Monday July 30, 2012 Ja'Lisa This is our adorable and spunky niece, Ja'Lisa (AJ's younger sister). Because of her look of confidence this is my favorite shot of her from our recent vacation. I spent more time with Ja'Lisa than any other person when we were at the lake in New York. She went out of her way to make me feel at home by keeping me company whenever she wasn't swimming in the lake. We talked about everything from the best foods to her favorite Disney characters. I have a feeling Ja'Lisa is going to grow up to be a warm and compassionate woman. We are so blessed to have her in our family.

Constructive critiques welcome here :)
Please feel free to tell me what you really think. I want to know:
1. What I should keep doing
2. What I should stop doing
3. Different perspectives on what I've done (for artistic ideas in the future)
Sometimes in this community, I feel like I'm in over my head among so many very talented artists.

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Thursday
August 2, 2012

This is another perspective of the building we posted on July 23. I thought about flipping the image horizontally but decided against it. I suppose the way you see a flag depends entirely on where you stand and in what direction the wind is blowing. So for urban decay, this perspective works. I sure would love to see my original home town of Saginaw, MI get revitalized.

[edit by david] Here is a Google Maps link to the exact corner where we were: http://goo.gl/maps/NKBWm. If you go to the street view, you can see this funky triangular shaped building. The roads around it were under construction so we ended up having to cut through a parking lot and then cut over on S Fayette to come up on Mackinaw from the back side.

Wednesday
August 1, 2012

Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day

Do business owners have a right to their opinions? Middle America seems to thinks so. This is what Chick-fil-A locations looked like across the United States from open to close on Chick-fil-A appreciation day.
Remember "Where's Waldo"? Let's play "Where's David?"

Update: I'm not sure how this image turned into a political statement about foreign laws. I've never seen any connections between this company and foreign interests. While this shot does have strong political content, the only issue on hand (even according to the liberal and conservative news) was free speech. It's a pretty lighthearted shot. My apologies to anybody who reads more into it than that :)

Wednesday
August 1, 2012

Our youngest niece, Aysha said to me shortly after David took this picture, "I don't like my eyes. People make fun of them". I told her to just wink at them and say "Envy is unbecoming".

Tuesday
July 31, 2012

The best thing about coming home for the summer is knowing that your sister is going to be there.

Monday
July 30, 2012

Ja'Lisa

This is our adorable and spunky niece, Ja'Lisa (AJ's younger sister). Because of her look of confidence this is my favorite shot of her from our recent vacation. I spent more time with Ja'Lisa than any other person when we were at the lake in New York. She went out of her way to make me feel at home by keeping me company whenever she wasn't swimming in the lake. We talked about everything from the best foods to her favorite Disney characters. I have a feeling Ja'Lisa is going to grow up to be a warm and compassionate woman. We are so blessed to have her in our family.

Sunday,
July 29, 2012

Celine in her Element

Yesterday, the youngest of our six children, Celine turned 14. But rather than showing you Celine on her birthday, I thought I'd share with you Celine in her element. In 2008, we visited the Jamestown archeological dig and Celine got to see the contents of a box as a couple of archeologists brought it up from a hole. In that moment, Celine decided that she wanted to be an archeologist. In the past four years, a lot of things have changed as Celine has grown older. But her career goal has not wavered at all. History and archeology have remained her chosen future. So when we swung by Antietam Battlefield earlier this month, I took this shot of Celine soaking it all in at Burnside Bridge, the site where the bloodiest single day in American history came to an end. This is where the Union soldiers advanced across a granite/ limestone bridge (unaware that the creek was shallow enough to cross by foot) and were mowed down by a significantly smaller group of Confederate soldiers at the top of the hill on the other side. Because of the drastic outnumbering and additional backup, the Union eventually took the bridge and won the battle. But it was at the cost of a huge loss of life and even larger number of injuries.
When I was about Celine's age, I had to write a report on this battle. I didn't do very well on the report. Looking at maps and reading the material from history books just doesn't do justice to the men who fought there that day. Without having been there, I was simply unable to comprehend what happened there. Celine struggled much the same way with history until she started visiting historical places. But now, having visited so many of the places she reads about, she can grasp the realities that the words on the written page can barely begin to portray. My advise to any parent... forgo Disney Land and take your kids to see the places that truly formed your country into what it is today. Your child's sense of identity will be so much richer as a result.

Saturday
July 28, 2012

1st, I have to say "Happy birthday" to our sweet Celine! She is 14 today. I wil share a birthday picture tomorrow :)

Last night, we shot a concert for "The Thirsting", a Catholic rock band. The whole family helped out in one way or another. The kids and I helped prepare the concessions, David shot video, I shot stills and we all helped clean up after the concert. http://www.thethirstingcatholic.com/
This shot really grabbed me because of the large Cross in the background. This is not quite an SOOC shot. I ran it through an action to give the colors a more vintage feel. But I didn't do anything else to it, no crop, no light adjustments, no "healing" or "cloning". I even left all the noise from the 1600 ISO alone because I like the vintage feel of the noise for this shot :)
Happy Saturday everybody. I hope your weekend started out as awesome as mine did!

Friday
July 27, 2012

Blue Morpho

I really wish the focus on this shot was a little sharper. But I figured I'd share it anyway. I took this shot at the Detroit zoo after an employee there saw my camera and called me over to get the shot before the butterfly closed its wings. Apparently, it's somewhat rare to see this butterfly resting with its wings laying out flat like this. It's called a Blue Morpho and can be found in the rain forests of Central and South America... and in the Detroit Zoo :) With a wingspan of 5-8 inches, it is one of the largest butterflies in the world.
Happy Friday! May your day be as unusual and beautiful as this magical looking creature.

Thursday
July 26, 2012

Our Seal Maiden

Celine found her favorite animals at the Detroit zoo, the seals. Then she kicked back and enjoyed them.

Thank you to all for the happy birthdays for my dad and my son. They both had a wonderful day :)

[edit by david:] While Celine was indeed watching seals at the time, Seal Maiden is also the name of a musical story on a disk that we'd picked up when Celine was three years old. In 2003, we all flew three weeks after 9/11 to California to visit from friends in Monterey Bay. At the aquarium there, we pick up this story disk and listened to it often as the kids grew. It's similar in plot to the movie The Secret of Roan Inish.

Monday
July 30, 2012

Ja'Lisa

This is our adorable and spunky niece, Ja'Lisa (AJ's younger sister). Because of her look of confidence this is my favorite shot of her from our recent vacation. I spent more time with Ja'Lisa than any other person when we were at the lake in New York. She went out of her way to make me feel at home by keeping me company whenever she wasn't swimming in the lake. We talked about everything from the best foods to her favorite Disney characters. I have a feeling Ja'Lisa is going to grow up to be a warm and compassionate woman. We are so blessed to have her in our family.