Paris for Thanksgiving

A friend of mine found a great deal on Expedia for a trip to Paris France during Thanksgiving. I got excited about it and managed to convince my husband that it would be fun to go. (really didn't take that much) So just over a month ago we bought package to go to Paris for the weekend. Left on Thanksgiving day and returned on Monday. It was a whirlwind trip but a lot of fun. We walked all over the place. We would take the train in the morning to a starting point and just walked our way back to the hotel. We saw everything we planned to see and still had time to wander off the main roads. Below are a few pictures from the trip.

Of course the Eiffel Tower

View from the top of the tower
Walking into the Louvre
Venus de Milo
A row of artifacts
I liked this one because of the 2 different materials used
Details of stain glass inside Notre Dame
One of several amazing array of stain glass inside Notre Dame

Light Painting

As a photographer I like to challenge myself to learn new techniques. This helps me grow as a photographer and also gets rid of the potential for burnout. I first heard about Light Painting at the workshop I attended back in June. It was something I wanted to try but never found the time to do it. You need darkness to do it so that limits the timeframes available to me. Since I'm inbetween some of the sports seasons I regularly photograph and most of my portrait work for the holidays is wrapping up I found some free time this morning. I decided for my first attempt I would just go down to my basement and see what I could produce. One of these days I want to go outside late at night but I should probably warn the neighbors first so when they see somebody out there with lights that keep going on and off and moving they know what is going on. While what I practiced with this morning aren't the most interesting things I definitely learned a lot and am looking forward to my next try.

I stacked up some beer my husband had to give me a practice subject.

A little more light this time in different areas.
I decided to outline the M in my Michigan flag.

A Quick Note

I just wanted to let everyone know that if you want pictures in time for the holidays I would recommend ordering by December 10th for photographs and December 3rd for specialty items. Everyone becomes busy during the holidays which includes me and my lab. If you are looking for a particular sporting event and cannot find it on my ordering site let me know and I will reload it. I try to only post an event for a limited amount of time but I am able to re-post them if necessary.

A Very Cold Session

What could be a better time to do an outside portrait session than when it is 37 degrees outside! This family is very brave to stick with their scheduled session given the chilly temperature. We met at 10am on a Sunday morning to take some pictures which were hoping would be a warm day. Since my clients weren't wearing coats I thought I would suffer with them too and left mine in the car. Aside from some cold hands it didn't seem that bad until I got back to my car and realized just how cold I was. After stopping for some coffee to warm myself up afterwards I was fine for the rest of the day. Hopefully this family warmed up just as quickly.

A happy brother and sister moment.

A quick picture before they became unbalanced.

The entire family smiling bravely in the cold.

Because I wasn't cold enough I went back out to take a few pictures of this barn.

This is the kind of pictures you get when you do not turn your camera off and hit the button while walking. That is my shoe in the upper part of the image.

The Proposal

I was fortunate enough to attend a surprise party for my soon to be new sister awhile ago. At the surprise party for her my brother (technically brother-in-law) proposed. She was so surprised! Even better, she said yes. They are a great couple and I am looking forward to their wedding. Thanks for inviting me to the party and thanks to my new sister for saying yes to even up the family a little :)

Down on one knee

The opening of the box

The happy couple after she said yes

On the phone with her parents

Talking to his new father-in-law

A little update

It has been a little while since I updated the blog so I thought I would do that tonight. Been off and on busy the past few weeks. Finally got over my cold which forced me to miss a few events. Apparently I'm not the only one who has suffered through a cold recently as a client had to cancel because of some sickness as well. The weather didn't help me out either for a little while. I did make it to a youth football game where the wind was a steady 20mph with gusts much stronger. That was a pretty cold night. I've also been working on some presents for clients which of course I cannot post. I did include a copy images below. The first one is from a portrait session I had yesterday. I always take a couple test shots when I get to the location. I wasn't even trying for anything interesting but got this one which my husband liked so I thought I would share. The second one was a quick shot taken during a football game last weekend. With fall you normally get some great evening skies. Between plays I took a quick shot of the sky. Thanks for looking.