2 Things Challenge: Fire/Water

One of my followers participates in the 2 Things Challenge blog, and I finally got the link to it, I think it's super cool!  Can't promise it will be a weekly feature on my blog, but when I feel inspired to participate you can look forward to an extra entry that week!  This week's challenge is Fire/Water.  I selected this photo because of the fiery tones of the leaf and you can see the water through it that it was floating in when I shot it.  Hope you enjoy, if it's featured in their blog at the end of the challenge I'll let y'all know!

Photo of the Day

I took today's photo last night of my parents, and I absolutely love it. I'm putting together a page on our wedding website that introduces people to our families since not all of our friends have had the opportunity to meet the whole group... mom likes another shot better so I am using my blog to still get this one out there :o)

Photo of the day - A Dedication

One of my readers occasionally posts fun "shadow portraits" of herself (as I like to call them), so I thought I'd dedicate this post to her and do the same :o)

I took this photo sitting on a bridge in the park near our house (Firefighters' Park). It was a gorgeous fall day and dad and I took Micah to go run around. Clearly I was tired of running around ;o)

Photo of the day

Welcome to Pet-a-Palooza 2009! This is the first year we've ever gone... it was dad's birthday and he wanted to take Micah to see all the other dogs. It was actually pretty cool, lots of pet-supply/service vendors exhibiting and selling stuff, and a few cool dog shows like this obstacle race one. The tough part was the giant tent with the seriously THOUSANDS of pets up for adoption... how we managed to leave without a new critter I'm still not sure! I did get a new magnet for my car that reads "Peace, Love, Adopt" with a cute little pawprint on it. Sooooo many homeless critters just wanting to be loved... so if you don't have enough pets already, go adopt one from one of your local shelters because they need happy happy homes!!

Photo of the day

I am in a wonderful fall mood today! I biked over to Starbucks to meet my friend Erica for a workday (we both work from home so we meet up periodically to work somewhere else and keep each other company). Her husband Michael joined us a little while ago and is hanging out for a bit before heading into the office, so it's good times. The way the sun is shining today makes me think of a warm fall day, plus I got 2 samples of fake fall leaves in the mail yesterday that I had ordered to compare for wedding decorations, so my world is shiny :o)
I took this photo last fall in my backyard. The wind was blowing leaves everywhere and I was so inspired. I love fall, and any warm sunny fall day with amazing colours that I can run around and shoot for awhile is always a great day in my book!

Photo of the day

I took this photo in Berlin on my and Austin's first day there. We stopped for lunch at a pizza place around the corner from our hostel and they had these sitting out for decoration, I loved the contrast and the boldness of the red so I shot it :o)

Photo of the day - An Introduction

Meet Smudge! She is the newest addition to our family, since after 4 months of searching, it doesn't appear Fowler and Herman are coming back to us... :o(

I used some of my birthday money this year to adopt Smudge (10 weeks in this photo, day I brought her home). Jared and I went to the Michigan Humane Society, "just to look" and inevitably I fell in love and couldn't leave without her. She is the most precious kitten in the world and has a huge personality (as do most van Rossum kitties...!) She is so soft and full of life. When I brought her home she had piercing blue eyes, but they are starting to turn green so we'll see what happens there. She had been dropped off at the home of one of the MHS staffers and was not doing so well... she had fleas, earmites and an upper respiratory infection. Now she's doing very very well, and has almost kicked the upper respiratory entirely (fleas and earmites are all gone too!) She has doubled in size in the 3 weeks that we've had her and loves dogs. She and Micah have great fun chasing each other around, and she and Chloe (my fiance's very high-maintenance Weimeriner) actually get along great too! Zieltje (the matron of the house) has adapted very well to her, and tolerates her most of the time, though she doesn't hesitate to beat the crap out of Smudge when she's had enough of the kitten energy, which is kinda funny to watch. Anyhow she's so freaking cute I just had to post this pic and introduce y'all to her! (I can't take credit for her name, her foster mom named her, but it was so perfect I had to keep it this time!)

For more Smudge photos, click here!

Photo of the day

This was taken in Myrtle Beach, SC a couple of years ago when my mum and I went on a little getaway vaca to originally visit my cousin, but she was sick so we detoured to the beach instead :o)

We woke up early to take some beach pics before it got crowded and this was one that I just loved :o) Makes ya wanna go sit out in the sun doesn't it?

New Shutterbug Storefront!!

Well I finally figured out how to add a storefront to my website that is WAY more user friendly than my old storefront, so now you can order my products directly from www.ShutterbugDesign.com!! The products currently available include several stationary sets featuring my photography, and hand-painted onesies (all designed and painted by me!)

Please check it out, and pass it along to anyone you know of who may be interested! I will be expanding my products quite a bit over the next 6 months to include more stationary, calendars, mouse pads, reusable shopping bags, and some cool coasters I've started making from recycled magazines...

Hope you enjoy, I welcome any suggestions y'all may have. Also remember that I am currently saving up for a place to live and a wedding... so happy shopping!! :o)

Photo of the day

I've been slowly reorganizing and backing up my photo files, and came across this one I took a couple of years ago over at Austin's house. I love later afternoon sun, and that day I was just walking around his house shooting random stuff because the sun was so nice :o)

Photo of the day

I love finding plants growing out of places that you just wouldn't expect. I shot this at Little Pigeon River in Gatlinburg TN on one of my & Austin's many trips down there. The light was playing off the leaves to make them so bright and cheery, like it could care less that it was having to force it's roots through solid rock in order to find water! I also loved the surface of the rocks that had been worn so smooth by the water over time... provided lovely texture and shadow play.

Bluewater Reunion 2009

So the last part of June/first part of July I spent (again) running around like a crazy person and not sleeping much for our church family camp (Reunion). It was a COLD week this year, very rainy and not the most exciting as a result of the weather, but all in all we still managed to have fun :o) Matt was there again this year (thank GOD!!!) to be my right arm for the Cube Squad (our photography team that I started several years ago to raise funds for the camp). I haven't wrapped up all of the final accounting details yet, but I think we came close to the amount we raised last year, so I'm very excited about that...!

I'll post more later, but wanted to get something up for a few people who'd been asking about it :o)

Photo of the day

So I usually have no problem with Austin appreciating the beauty of other women... neither of us has much tolerance for the whole "I'm so insecure, if we're together you're no longer allowed to find other people attractive or I'll get super pissed and unreasonably sad and depressed" crap that so many people do in relationships. This one was a little bit of a shocker for me though... lol... we went to the Renaissance Festival a few years back and there was this mime there. Austin decided it was a woman statue (apparently it was far too pretty to be a man) and all he could do was stand there staring for like 20 minutes until he worked up the nerve to get a photo taken with "her" :o) It was kinda cute and kinda weird all at the same time. He asked for her number, but being a mime kinda saved me there lol...

In any case it was still a great photo opp and an entertaining story... at least I thought so! :o)

Photo of the day - A Tribute

Dear Readers, today's photo is a tribute not specifically to GM, or to the auto industry, but to Detroit... this just happens to be the most iconic Detroit photo I have in my folders right now... I understand that things are rough all over right now, but it feels like Detroit is really crumbling. It's hard to watch the people around me lose jobs, fall further and further into holes due to lost income, lost medical coverage, and lost hope... People lucky enough to still have jobs are mostly waiting for the notice to come that they're being cut as well, and no one has any money left to invest in the new industries that are trying to grow in our area (alternative energies, film, etc).

When I moved to Detroit in 1997 I was pissed and sad and resented it with every fiber of my being (come on I was 14). I wanted nothing to do with the city or even the entire state of MI... but it's really become home for me, and today I am proud to be here and love the city... I'm sad to see it in such rough shape and keep trying to do my part to make it better... so basically my point is this: don't give up on Detroit yet, and hang in there Detroiters... things have to get better sooner or later!!

Photo of the day

So I don't even like Jack, but we took a tour of the Jack Daniels' Distillery in TN last summer. One of the last rooms had this floor to ceiling lit display which was super cool. I liked the way this shot turned out, it's got pretty colours :o) Even if you're not a drinker, I highly recommend the tour, it was fun and our guide was very knowledgeable and very entertaining.

Photo of the day

Today's photo of the day was also taken on Mackinac Island. I had been a little stressed out and cranky from all the rain, and my last night on the island it was just starting to get a little dusky and the rain had stopped... I grabbed my camera and bike and took off until the sun was gone and I was damp and ready for bed. It was awesome. If you look veeeerrrrryyyy closely on the horizon you can see the Mackinac Bridge.

Pet Peeve of the Day: "Mackinac" and "Mackinaw" are NOT allowed to be pronounced the same! If you're going to take the time to have 2 ways of spelling it, you better say it differently too! SO many people yell at me when I say MACKINAC... losers ;o)

Photo of the day

Today's photo is dedicated to my mum. I took this a couple of weeks ago up on Mackinac Island while I was there for the Mackinac Policy Conference. This was the view in front of Mission Point Resort (hotel I stayed at) and it was just lovely. While it rained almost the whole entire time we were there, I did manage to get a few nice shots, and this one just reminded me so much of my mum I had to snap it... it's like her idea of paradise, only it would need more sun :o)

Wedding Updates

So Austin and I have started some of the planning for the wedding and are pretty excited about it... we're hoping to have (at the very least) the ceremony at the Royal Park in the conservatory because we've both spent so much time there and love that room oh so very very much... it's the only location we've really been able to both say "yeah, that has meaning" so far. We'll be meeting with them this week to see if it's within our budget or not, if not it'll be time to come up with a plan B but with my incredibly long standing relationship with most of their sales and management team I'm hoping we can work something really great out!

We're also hoping to have a really great home-cooked meal for the dinner piece... we're talkin' multiple grills being fired up and everyone just kickin' back and enjoying some quality food and each others' company... we haven't solidified that decision yet, but if we do absolutely decide that I can't wait to ask the team we have in mind, coz I think it'll be a total blast to have them in the kitchen backin' us that day :o)

We're on the fence on some of the lesser decisions like music and ceremony details (though we did make one decision about the ceremony, yay!) but hopefully by this time next week we'll have a location locked down and we can start working all out on the guest list and other pieces. I have someone in mind that I would like to ask to head up our decorating campaign and can't wait to make the final decision on locale because she will make it look oh so amazing (I haven't asked her even to consider it yet so until then she will remain nameless).

The coolest part for me so far is discovering just how in sync Austin and I really are... so far on any of the major decisions any idea he or I have come up with the other has been in nearly perfect agreement... I knew we were well paired and very compatible before this (obviously or we wouldn't be getting married!) but it's just cool to see that our values really are extremely similar and we are both having fun with the planning!

If anyone has any cool ideas, especially ones that are eco-friendly, please feel free to post comments or send them to me in an email... we're open to many suggestions... especially pertaining to the ceremony at this point... we are very anti-cookie cutter on most events, so we're wanting to come up with creative ideas that really express our personalities (laid back, fun loving, socially and environmentally conscious, stress free - as much as possible! and creative... I mean come on, we're both artists!)

For my photo of the day followers, here's one to go with the theme of today's post :o)


I took this photo at our friends Airen & Tim's wedding a couple of years ago. They had it up in the mountains in Asheville, NC at a place where they go every year with their bike group (as in motorcycles). It was one of the most casual and simple weddings I'd ever been to (in a good way!) honest to goodness backyard wedding with a small boombox for music, a friend liscenced online to perform the ceremony, and a bring your own meat BBQ afterward! We had so much fun that weekend driving down there and back, and I got some great photos for my portfolio at the same time (yes, Airen picked her bouquet herself off the side of the road, how cool is that?)

Photo of the day

I inherited my grandmothers' love of butterflies... I took this photo in the butterfly house at the Detroit Zoo a couple of summers ago. I was having a crappy day and needed a pick-me-up so I grabbed my camera and headed to the zoo... I actually got a discounted rate because I got there about 20 minutes before closing time, but I spent the whole time in the butterfly house and it was exactly what I had needed... a great way to relax, breathe again and really enjoyed myself! I must have taken 50 shots of this particular butterfly trying to catch him with his wings just starting to open like this... I actually ended up with a bunch that were either totally closed (no blue showing at all) or flat open so it looked like it was dead just sitting there on the ground... finally got this one though and was very pleased with the results! :o)

Photo of the day

Austin & I spent the first 2 days of Memorial Day weekend up in Gladwin where he was the opening act for the Rodeo both nights. I am always so stressed out when we go to Rodeos... they are amazing places to shoot, and I always enjoy myself, but the moments like these have me permanently perched at the very edge of my seat... as if I could at any moment launch myself into the ring and rescue whoever needs rescuing... can you believe this poor kid actually stood up and walked himself out of the ring? It takes a special kind of someone to be able to live that rodeo life, that's for sure... They loved Austin's sets, and especially his song, Rodeo (go figure, lol). We had a great weekend together, a much needed break from the rest of the world, and sold a bunch of cds to boot... woohoo! :o)