold, this winter has been miserable. This winter offered some great photographic opportunities however. Here's a shot of Long Lake in Lake Orion as it hybernates for the winter.

Grips

I love capturing these types of photos sometimes, because it helps tell the story of the day or in this case the gymnastics meet. Here are a gymnasts hands with grips prepped and ready to go.

Football Photography

Football photography has got to be the most amazing and excillerating aspect of this craft for me. As I watched the super bowl this evening I payed close attention to the photographers on the field and wished I was one of them. That would definately be my dream job. Getting paid to capture such an amazing sporting event must really be great. I'm sure it has it's ups and downs, but in general my experience photographing football has been really amazing. Here's a shot I took while on Ford Field last November. I loved the sense of motion portraid in this shot.