Desktop Still Life

Every once in a while something that I'd generally consider ordinary catches my eye and seems for a moment to encapsulate some form of simple beauty. A groundhog making a visit above ground to look for food, the long shadows of chair legs cast by the setting sun through a window, drops of water falling from a showerhead... I don't know if these little moments of visual serenity happen to other people or not, but I love it when they happen to me. I think they help ground me, reminding me that there is beauty even in the midst of the busyness of daily life. This happened last night as I was working on a wedding video. My desk was a bit cluttered and nothing had been placed anywhere for an aesthetic purpose, but warmed by light of my desk lamp, this scene of my work space struck me as a picture of peace, in the midst of my long-work-hour day. Generally, it seems to me that if you try to take a picture of these moments, you can never do them justice, because for some reason, a camera lens just doesn't let you "feel" a scene the way your eyes can. But I tried to capture this one anyway.

Amy & Dennis Engagement Photos

Amy and Dennis will be getting married this summer and this last weekend, I took them out for an engagement shoot along with Dennis' two sons, Clay and Chase. As you can see, the four of them make a beautiful family! We had some great weather and some great locations and I'm excited about how their pictures turned out!

These guys were real troopers - Amy was wearing raised-heel shoes with slippery soles and she and Dennis still made it out onto the rocks in the middle of this pond. And the boys, of course, were willing to go anywhere.

Sword-fighting never gets old.

Thanks for the great photo shoot, Dennis & Amy (and Clay & Chase). I'm looking forward to seeing you again at the wedding!

Spring is Here!

We are so blessed to have a backyard. It's so amazing to be able to walk outside and have a little square of nature to enjoy on a nice sunny day. Since our new house was vacant for the last couple years, the lawn is a wild mixture of grass, dandelions, little purple weeds, thistles, mushrooms, violets, and a whole lot of rabbits. The funny thing is, I actually enjoy the wildness of our backyard. It feels real.

Avery's latest trick is being able to stand all by herself. She gets so proud of herself and she gets so excited about taking it to the next level by trying to walk. Meanwhile, she still hasn't really crawled, and doesn't really care to.

The New Office!

Our house has been on ongoing project since we moved into it and will probably continue to be for many months (or years) to come. The latest big project was the office. Since the wedding season begins for me this weekend, it was pretty crucial for us to get our work space set up asap. When we first saw the house, this room had padding and tack boards laid down for carpet...apparently a renovation that never got completed. In order to move into the house, we were required to install carpet. Then, since this was the only room that had a finished floor, ALL of our stuff got moved into this space. I wish I had an in-between picture to show this stage of chaos, but you'll have to do without :) After carpeting the rest of the house, we finally cleared this room out, installed shades, ripped out the carpet, installed new flooring, and put our new desks together. Now we have an office!

Before:

After:

Website Evolution

We recently updated the Primavera Studios website and as I was putting the finishing touches on the new site, I thought it would be fun to look back at the history of how our website has evolved. It's amazing how as your skills and creativity evolve, you look back at your old work and cringe at the lack of the quality which you have come to expect from yourself. It takes a little humility to show the image you presented of yourself (or your work) in the past, but it's also fun to see how much you've grown. Check out these screenshots of our website's evolution:

Website #1 - The original! I threw this design together after having only done a couple weddings. Can you believe the images were taken from standard resolution video footage? This design was quickly replaced by the next one.

Website #2 - Progress...?

Website #3 - The final version of the Altair Productions site, and the first design I was truly happy with, featuring a 16x9 dimension ratio to subliminally simulate the feel of film...or something like that.

Website #4 - Kelsey and I joined forces and launched Primavera Studios. Together we designed 5 or 6 different designs in Photoshop and from those, we liked this one the best.

Website #5 - Our current site and first to be completely Flash-based! We decided we needed a makeover, including a logo that wasn't so ridiculously busy. And if you haven't noticed by now, we apparently enjoy using Kelsey's sister in our website images...

Cousins

I like this picture and thought it would be a good one to share. This, I believe, is the first picture taken of all these cousins together. On St. Patrick's Day, Avery and all her cousins were together in Monroe. Even though Easter was almost a month away, cousin Rilian had his heart set on having an Easter egg hunt, which they did, as evidenced by the basket in the picture.

Get Inspired '09

This last weekend, Kelsey and I attended the Get Inspired '09 workshop in Grand Rapids, MI. What a great weekend! It was so refreshing to get behind the camera again and get some great instruction and inspiration from three of the best photographers in the state of Michigan - John Pottinger, Jen Kroll, and Holly Henderson. These three photographers are awesome at their work and are some of the nicest people ever. I think everyone there learned a lot and came away with some great ideas. These are some of my favorite shots from our photo shoots at the workshop.

Check out this hottie...