Portraits - Yes, I Can!

I imagine that over the past year, I've spent a great deal of time promoting myself as a nature photographer. However, I do offer outdoor portrait sessions. I have done family groups, children, special events, engagement, seniors and other types of work on location. Send an email or call to inquire about your next portrait!

Lowell Riverwalk Festival Arts & Crafts Show

I'm pleased to announce I will have my work featured at the Lowell Riverwalk Arts & Crafts Show. Stop by for a variety of matted prints, quality greeting cards and boxed gift sets, along with a few other surprises!

For more information about the two-day event, visit www.discoverlowell.org. And here's a PDF map of downtown Lowell for parking and event location!

Riverwalk Festival
2nd weekend in July
July 13 & 14, 2007

This two-day event includes many activities where you and your family will enjoy Friday and Saturday night concerts, arts and crafts, parade, pet parade, Brian Mead Memorial Riverwalk Cruise-in, Rumble the Riverwalk, children’s area, historic riding tours and river tours, pontoon rides, kayak and canoe race, kayak fun, food booths, downtown merchants sidewalk sales and open house, health & fitness fair, street musicians, $1500 duck race, fireworks and much more.

Lowell is located on State Highway M-21, just 18 miles east of Grand Rapids - or 20 miles west of Ionia. You may access Lowell at exits 39 (M-21) and 52 (M-50) from Interstate 96.

It's Official!

I just received word this morning my work was accepted to have a booth in the Art Sales Tent at Festival of the Arts 2007 in downtown Grand Rapids. Festival is the largest all-volunteer arts event in the nation!

A three-day arts celebration, held the first full weekend in June in downtown Grand Rapids. It encompasses almost all of downtown Grand Rapids with six performance stages; lots and lots of food booths offering ethnic delights of all kinds; singers, dancers, thespians, visual artists, and performers from all over West Michigan; more than 20,000 hard-working volunteers; and over half a million people in attendance.

Visit the Festival website for more information

Art Tents on Calder Plaza - June 1, 2 & 3

- Friday	Noon - 9 pm
- Saturday	10 am - 9 pm
- Sunday	10 am - 5 pm

West Michigan's finest artists and craftspeople sell their wares, including pottery, jewelry, folk art, photography, handmade paper, metal sculpture, wood sculpture, fiber art, glass sculpture, watercolors, acrylics, and oils.

Be sure to stop by and say hello - and be sure you bring an extra shish-ka-bob with you...

Cottage & Lakefront Living Art Show

Whisper in the Woods Nature Journal is hosting an art show in conjunction with the West Michigan Cottage & Lakefront Living Show at DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids.

The art show will offer decorative and functional art based on nature, wildlife and everything outdoors. I will be just one of a number of terrific artists featured. For information on artists, attractions, times and tickets, visit http://showspan.com/clg.

2007 Dates & Times
Friday, April 20	3pm - 9pm
Saturday, April 21	10am - 9pm
Sunday, April 22	11am - 5pm

	Admission (PUBLIC)
	Adults:		$8.00
	Children (6-14):		$4.00
	5 & Under:		Free

Please stop by for my full line of nature-based photo cards and a variety of prints, and be sure to register at my table to win a free 11x14 print!

Sleeping with the Bear...

Today, I was accepted into the Glen Arbor Art Association Artist Residency program! What a thrill for me to have an opportunity such as this.

The GAAA offers several creative residencies each year. In cooperation with Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, participants work at Thoreson Farm, a farmstead in the historic Port Oneida district of the National Lakeshore. Its newly remodeled buildings provide studio space and overlook open fields and woodlands. The National Lakeshore includes several miles of spectacular Lake Michigan shoreline, wooded hills and the Crystal River. The goal of the residencies is to allow artists a respite in order to work and to leave the cares of the world behind to focus on their creative process.

For now, the plan is I will be in residence from September 30 through October 6, with a presentation to the community on the Tuesday evening of my stay. I plan to educate myself on the ecology of the Sleeping Bear region, and emphasize the importance of the Park as a place of pleasure and preservation via my photographic images. I hope my work will bring people new insights, enjoyment and understanding of such a wonderful place in our own state.

Here are some images I took one evening last June - when I decided I was completely smitten with the place!

Sleeping Bear Dunes

Hey, Hey!

"First I was afraid, I was petrified..." (Gloria Gaynor - "I Will Survive")

And I DID survive!

Actually, my adventures at CMU went very, very well. It was a long day (I had to up at 3:45 am in order to pick up Michelle Wise and get to the event on time), but both of us agreed taking photos sure beats a lot of other jobs out there.

For example - I'd never work as the person in charge of maintenance of Port-o-Potties at the fair...

OK - sorry for that reference... but that just made your own job look much more appealing, right? So now we all feel better.

Now that I've done this event twice, I feel like I'm quite prepared to take on other event photography when requested. My next plan is organize a photo shoot for our Cub Scout Pack. I plan to come in and take nice individual portrait images of the boys in their uniforms for their parents.

I hope you all have a nice weekend - looks like more snow and cold will be heading our way!

Live a little...

It's always good to challenge yourself. In my case - my challenge is going to be photographing large groups of people.

Tomorrow I will go up to Central Michigan University and photograph at least 40 high school jazz bands, who are there for an all-day competition.

Having groups of 20 to 50 students line up for a photograph on risers - when they are excited from having the whole day off from school - is the equivalent of herding cats!

It's good to push yourself beyond normal boundaries. This is really pushing it. There will be approximately a new band to photography - every 15 minutes - all day long. I did this event for the first time last year, but an ice storm kept over half of the schools from participating.

This year, I'm happy to have Michelle Wise, of Wise Photography, with me to assist in setting up the lighting. Once she helps me get set up, she'll be taking photos in another building where some of the competition is taking place. I'm confident we'll make a good team!

One "formal" and one "informal" pose is taken of each band. Of course, the "informal" ones are much more fun to take - as you can see here from this image I took last February.

Maybe I'll be happy to go back to photographing trees and birds and other critters once I'm through, but I can at least say, "I did it!"