A CMU Engagement

Going back to your old college campus is always a surreal experience. The nostalgia is strong and everything seems like it happened just last week instead of 4 years ago. Time has both stopped and sped by far too quickly. Such it was when I went back to Central Michigan University’s campus earlier this fall with Jessica and Alex for their engagement shoot. Jessica and Alex both are CMU Alumni and when they mentioned wanting to go back to campus for the photos I could not wait. I had so much fun with this couple running around taking photos and reliving old memories. Thank you guys for letting me be apart of it!

Return of the Movie Poster

As you may recall a while back I had the privilege of  recreating movie posters with a great couple for their wedding. Liz and Paul are huge movie buffs and decided to include this on their special day. We spent the summer running around Michigan recreating the posters from their favorite movies to use as the table centerpieces at the reception. 2 years later and they decided to add another poster to their collection. The production time on this one? Nine Months.

Halstead Wedding

This past weekend I had the pleasure to photograph the Halstead wedding at Camp Grayling. I had met the bride while in college where we were both members of the swing dance club. The day was so enjoyable and the setting of Camp Grayling afforded us many beautiful spaces for outdoor photos. I’m still working through the photos but I wanted to share a few that I’ve edited.

Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride

In September I had the opportunity to spend some time visiting my brother out in Boston. The trip was fantastic and I got the chance to see a lot of amazing things but the highlight was taking part in The 2015 Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride. The DGR, as it’s known for short, is a charity event that takes place in different cities around the globe each year to raise money to help fund the cure for prostate cancer. Vintage motorcycle enthusiasts raise money leading up to the event and on September 27th gather in their sharpest duds and ride en masse throughout the city. My brother was one of the ride captains and helped to organize the event. His college roommate and I rode along in the support truck behind the riders. It was an amazing day and fun way to raise money for a worthy charity. If you’d like to learn more about the DGR check them out at http://www.gentlemansride.com/ and look for a ride in your area.

 

Dennis Wedding

I recently had a the honor of photographing the wedding of a friend. Nicole and I knew each other from Central and when she asked me to be the photographer at her and Riley’s December wedding I was delighted! It also gave me the opportunity to work with another photographer, Riley’s cousin Matt from Las Vegas. It’s always a wonderful thing to work with fellow photographers because there is always something to learn from each other. It was such a fun day and and a beautiful wedding. Here are a few of my favorite images from the day.

Shots like this seem to quickly becoming a standard for more traditional couples. It’s the opposite of the first look. The couple is right next next to each other before the ceremony without breaking the rule of not seeing each other. It was a cute moment.

This was one of my favorite moments of the day, and I nearly missed it! I was in the chapel in place waiting right before the ceremony was about to start and I realized I didn’t have one of my lenses. I sprinted back to the room to grab it and ran by this, a quiet prayer of hope for the future among the chaos of the wedding day.

Pictured Rocks

Last summer I went and saw the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. I don’t know how I’ve lived in Michigan this long without doing this tour. It was astoundingly beautiful and if you haven’t seen it than I highly suggest it. Munising, MI is a bit of a hike for most people but I’d say it’s well worth it.

 

Movie Posters: The Sequel.

Here are the remaining Movie Poster recreations I did with my friends Liz and Paul for their wedding reception centerpieces. We had such fun shooting these photos even though the project took us a full year because we had to wait for season changes for some! The photos were a big hit with people at the wedding and it was fun to get to do something creative and collaborative with my friends.

This was the first one we shot nearly a year before the wedding actually took place.

I wish I had a behind the scenes shot of this photo being taken. The bride’s brother was just off camera with a garden hose spraying cold water on the couple with glee!

This one makes me chuckle because it was one of the movies where we didn’t recreate the poster but rather just the idea of the movie in general, which I think turned out cute, especially since their little black cat Luther is hiding in the picture!

Love Actually was the poster they requested for the head table using photos of the wedding party.

 

 

Movie Posters

This past fall one of my oldest and dearest friends got married. In addition to being a bridesmaid in the wedding I also helped out with the centerpieces for the reception. Liz and Paul both being huge movie buffs had a movie themed wedding. Instead of assigning numbers to the tables at the wedding each one was labeled as a movie which we recreated the poster of for the tables. Here are a few of them.

The Little Mermaid has always been the bride’s favorite Disney movie so this one was extra fun to shoot.

 

 

The Rebel Of Wall Street

In 2011 I had the amazing opportunity to travel to New York City to photograph the Occupy Wall Street protest. I, along with my classmates and professor, were in Zuccotti Park on November 17th The National Day Of Action. We were fenced into the park by a blockade of police officers who were armed and waiting with zip-tie handcuffs. People from all walks of life were there protesting the state of the economy and the treatment of the “99%”. As chants of “We are the 99” echoed throughout the plaza we witnessed a peaceful protest turn violent towards some as arrests were made. One of my favorite people that I met that day called himself “The Rebel of Wall Street”. The Rebel had worked on Wall Street for most of his working life. After all those years he decided he wasn’t happy with the state of things, quit, and joined the protests.

Catching Up

It has been quite some time since I’ve blogged any photos at all. So in the next few posts I will be putting up random photographs that I’ve taken in the past few years.

An “Alien Street Band” plays in the park beneath the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington in May of 2012.

 

Jeff Ketcham plays chess in the park in downtown Seattle, Washington. A group of chess players regularly meet in the park on nice days to play each other and whoever wants to take them on. Jeff challenged one of the players to a game while we were waiting to go to lunch with his Dad. He lost the game by the way.