What I really love about the image on the left is that when Abby was a puppy, I took a very similar shot at the dog park when she was all tired out from roughhousing.  Just like in this shot, she just sat there with her eyes closed.  I have it framed on my desk at work, and people always ask me about it.  I totally have to get this adult version framed too.

One other fun thing, we get SOOOO many hits from people who do searches for yellow labs with pink noses.  Seriously.  Half our blog traffic is thanks to Abby’s nose.  I just recently found out that her particular coloring is a genetic rarity caused by having a pair of double recessive genes.  Basically she’s expressing the coat color of a yellow lab and the pink nose and light eyes of a chocolate lab.  Labs like her can not produce any black pigment and the name for this coloring is “dudley”.  (Actually, the way I found out is that an acquaintance saw the photo of Abby on my desk and clued me in because he has a Dudley as well.)  So anyway, there you go!   If google drops you off here, check out this link for an explanation of Dudleys.  And now you can definitively tell all the naysayers that your lab is 100% lab.

Abby always has her ears down like this, so she looks all round-headed.  We actually have to tell her to “put her lab ears on”.  Sometimes treats will bring out the lab ears, or when hears something and is intrigued.  Most of the time though, she’s too chill to put her ears up like a proper lab.

This is Lily.  She belongs to my neighbors, who I wish I knew better, because they probably think I’m a freak the way I hang out at the fence talking to their dog.  She is the cutest, tiniest, sweetest little beagle ever.  It seriously takes all my willpower not to reach over the fence and snatch her up, because she is adorable.  Instead, I just sneak her milk bones.  If she stands up on her hind legs, she’s just tall enough for me to reach over the fence and scratch her ears.

This is Madeline.  She gets two photos because she was the only one willing to sit still, unlike the other cats, who wanted to run towards the camera and rub up against the lens.  Madeline was a stray that appeared on the roof of my carport one night when I was living in my first apartment.  A few days into a week long thunder storm, I took pity on her and let her in.  She’s survived a very traumatic injury – one night she escaped out the door at my apartment and some jerkface shot her in the face.  She lost most of the bottom of her jaw and had her mouth wired shut for over a month, and I had to hand feed her 3 times a day.  Throughout all of it, she was such a trooper with an unbelievable will to live.  That was like….I dunno, maybe 7 years ago now?  She drools a bit, but is otherwise fine, and from head on, she looks mostly normal.  She weighs maybe 8lbs, but makes up for her small stature with pure annoyingness tenaciousness.

Last up, the newest and oldest members of the household.  On the left is Freya, who is just the cutest, cuddliest, most awesom kitty ever.  She was a stray that followed my neighbor home while she was out for a long walk.  Freya followed her for over a mile, crossed a semi-busy road and took up residence in the neighbor’s garage.  This was when I lived in Florida.  The neighbor wasn’t a pet person, oddly enough, and when she decided Freya had fleas, she kicked her out of her garage.  I begrudgingly started feeding her because she was skinny and pathetic.  I did not want another cat, two is more than enough, and by this time I had Abby as well.  So I wouldn’t let her in the house for a long time, so instead, she started climbing up on my roof.  Thus began a cycle of the cat climbing on the roof, and me climbing up on a ladder and coaxing her onto my shoulder because I was worried she couldn’t get down and wasn’t getting any food/water.  I started letting her sleep in the garage.  The shelters in FL suck and had a horrible adoption rate, so when I had to move back to MI, I conceded defeat and adopted her properly.  She is the most affectionate cat I’ve ever had.  She always wants to cuddle and at night, she shares my pillow with me.

Draven is the black one.  I got him when I was 19.  He’s the only cat I paid money for, and is also the meanest creature on the face of the earth.  It takes a team and a logistics plan at the vet’s office to give him a shot.  He attacks people.  The dog is petrified of him.  Sometimes I am petrified of him.  No one else would have put up with him this long.  At one time he had his own prescription.  For Valium. And yes, he was named after the guy in The Crow (I was 19, ok?)  He was the first pet of my adult life, and even though he is evil and I have scars from him, I still love him for reasons I can’t quite explain or rationalize to others.

One last thing – I know letting cats outdoors is a big no-no, but A.) These cats have their claws, B.) We only let them out in the backyard and Freya and Draven are too fat to escape, C.)  We only let them out when we are home.  If you’ve ever adopted a stray you know how hard it is to keep them indoors, at some point the pathetic yowling wears you down and you have to grant them some freedom.

I freaked out.  It was dark.  It was raining.  This dog has zero understanding of the road and cars, and who’s really awake and coherent enough to dodge a lab at 6am on their morning commute?  I ran back upstairs to grab my glasses and then reached for a coat.

Of course, in the time it took me to go upstairs and return, I see a flash of yellow and a sheepish looking, completely drenched dog running to the back door.  Argh!  What a brat.

This morning was perfect sleeping-in weather.  Cool, a soft gentle rain.  Did I get to enjoy that?  Nooooo.

Abby on the other hand, had no problem leaping up on the bed (did I mention she was drenched?!?) and curling up for a nice deep sleep.

(Abby during a more sanctioned adventure last summer on Lake Huron.)

Towards the end of the article, the author mentions that Jerry’s wife, Maggie Taylor, is also an artist and photographer.  Though the article doesn’t mention it, she also does photo montages, but in a dramatically opposite way.  She scans found objects, antique photographs and other interesting oddities and uses Photoshop to create her work.

Andy and I spent over an hour squished in front of one tiny laptop screen in awe of Maggie’s work.  Her site is a delight – if you appreciate good web design, prepare to indulge in something fun.  It’s been a long time since a web design has, well, charmed me.  I had to check every page, just to see what neat effect I’d find next.  I felt bad closing the page!  The true testament  though is that I went back the next day.  And the day after that.  I can’t get enough of this site or Maggie’s work.

Unfortunately, it seems like it’s not easy to find reproductions of her work, and her art books are limited.  I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to have a large print of  “Garden”, shown above on the right.   The colors in it are gorgeous.   The image above is a screenshot of Maggie’s site – I recommend you spend some time checking it out!

I've been answering questions about her since I got her, from people that were sure she was a  mixed breed.  I always assumed her coloring was from being a chocolate-yellow mix, I just didn't realize that genetically it's very rare even with chocolates and yellows to get this unique look.  But now I have proof about how awesome she is.  If you are looking for more info, there's a good explanation of all of this here, and also here.  And there's a flickr group devoted to Dudleys here.  If you have a dudley, give me a shout in the comments and leave a link to a picture!]  :)

Say hello to the yellowest, tail-waggiest member of the West Park Photography team.

Abby is a three year old Labrador Retriever.  Her momma was a yellow lab and her dad was a chocolate lab.  Abby has a honey-colored coat that’s just a little bit different from a yellow lab’s color and the pinky-brown nose and light eyes of a chocolate lab.  She was a birthday present from my parents when I was living alone in Florida.  (See unbearbly cute puppy pictures here.  Wish I had actually used a *real* camera for those and not a point and shoot.)

People with golden retrievers and labs like to say that after age 2, the dogs settle down.  This was certainly true for my parents beautiful goldens.  This has NOT been the case with Abby.  This dog is crazy!  Don’t let this  photo of her looking all calm fool you.  She can jump like 5 feet up in the air, straight up, with no running start.  She also runs unlike any dog I have ever seen.  She used to keep up with the whippets and greyhounds at the dog park when she was little.  I think she’s faster now.  There is something about watching this dog run that just makes you know everything is right in the world.  It sounds cheesy, but it’s beautiful to watch.  We are going to have to get some footage with our flip mino once it gets warmer out. 

Abby responds to the following nicknames:  Abby Labby, Abigail Peaches (my dad’s contribution), Barka (my brother’s -and a very fitting nickname), Abbington (my grandfather came up with that one), and Abigail Jane VanBabby (don’t even ask).  She likes mud, beaches, kiddie polls, running off leash, wrestling with her cousins (my parents’ dogs), and rides in the covertible.  She is terrified of the mailman and our black cat (okay, we are ALL afraid of him).

So there you have it.  We are HUGE animal lovers and I’m looking forward to an upcoming engagement session we are shooting because the couple is bringing their Golden.  They may or may not get him back, because Abby sure likes those goldens.  I think it’s the hair.  If you’d like to incorporate your pet into a photo session, by all means let us know, we are totally game.

I’m still waiting impatiently for it to get warmer.  This has been the longest, and coldest winter I can remember in a long time – and I really promise I’m not just saying that.  We took the opportunity yesterday to spend a few minutes somewhere warm, and humid.  The last part normally wouldn’t be something I’d be excited about, but it’s so dry here – it’s done a number on our skin.  I also very badly wanted to see something green, and alive.  I’ve totally given up on spring ever arriving.

We headed back to Belle Isle – which if you aren’t familiar with the area, is a large island park in Detroit.  (I know you are thinking “Detroit….island….park???” but it really exists!)  The photos in the post below of the mammoth glacier thing were also taken there.  This time though we skipped the ice in favor of flowers and went to the conservatory.  It was wet, alive, green, and most importantly, 70 degrees.  I may go back next weekend with a book and just hang out and try real hard to pretend I’m in Florida.

After spending far too little time soaking up the warmth, we left the conservatory and went home to watch Gran Torino.  The entire movie was shot in Michigan – thanks to the new tax incentives here for film producers – and a few scenes actually were filmed very close to our house.  The church in the opening sequence is in Grosse Pointe Park – in fact, it’s so close by we can hear the church bells from our house.  We are shooting a wedding there this August.  The hardware store featured later on in the movie is two blocks away from us – part of the “West Park” neighborhood of Grosse Pointe Park, which we got our name from.  The movie was great – I liked it a lot more than I expected.  And it was neat to see some familiar places.  There’s more info about where the scenes were shot here, if you are interested.

Earlier this week we met some great photographers and have something awesome brewing in the works.  I’m going to wait until it’s more official before sharing further,  but we are SO excited!  Also, I have more pictures coming soon of some new product samples.

Jean & Elie not only saw each other before the wedding, but Elie was there as she was getting ready.  In fact, a round of impromtu dancing started off in the room Jean was getting her make-up done, which pretty much set the tone for the whole day – these two know how to party!

While the wedding party was gathered downstairs playing Wii, Andy and I found a quiet spot upstairs to shoot some dress photos:

I hitched a ride with the wedding party in their limo and we arrived at St. Mary’s Antiochian Church – which is just gorgeous, by the way.

This is one of my favorite “down the aisle” photos of this year I think.

Married!

The reception took place at Bint Jebail Cultural Center in Dearborn, MI.  It was our first time there and we were really impressed – it is elegant and lovely.  And the food….well, see for yourself.

Rather than doing a receiving line or immediately sitting down at the head table, the wedding party was announced and gathered on the dance floor.  When Jean & Elie were introduced, a drummer appeared and led them to the dance floor and every guest there was on their feet and joining in this HUGE celebratory dance.  The energy was amazing!  Talk about starting the reception off with a bang!  We had never seen anything like it, it was fantastic.

How gorgeous is this cake?  This is a perfect example of the people at Bint Jebail doing things up right.  I can’t tell you how often we see cakes just sitting forlornly on a simple white table cloth.  This cake table was swathed in extra fabric, with rose petals everywhere.  It just gave everything a little extra pop.  Plus it didn’t hurt that the background was pretty and appealing.  Brides – it’s very simple to dress up the cake table a little bit and make your cake photos really pop.  Talk to your venue.  And if you are stuck with a boring white wall for a background, try something fun and funky like putting a colored spotlight on the floor behind the cake.

The first dance – which was actually the second first dance, because they came in dancing. 

This kid?  SO full of awesome!

This guy killed on the dance floor.  And he knew it too.  In fact he came up to me and matter-of-factly told me that he was leaving and that I better take this opportunity to shoot him one more time before he left the building.  That’s how cool he was.

Jean & Elie – your wedding was beautiful, elegant, and full of vibrant people and infectious energy.  Thank you for allowing us to document your day for you and learn more about your culture.  And seriously, tell me who that kid is above because I want to be his facebook friend. 

I’ve been kind of going back and forth trying to decide if I should post personal stuff here, or just keep it strictly photo biz related.  As our wedding schedule slows down, it seems like I better come up with something to fill the void, because I don’t want anyone stumbling upon this blog and thinking it’s abandoned.  So I hope you will indulge my occasional personal posts.

Before we get to that though, one official West Park related item – our new website is up!  We are pleased to finally have finished a complete overhaul of the old site.  We now have a much larger variety of images, and they load a lot (a LOT) bigger.  We are really excited about it. 

For those of you wondering about what happened to our kids portfolio – we will be starting a separate website just for that.  While wedding photography is our passion and something we intend to focus on, we are hoping to expand our kids & family portrait photography in Grosse Pointe and the surrounding area.  But I said this post wasn’t going to be all business-related right? 

Instead, let me share a couple images we took over the last couple months that aren’t wedding related.

This is what our street looked like about 2 weeks ago.  One of the defining characteristics of Grosse Pointe, in my mind, is our amazing trees.  Fall is an unbelievably beautiful time of the year here.  I actually took this from the second story window of our house, in the room we recently re-did to make our home office.  I felt bad for our poor neighbor across the street though, her entire yard was at least a foot thick with leaves!  I feel very lucky to live where we do.  Grosse Pointe is known for being a rather affluent community, but there are pockets of affordable homes – to the surprise of a lot of people not familar with the area.  We definitely do NOT live in a mansion on the lake.    But we do live in an area that has a lot of old fashioned character, beautiful homes, and easy access to lakefront views.

This one is from mid-summer, at the lakefront park near our house.  I just loved this guy looking out to sea with his captain’s hat and the lighthouse in the background.

I can’t talk about Grosse Pointe without posting one of my favorite photos.  We sold a couple prints of the image below, which Andy shot, at a photo show we did this summer.  Believe me, this web version does not do it justice, it is absolutely gorgeous in print!

Finally, a couple weeks ago,  Andy and I visited Stony Creek Metro Park with our lab Abby for a bit of walking and photo-taking.  We were probably a week too early to really catch the peak of the fall color, but we still got some great photos.  Here is one Andy took – isn’t the light amazing?

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and a relaxing long weekend!