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.

Photo of the Month: Seeing the Forest Through The Trees

Some of you might enjoying seeing an image that was recently chosen as Photo of the Month in its category (Plant Life) at MyParkPhotos.com.

The photo was taken at Townsend Park in Cannonsburg on a 1o-degree day after a rather large amount of snowfall. Brrrr!

MyParkPhotos.com Photo of the Month: Plant Life

More Grand Haven

I thought I'd post another view of the sunset. The only thing slightly different with this image from the one previously posted (aside from the camera angle) is the white balance of the camera was set to "cloudy" rather than "auto" on the camera. This resulted in a much more subtle tone of purples, blues and pink in the sunset colors.

A Lesson in Patience...

Click on image above to see full screen...

On Thursday evening, I decided I'd had ENOUGH of being in front of the computer all week. Plus - with school now out - the boys are getting on each others' nerves a bit already, and that meant they were getting on "Mom's nerves" by the time supper rolled around!

So I told Russ I had to head out for a bit to catch a few moments of peace and quiet. The winds were VERY strong that day, so I thought I'd go see what Lake Michigan was looking like. I figured there might be a few great big waves out on the lake.

I headed to Grand Haven and strolled down the pier. When I left Rockford, it was quite sunny. When I arrived, it felt about 20 degrees cooler, and it was completely overcast. I was fairly disappointed - there didn't appear to be chance whatsoever at a sunset. I walked out to the end lighthouse and back - making sure to stay on the channel side due to the large waves coming up over the pier. But it was too dark and gray for any photo ops.

On the return trip, I got to the beach and all of a sudden - the sun slipped down for about 10 minutes from the cloud cover, and turned the sky an amazing color of which I can't even describe. A photo doesn't quite even do it justice. I did not use any filters or anything special for the photo - no polarizer, nothing. Just a tripod, and I metered the camera on the sky adjacent to the setting sun. The pool of water collected on the beach was a perfect reflector to repeat the fantastic hue of the sky.

I learned something here - don't give up! Be patient until you are CERTAIN there's no chance of a change in the weather conditions. If I had went back to the car, this image would have been lost.

New Theme Pack Cards Available

Festival 2007 was a great success - and again - a heartfelt thank you to everyone! I was amazed how many people stopped by to offer their kind words of encouragement and support, and flattered by your compliments.

I want to take a moment to introduce a new product I'm offering that was created especially for the Festival event - themed photo card packs. These packs offer six popular images of a particular subject matter, and are available for $25.00 a box.

The cards are presented in a nice clear plastic box, suitable for gift-giving. Each card is individually shrink-wrapped as well, with a coordinating envelope. You might not want to give these cards away - feel free to frame them up in your own 5x7 frame!

Available gift packs include:

• Birds
• Butterflies
• Critters
• Lighthouses
  

Look for more theme packs later to come soon! Click on the images below to see what cards are include in the sets.

It Starts TODAY - Festival of the Arts 2007

Look for me (and a slew of wonderful friends who are helping out in the tent!) at Booth #14, right on Calder Plaza.

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.

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

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

I want to thank the following people for helping out this busy weekend:

Mary Lou Moll
Jim & Pat Nedwick
Angela Groom
Teresa Newmarch
Sue & Erin Raines
Sarah Friedman
Rebecca Cajka
Heidi Raagcha
Deb Lubenow

and of course, my understanding and hard-working husband Russ Niedzwiecki!

Wild Blue Lupine

Remember - you can click on the photo above to see it on a larger scale...

Last weekend, my son Alex and I went camping with his Cub Scout troop. When we got up (VERY bright and early!) the next morning, I asked him if he would like to go out to the lovely local nature preserve just down the street. He and I grabbed our cameras, and headed out. It was a nice morning - a little overcast - so it was perfect for photographing wildflowers. And here's what we found ... about 17 acres of wild lupine!

Most of the property is “savanna” habitat – an open, prairie-like field with scattered trees. The field of blue lupine is more than just a scenic amenity, though. The lupine creates crucial habitat for one of Michigan's rarest native animal species: the Karner blue butterfly.

I only saw a couple butterflies, but want to check the area again next week to see if the butterflies are still out and about. They only come out for a brief period in May and in July, so hunting for them is quite a challenge. Especially since they are no larger than your thumbnail!

Happy Spring!

The Experiment...

I've been experimenting with panoramic photography after attending a George Lepp seminar in December. It got my mind really going about trying some new photography techniques, and I've started trying out a few of my ideas.

Attached is an image I shot last November, but lacked the skill and knowledge to stitch together until I went to his seminar. So I pulled up these images tonight and worked them up.

This photo of Holland Harbor at Lake Michigan was created by stitching 9 images together into one large panoramic print. The final Photoshop file size is 161 MB!!! As a JPEG, it is about 15 MB, and prints as a 36" wide by 6" high print.
Any thoughts? Please click on the image to view it a bit larger, as the online version doesn't contain the amount of detail needed to appreciate it.

What to have some real fun? Click here and the photo will "play" so you can virtually move through the horizon!

Festival Art Sales Booth #14

I have been given my booth assignment in the Art Sales Tent at Festival of the Arts 2007 in downtown Grand Rapids. Look for me (and a slew of wonderful friends who are helping out in the tent!) at Booth #14, right on Calder Plaza.

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...

Where in the World?

I'm still processing many images taken during the winter months. Can you guess what this is?

At first glance, it doesn't appear as it seems...

And if you'd like to see it larger, just click on the small image at right!

And the Envelope Goes To...

The results are in! Two of my entries made it into the NCCA Statewide Photography Competition and Exhibition. One earned an honorable mention...(drum roll...)

Frozen Fractals!

(the one in the silver frame - it's a close-up detail of morning frost on a windowpane)

If you'd like to see the whole show (and it's a very good one!), it runs through May 26.

There are 62 photographs from Michigan artists to enjoy in the Ray & Phyllis Jansma Gallery at NCCA-Artsplace, located in downtown Fremont.

For more information about the show and Artsplace, click HERE.

An Update...

Here's an update on the BetterPhoto.com entry I mentioned yesterday - I took Second Place! This is quite an honor, as there are thousands of entries and I never made it even to to the final round before.

To see the finalists, please visit HERE. I am in the "Details and Macro" category.

I find it just wonderful that one of my favorite Michigan photographers, Dean Pennala took First Place in the very same category. I'm flattered to even be featured alongside such amazing talent.

It's All in the Details...

This evening I received the following email:

Congratulations! You have placed as a finalist in this month's BetterPhoto Contest!

Over 23900 photos were entered into the competition; it is an honor to have your image selected among the top finalist photos. During the next few days, the judges select the top winning photos. If your image is selected as a winner, you will be emailed again.

To see the photo enlarged, visit BetterPhoto.com. The image is a very detailed macro of a spider on a dew-covered web I took in the early morning back in September.

The competition at this web site is extremely challenging - there are hundreds of amazing photographers. It's an honor to have even been selected, and although I've been participating here for about a year, it's the first time I had an image make it to the finals for judging.

NCCA Statewide Photography Competition Finalist

Two of my pieces were just accepted into the Newaygo County Council of the Arts 2007 Statewide Photography Competition!

ONE of the pieces has taken Honorable Mention, but they haven't told me WHICH one!

What do you think? Which one would you choose? Leave me a comment by clicking below and let me know which one is your favorite (please click to enlarge the thumbnail image):

Into the Realm:













Frozen Fractals:

The show runs from April 25 through May 26, 2007 with an opening Reception & Award Ceremony on Friday, May 4, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

I will be attending the Reception - so if you feel like a little road trip - come on over to Fremont! Click HERE for a map to the Artsplace.

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...

Frozen Easter Eggs...

We just came back from our Spring Break in St. Louis, and it is SNOWING hard here in Michigan. The poor Easter bunny is going to freeze his tail off. Yikes! With the wind chill - it's only NINE degrees this morning.

I think we better just leave a key for the Easter Bunny to hide the eggs indoors this year...

Speaking of Easter - our friends in St. Louis have a new baby - and he's the cutest little guy EVER! I can't resist sharing his adorable photo with you. He's THE "Easter Egg Hunt"!

We did a little photo session with him on Tuesday evening. We were going to put him in an Easter basket outside in the tulips, but he was less than pleased about having to wear the bunny ears and all. We did manage to get a great photo of him later - click on the thumbnail at left for an "Awww! How CUTE!" reaction.

MyParkPhotos.com

For those of you who like to visit parks around Michigan (in fact - all over the world!), take a visit to MyParkPhotos.com.

MyParkPhotos.com is an online photography and Blogging community for those who enjoy visiting public lands from any country, including local, state, provincial, and national parks, wildlife refuges, forests and trails, and sharing their photographs and experiences with others.

I have submitted quite a bit of my work at this site over time, and even won two monthly categories in January 2007. Those images are now in the running to be featured in the beautiful wall calendar they produce.

For writing small comments at the site about the various parks I've visited, my name was put into a drawing for an American the Beautiful National Park pass. And - I won one in February! Now I can roam about at Sleeping Bear National Park this coming fall sans entrance and park fees - very nice!

Where Are You?

Well - I can be "found" in several locations around West Michigan! The following fine retailers carry an assortment of greeting cards and prints:

• Frenz Coffee
  Rockford
• Holland Area Arts Council Gallery
  Downtown Holland
• Robinette's Fine Art Gallery
  Grand Rapids

Stop by and pick up a wonderful Michigan image for someone on your gift list - including yourself!

Sleeping with the Bear - With a Snooze Alarm!

As if it wasn't exciting enough already...

The Glen Arbor Art Association informed me today that I can extend my artist residency for another week! There was a cancellation of sorts and they offered me the residency for two weeks instead of just one.

I now will be there from September 30 through October 14, 2007.

Artists who are chosen are asked to make a presentation to the community during their residency on the second Tuesday evening of their stay . If anyone is interested in taking a road trip to Glen Arbor and the Sleeping Bear Dunes - the presentation will be on Tuesday, October 9, 2007.

Come on up! The fall colors should be terrific! Yippee!

These are a Few of My...

Favorite Things! Some of my fav photos, in no particular order. Enjoy!

Eye See You...

And here's a few more Birds of Prey photos for you to enjoy:

Birds of Prey - Winter Workshop

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

Snow. Oh. No?

Here's a photo of the snow. And a red barn. This blog post was a test to see if I could edit the blog from a remote location via my laptop. And it worked - I'm actually in the Black Rose Irish pub, drinking a beer in downtown Grand Rapids as I type this!

I'm pleased to know I can be mobile now and still maintain much of my ramblings. This should come in handy for quick uploading of photos from workshops, etc. But it's fun to do while having a nice cold draft from the tap as well...

We've had a lot of snow, considering it's now March. This image was taken Monday the 26th of February after another round of it. It's pretty and all - but I'm ready for a thaw and for the birds to return, the buds to bloom and for the soggy snow pants and wet boots to go away! Go ahead - tell me what you think about winter? Is it "thumbs up " or "thumbs down" for you?

ev'rything's O-K-A-L-A-M-A-Z-O

Time to prepare for another show! This time, I plan to take entries down to the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts for the West Michigan Area Show.

This will be a new one for me, as I really didn't begin to enter "art shows" until last February. I heard it's a large show with many entries. I consider it an honor to get into any of the shows I compete in, because there truly is a lot of talent around Michigan. And when you're competing against fabulous oil paintings and watercolor, drawings and other mediums...WOW!

The image you see here is one of the entries going down to K'zoo. It is titled "Frozen Fractals" and I discovered it on my garage window when the temperature was -13 degrees!

I'll leave you all with an ode to Kalamazoo...

• 3-ivegot.mp3 (take a listen!)
  

Written for: Orchestra Wives (1942)
Lyric: Mack Gordon
Music: Harry Warren
Year: 1942

Original publisher: Twentieth Century Music Corporation, rights controlled by Bregman, Vocco & Conn, Inc.

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!

Whooooo's There?

Just wondering WHOOO is stopping by for a visit to the new blog.

Go ahead - post a comment! I promise not to watch...

This awesome Great Horned Owl was one of the creatures I had a chance to photography on Saturday at the Outdoor Discovery Center. Again - I can't say enough good things about this place, so go check it out sometime.

I think owls are pretty amazing. The Great Horned Owl (bubo virginianus) is considered common in both the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. They live in deciduous and coniferous woodlots and nest in old hawk, heron, or squirrel nests. They are also the earliest nesting raptor in Michigan. They begin laying eggs in January and February.

21st West Michigan Regional Competition

Today I learned this image (Into the Realm...) was selected to be exhibited in the upcoming 21st West Michigan Regional Competition. The show is sponsored by the Lowell Area Arts Council.

If you'd like to stop by and say "Hello" - I should be at the public reception which will be held this Sunday, February 18 from 2-4 pm.

For more information and directions to the gallery, visit www.lowellartscouncil.org. Hope to see you there!

For those of you curious about this image - it was taken in August during our family summer vacation to Hocking Hills State Park in Southern Ohio. It was very, VERY hot at the time, and the rising morning sun created a mist of humidity in the cool green forest. Very interesting place for photography!

Ahhh...SMILE. Winter is here!

Can't say as I've ever had an elk POSE for a portrait before, but...

It did.

I attended a great (but VERY cold) photography workshop on February 10th at the Outdoor Discovery Center in Holland.

For those of you who haven't visited this wonderful place, I would encourage you visit soon! There is something there for everyone to enjoy - including over four miles of trails and boardwalks, an interpretive building with displays and live animals, and a birds of prey education facility.

The First Post...

And so I jump into the trend of blogging... Here's my first attempt at trying to make my photography journey available for the masses. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so they say.

Perhaps I should chronicle where and what I'm currently photographing? List the places where my work is offered for sale or exhibit? Show you all some examples of recently captured images?

What would you, dear reader, be interested in knowing more about? Drop me a line and let me know...