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Yesterday I wished everyone a happy Summer Solstice and told you about Tracy’s party that evening. (Scoll down a few posts) She sent me some images – what a bonfire.  I think these must have been taken later in the evening – just before midnght or so. Note my 2 grand-doggies and my new boy grandbaby to be!!

Yesterday I wished everyone a happy Summer Solstice and told you about Tracy’s party that evening. (Scoll down a few posts) She sent me some images – what a bonfire.  I think these must have been taken later in the evening – just before midnght or so. Note my 2 grand-doggies and my new boy grandbaby to be!!

The Detroit Professional Photographers Association held their annual Awards  Banquet on June 20th at the Tiger Club  at Comerica Park – Home of the Detroit Tigers in Detroit.  It was absolutely fantastic and we all had a terrific time.  What a gorgeous place and what a view of the ball-field in front of us. Clint Mclennen was in charge of organizing this and did a great job. The food stations were awesome also. We had a great turn out with about a hundred in attendance.

This is the group photo of the new board – our new president is John Glass seated in the middle of the front row, I am on his left as the new President Elect and Clint is on the other side of him as the vice-president in charge of Programming.  What an honor to be a part of this great group – next year at this time I will be going in as the new president – wow!.  This is my 4th year o the board, last year I was elected to be “slotted” to move up the line to becoming president; I was in charge of setting up the speakers for this year coming up. That was quite a job but I believe we have a great line- up set up.  This year I will be working with these speakers to make sure they are all set etc. I am also thrilled that Scott Green, our Jr Past President, will be coming on board as Executive Director – that will make all our job’s easier.  We all work together so well!

I love this grass roots affiliate of Professional Photographers of Michigan (PPM) and of Professional Photographers of America (PPA) I have learned so much here in the many years I have been an active member and am honored now to be able to give back some.

This is Julie, Brian and myself here.  I will be adding some more images later.

Today is Summer Solstice – the longest day of the year and the start of summer
This is part of my youngest daughter Tracy’s e-mail post today:
TRACY WROTE :

As most of you know, I am 18 weeks pregnant. we had our first ultrasound yesturday. That was so exciting! It seems so real now! (I still can’t feel the baby move. ) We found out that we are having a BOY!!!   We are so happy. I even shead a bunch of tears of joy during the ultrasound. I couldn’t help it.

Today is Solstice and we are having another big get together with our friends up here.We are going to have a big dinner, Rick is firing up the smoker, and we are going to have a bon fire.  Today is the longest day of the year. we have about 20 hrs of sunlight and 4 hrs of twilight. It never really gets dark, this time of year. But from tommorrow on we start to lose a little bit of light every day, til winter solstice (Dec 21) that is then we start gaining it again.
Happy Solstice!!  Love Tracy, Rick and the little one.

Wish I could join them at their party- The weather in the Palmer/Wasilla area by her is a high of 63 and a low of 50.  Sunrise is officially at 4:12am and sunset officially at 11:43 – as she said – even the dark time is more like twighlight.  They are still below the arctic circle – so the sun does fall below the horizon (Just not that far) – if they were above the arctic circle, there would be no darkness at all. In the most northen areas of Alaska – like Barrow – the sun will not set for months!!

 Happy Soltice

My brother Gunther, who photographs with me when we have double weddings,  just got back from a trip to the Moab dessert in Utah – He works full time for Daimler Chrysler in the Photo Department and was lucky enough to be sent on this assignment to photograph some testing they were doing on the new Ford Jeeps. Wish I could have helped him here!  Here are 2 images he shot for himself.  See more on his website at:   www.gunagraphics.com

At Lisa and Pat’s wedding last May 20th – John’s father asked me to talke a photo of himself, his son and grandson – 3 generations – out of 5 – of “John Anthony’s”. He wanted a photo of all 5 – He sent me a photo of his father (taken from a wedding photo from around 1970) and a small aged sepia photo of his grandfather -(taken around 1920 or so) – So I worked on it.  It was a bit more complicated because there was also a brother in the photo at the wedding that was NOT supposed to be in the generations photo.  This is what I came up with – the oldest gentleman looks a bit out of place – but how can he not!  -  the marvels of technology (and photoshop) 

On Sunday  June 4, we were fortunate enough to be a part of Deborah and John’s fabulous wedding – Deborah Lambrecht is a very good friend of ours, a fellow photographer, and a fellow “Photo Chick”.   She and John had a lovely wedding at the beautiful Atrium at the Park Place Hotel in Rochester. Julie was one of the photographers during the romantics and getting ready and a lot of us couldn’t help but grab our cameras at the reception.   This collage includes one of Julie’s great infra red images.  I’ll try to get an image of all the photographers as soon as I can.

We have been working with the Detroit Zoo and they are using a lot of our images for their marketing. We even have a banner with one of our images on it.  They seem to be doing just fine right now. If you are coming from the link that they so graciouslyy give us on their site – welcome.  Take a look at the location section of our site – it’s got a lot of images from weddings we’ve done at the zoo.  Here is the collage I worked up that they will soonhave to give out. 

I was privileged to work on a very interesting assignment last weekend with Christine Perry Burke form Art Leather Sales and Marketing and her graphic artist Lisa. We got together with one of my great couples from a few years back, Angela and Kevin, at their home in Birmingam and took a lot of images of them snuggling on the couch looking at and enjoying their Art Leather large Bridal album.This is for an add that they are designing for Briday Magazines about the importance of hiring a professional photographer and having a profesisonal bridal album made. You spend so much money on so many things for your wedding, how are you going to look back on and reminisce about your great day – that wedding album is priceless! Angela and Keven were awesome and we had a lot of fun. 

Wally, Gunther and Faith had a great time photographing Robin and Jeff the same day.  Our ceremony was in the breathtaking historic St Peter and Paul Cathedral in Detroit.  Then off to fun romantics on Belle Isle.  No water in fountain didn’t even stop us. We also roamed to the old casino building with it’s arches, the willows by the pond and the bridge. Once back at the Detroit Golf Club for the reception we had time to take Robin and Jeff out with golf carts to their favorite picturesque hole on the course for some more fun and great photos.

Julie, Brian and Shawn had a great time at the wedding of Grace and Todd in a quaint setting up in Fenton.  The ceremony was in the new church, but the old historic stone church was next door.  The churches, the grounds and a park close by made beautiful backdrops for some great romantics and fun photographs.  

May 27 was a great and very active day for us. We photographed 2 weddings. I photographed Robin and Jeff in Detroit with my brother Gunther and Faith. Julie traveled up to Fenton for Grace and Todd's wedding with Brian and Shawn. Both weddings were beautiful and a lot of fun; the weather sure was on our side.  Both weddings are featured here.