Emerson

Last fall I met two of the most adorable, energetic twin boys when I took their pictures at Spring Grove Park in Hudsonville. I enjoyed chasing them around, playing on the swings, and getting some great shots.

Just this week, I was introduced to the newest member of the Arnold family, Emerson. She fits right into the family of cute kids! These are a few of her three month pictures.

André and Andréa

André and Andréa’s wedding took place on a perfect September day just outside of Chicago. The couple began their day getting ready at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Then they spent a few minutes together before starting pictures in front of the rectory.

The ceremony was beautiful, combining the talents of friends and family. From a fantastic flutist to the couple’s parents, the gifted group provided some of the best music we have heard at a wedding.

The reception took us to Pilcher Park where I was able to spend time with the couple before guests arrived. Both André and Andréa were comfortable in front of the camera (Andréa has done some modelling, as you can probably tell!).

A great DJ kept the dance floor packed all night after watching the bride and groom start things off with a perfectly executed, choreographed dance.

Congratulations André and Andréa! We wish you many years of happiness.

Milea’s Senior Pictures

I recently shot Milea’s senior portraits. She was incredibly easy to work with, making my job a breeze! We began the afternoon at the studio. As usual, some of my favorite shots were taken with the brick wall.

We then stepped outside, finding a couple of great locations within two blocks of the studio.

After a quick outfit change, we finished the session near the pedestrian bridge along the Grand River.

Liam – 10 months

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of taking Liam’s 10 month pictures. He is growing up so fast! It seems like only yesterday his parents brought him in to have pictures taken for his birth announcement.

Liam is full of smiles and curious about everything. He’s constantly on the go so we let him move around the studio, capturing the movement of his crawl, a spontaneous toss in the air, and a serious look out the window.

After the studio session, we braved threatening clouds and headed to the park. Liam loved crawling through the grass (and eating a few blades!), and we were thankful the rain held off. I can’t wait to see him again in a couple of months for his one year portraits.

Textures

Recently I decided to give myself a small project. I was in the process of making a book from our Great Smokey Mountains mini-vacation and searching the internet (more specifically, www.flickr.com) for texture images. I wanted to use the images as backgrounds for the pages of my book. Solid color is nice, but adding texture gives the page more depth. See the difference in the pages below.

There are some great textures out there from very talented and generous photographers who allow their images to be used by others, but I wanted my own collection. So I began taking pictures of random surfaces around my house. I took pictures of chairs, rugs, baskets, corkboards, bookends, and countertops. Then I played around with them in Photoshop, increasing the contrast and saturation (and, in some cases, blurring). Below are samples of my work.

It was a fun project, and I’m still keeping my eyes open for new textures whenever I have my camera in hand (which is almost always!). I’ll definitely be using these images in my next book – we visited Glacier National Park in July. It was also fun to see if my husband could figure out what each image was; he wasn’t able to guess many. Give it a try…see how many fun surfaces you can find in your house!

The Great Smokey Mountains

I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last blog. It always seems like time picks up speed in May. Before all of the craziness, Aaron and I spent a long weekend with our friend Tim in the Great Smokey Mountains. It was a trip we had planned for earlier in the year, but the weather didn’t cooperate. The second time was a charm for us; the weather was absolutely perfect, minus the ten minute downpour on day two!

We left Michigan Thursday evening (April 23), and drove through the night. I was surprised by the size and commercial atmosphere of Gatlinburg. We had come to the mountains to get away from everything but the town shouted tourist trap. However, as we passed through Gatlinburg and into the park itself nature was all around us. We stopped at the ranger station to register for backcountry camping permits, and drove to the trailhead.

It was a little after noon when we started hiking. We followed the Little River Trail for several miles. This section of the trail was mostly flat, wide, and gravelly. We were near one of the park’s campgrounds and saw several day hikers along the way. Soon after crossing a bridge over the river we turned left down the smaller, less travelled Huskey Gap Trail. Our goal was campsite 21. We came to it quickly, and although it was still early in the day (about 3:30), we set up camp. Backcountry camping is only permitted at designated campsites in the park and the next closest site was several miles away. We were the only campers there that night, and it was very relaxing and quiet.

The next morning (Saturday, the 25th) we headed back to the Little River Trail and continued to follow the river upstream. The wide path soon became a smaller trail. It wasn’t a strenuous hike although it was a low grade uphill climb and there were several precarious stream crossings. We only saw two people while hiking; they were flying fishing in the river. It was peacefully and incredibly beautiful. The water flowed around islands of trees and cascaded over piles of rock: simply gorgeous. Again, we found ourselves at our destination early in the afternoon. We set up camp at campsite 30 at the very end of the Little River Trail. A time consuming and treacherous river crossing brought us to the campsite. It was in a small meadow between two branches of the river.

We relaxed for a few minutes; then decided to go “creek crawling”. We jumped from boulder to boulder upstream for at least a mile. I only slipped once, but the result was a very wet right sock for the remainder of the crawl! It was a warm day, probably in the mid-70s, but the water was ice cold. When we had gone far enough (the climb was getting steeper and more difficult), Aaron and I took off our boots and plunged our feet in the water. We couldn’t keep them submerged for long, but it was refreshing. Tim had continued on, but returned about 30 minutes later. After he rested briefly, we began the careful climb downstream. Back at camp we started a fire, but didn’t get much further in our food preparation when the skies opened up. We scrambled for our tents and waited out the isolated storm. It poured for about 10 minutes; then returned to the beautiful day it had been. Later that evening we were joined by two more groups of hikers, but the site was large enough to accommodate everyone.

We broke camp early the next morning and retraced our steps down the Little River. After several miles, we left the Little River and took the Cucumber Gap Trail to the west. It was a pretty good uphill climb to start, and it had gotten warmer. I took a couple of short rests to keep from overheating. Once we made it to the top, it was an easy walk. Eventually, the trail started angling down and we saw quite a few day hikers as we got closer to our car. After a quick stop at the ranger station, we drove along the Newfound Gap Road deeper into the park. Our original intention had been to follow the Appalachian Trail for a few miles, but the shelter we wanted to stay at was full. So instead we took the Kephart Prong Trail to the Kephart Shelter. The trail was only two miles long, but it was in full sun and uphill the entire way. I was too warm and tired to fully appreciate the beauty of the trail that day.

Tim arrived at the shelter first, and we found him sunning himself on a rock when we got there. After ditching my pack and cooling off at the stream, I wandered the immediate area taking pictures. The shelter itself was interesting. It was basically a lean to, open to the southwest with “bunk bed” platforms large enough for 16 people. Being out in the open all night was a little disconcerting, especially when I killed a very large spider right before going to sleep and we saw two mice running around the shelter. I had planned on being wrapped tightly into my sleeping bag, but it was too warm and I had to sleep unprotected. Luckily, I wasn’t bit by any spiders and didn’t find a mouse curled up with me in the morning. However, one of the mice left Aaron a small gift in his boot: an acorn.

We left the shelter early Monday morning. The downhill walk back to our car was wonderful. Tim burned off some excess energy by dangling upside-down from one of the foot logs that crossed the Kephart creek. We stopped for a second time at the Newfound Gap so I could take some pictures, then coasted down out of the mountains on fumes to Gatlinburg. After buying a couple gallons of gas at an overpriced station, we stopped at a Flap Jacks restaurant for a large breakfast. Then we headed home. It was a great weekend. The park was beautiful and relaxing. I’m ready for the next trip!

Jessi

Jessi is such a fun, charismatic girl. We had a great time at her senior portrait shoot. She’s my representative for Thornapple Kellogg High School in Middleville.

We started her senior picture shoot at the studio. It didn’t take long to know I was working with someone special; she was a natural in front of the camera. Jessi’s inner dancer shone through as she gracefully posed in front of the brick wall. After the indoor pictures, we climbed onto the roof – Jessi was up for anything! Although the weather wasn’t cooperating, we wandered around downtown Grand Rapids. My favorite pictures of the day came at some stairs we found. I love the shots of Jessi looking up at me. Our last stop was Ah-Nab-Awen Park. The yellow flowers behind Jessi’s blue shirt were fantastic.

Jessi is not only beautiful on the outside, she has a gorgeous personality. I’m very happy to have had the chance to meet Jessi, her mom and her friend.

Happy Birthday, Lilli!

Recently I had the honor of taking Lilli’s one year pictures. As you can tell, she’s adorable. Her dad is a fire fighter, and his gear made for a great shot. Lilli’s legs aren’t quite long enough to fit into the boots, and she was about to fall out of them. So her mom lay behind her, holding Lilli upright, completely hidden by the fire gear. Lilli loved it and we got some fantastic smiles.

Next we moved to the window seat and let Lilli be herself. As most one year olds are, she is curious about everything. In the black and white shot she is watching cars drive by on the street below. It’s quite the intense look!

In the final image, Lilli is riding her rocking cow. Her smile says it all. It was a wonderful afternoon of picture taking. I’m glad I was able to be a part of Lilli’s special day!

Aperture

There are three main components in determining the correct exposure in a photograph: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. Today I’d like to talk a little about aperture. Aperture refers to the size of the opening in the lens; it is measured in F-stops. More light is allowed to hit your sensor if the opening of the lens is wide open; therefore affecting the exposure.

However, there is more to aperture than just getting your exposure correct. It gives you creative control over the look of your image. Aperture (along with distance from your subject) controls depth of field. What is depth of field? Look at the two images of Rosa Parks Circle that I took in downtown Grand Rapids last fall. The first image has a shallow depth of field: only the closest birch tree is in focus, everything else is out of focus. The second image has a deep depth of field: all of the trees are in focus (at least in better focus than the first image). The lower the F-stop number, the shallower the depth of field (i.e. the “blurrier” the out of focus things will be). Image 1 had an F-stop of 5.6, image 2 had an F-stop of 32 leading to two very different pictures. NOTE: When I changed the aperture, I also had to adjust my shutter speed to keep the correct exposure.

Now for a little bit of the technical and slighting confusing stuff –larger F-stop numbers refer to smaller openings of the lens therefore allowing less light to hit the sensor. The numbering system is counter-intuitive. I’ve found the best way to learn the relationship between F-stops and depth of field is to get out and take a ton of pictures! Have an image in mind, and then play around with the aperture until you achieve the effect. Soon it will become second nature. Keep in mind that you don’t need to focus on the closest object in the frame. With a shallow depth of field, objects in front of and behind your point of focus will be blurred. Have fun and be creative!

Beautiful Bekah

In this shoot I focused on using all natural lighting. I am very fortunate to have huge windows dominating the north wall of my studio. They offer beautiful, flattering light for portraits. Without flash there are a lot less blinking problems! Plus, the shadows and colors appear much more natural to the eye. All three shots in this image were taken near the end of the session. We moved furniture out of the way in order to use the exposed brick wall.

Bekah was a blast to work with. She’s such a beautiful and honest soul; we had a great time while capturing some amazing images.

I was hoping to share pictures from the Great Smoky Mountains today, but the weather was not working with us. Almost the entire country was hit with storms while temperatures tumbled. We chose not to venture into the wilderness, putting off our plans for another month or so. Instead we headed to Indianapolis for Michigan State’s Sweet 16 men’s basketball game. Indy turned out to be a fantastic city – lots of green space, an unexpected canal cutting through the city, beautiful architecture. We enjoyed our time there … and the outcome of the game: MSU 67, KANSAS 62!