My beautiful granddaughters from the 4th of July weekend! 🙂 These are all just candid shots of them, no posing just them being them! Oh and the blue eyes are totally them, no postwork magic was done on them.
All were shot 100% in natural light. 🙂
What a beautiful night for Relay it was!
If it involves fighting cancer you can bet I will be there! Cancer has taken my father, two great friends, and two furry family members from me.
I hope you enjoy the slide show and that it makes you want to help with the battle against cancer! Please give what you can!
After the slide show scroll down and see some of my favorite images from the walk and as always let me know what you think.
A special thanks to Stubby Webb for all her help on this one! 🙂
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKGqxmk7NNs&rel=0]
image by Stubby Webb
image by Stubby Webb
image by Stubby Webb
image by Stubby Webb
image by Stubby Webb
As Always have a great day and Stay Positive!
Stubby and I went out to Marion by Moonlight last week and Funk Stop was playing. Awesome band! Their music is inspired by Tower of Power, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, and Earth Wind and Fire just to name a few.
The band is made up of music educators and other Cedar Rapids metro area professionals. They also have a really hot brass section that just puts icing on the cake for their sound! If you get a chance to see them, check them out, you won’t be disappointed…I promise!
This is their website: http://www.bigwow.org/funkstop/
As Always have a great day and Stay Positive!
Before I get into the groundbreaking ceremonies yesterday at the Paramount Theatre in downtown Cedar Rapids, I’d like to say thank you to Orchestra Iowa for inviting me back for the 2011-2012 season as their official photographer! 🙂 This will be my third season working with Orchestra Iowa and I’ve loved every minute of it!
The staff that makes up Orchestra Iowa, the musicians, everyone involved are just super people and awesome to work with!
The past couple years have made me realize how much logistics are involved with every performance, setting up the stage, mixing the music for 80+ musicians, the timing, the advance planning, ticket sales, running the music school, the dedication involved is tremendous! I’ve just named a FEW of the things that go into every single performance, there is so much more that goes on behind the scenes.
So a big THANK YOU to Orchestra Iowa for inviting me back for a third season, I’m looking forward to many more working with you! 🙂
For those of you that have not discovered Orchestra Iowa, they are a world-class orchestra right here in Cedar Rapids and eastern Iowa! Their performances are flawless! You owe it to yourselves to attend one of their events, once you do you will be hooked! You can find more information on their website at: www.orchestraiowa.org
Ok now back to the Paramount. In 2008 when the flood hit our town of Cedar Rapids so hard, I can still remember seeing the pictures on TV of the Paramount under water almost to the top of the Marquee. I, like many others, was heartbroken. “Noooo not the Paramount!” That was my thoughts!
It’s been a long time coming but yesterday groundbreaking happened for the renovation of this historic and wonderful theatre! It will be back better than ever with acoustic improvements, better seating and a host of other improvements! I’m SOoooo looking forward to the first performance of Orchestra Iowa in November of 2012 in this wonderful venue! There are only approximately 300 theatres like this remaining in the whole country and one of the best is going to be right here in Cedar Rapids when these renovations are completed! 🙂
It was an honor for me to be a small part of this event! 🙂
The Staff of Orchestra Iowa
The Orchestra Iowa Brass Quintet inside the Paramount Theatre “Wall of Mirrors”
Inside the Paramount looking toward the stage.
The Brass Quintet once again on the stage area, shot from the balcony.
As Always have a great day and Stay Positive!
On June 3, I was photographing the Relay for Life Linn County. This band came on and I got basically hooked on the music as soon as they started playing, so I started grabbing some shots of them performing!
Those of you who know me personally, know how much I love live music, and if there is one thing I like better than being a photographer and listening to music, it would be photographing live music! 🙂
The name of the band is Virago and the music they play is well “awesome”
The lead singer’s voice is what I think hooked me, she reminds me of Josh Stone in a way. Anyway here is a few of the shots I got, hope you enjoy! 🙂
For you photography “gear heads” out there, these were shot with my favorite lens, the Canon 70-200 2.8L IS. A lens that in order to separate it from me will have to be pried from my cold dead hands! LoL 😉
As Always have a great day and Stay Positive!
I was sitting out in the backyard doing paperwork, ok laptop work, 🙂 and this guy landed at the feeder. I was like, looks like a Cardinal but that isn’t a Cardinal head!?!?!? Ok I got to get a picture, went to get my camera and of course he was gone.
So over the next few days every time I went out in the backyard I brought my camera with me and finally got this shot of him. Now if you can imagine this, I’m sitting out at the patio table with the umbrella up, it’s raining out, talking on the cell phone to a friend and there he is! So balancing the cell phone in my ear, with the camera up to my eye, snap, got him! LoL
After doing a little google research, I found it’s the bald cardinal sometimes called “pinhead” or “mini red vulture”. LoL….Gotta love Google!
Cardinals can go bald for a couple of reasons. This time of year the birds are molting so before the new feathers grow in the old feathers fall out and for some reason cardinals will sometimes lose all the feathers on their head. The skin is black and without the fluffy feathers, their head looks teeny tiny especially with the massive bill.
Sometimes birds will get feather mites and all their feathers will get eaten away by the mites and the birds are bald until they grow in new ones. However, if you are seeing bald cardinals this time of year, it’s a safe bet that they are molting.
Since “Dude”, (yea I named him, LoL) has started visiting my backyard, he has given me inspiration. I’ve noticed he and his “better half” have a nest in the yard. After realizing this another thought hit me. If “Dude” was human, probably no one would date him because he is different. If “Dude” was human and in high school, he would be picked on and bullied for being “different.” If “Dude” was human and walking down the street people would stop and stare because he is “different.”
What does that say to us about the way humans act sometimes? Nature doesn’t care if one of her creations is a little different, why does it bother some of us humans?
I say embrace those differences, make those differences your strengths! “Dude” does and through it he gave a little inspiration to this human! 🙂
As Always have a great day and Stay Positive!
Christina and Blake were married on June 11, 2011 at Cedar Hills Community Church in Cedar Rapids. The reception was at the Long Branch Hotel also in Cedar Rapids. After the ceremony we made the rounds to a few bars in downtown Cedar Rapids.
We had a blast, such a fun couple to be around!
A special thanks to Jaime Moquin for her always great 2nd camera work!
Thank you to Christina and Blake for choosing Visions Photography to photograph your special day! Congratulations and hope you both have a lifetime of happiness together!
The slide show tells the story of the day, and the pictures below are some of my favorites.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGA6epep_PA&rel=0]
photo by 2nd photographer Jaime Moquin
photo by 2nd photographer Jaime Moquin
photo by 2nd photographer Jaime Moquin
Sometimes a moment has other elements you didn’t expect when you took the shot. Check out the little boy in the background who is “checking out” the flower girl! 🙂
photo by 2nd photographer Jaime Moquin
photo by 2nd photographer Jaime Moquin
photo by 2nd photographer Jaime Moquin
photo by 2nd photographer Jaime Moquin
As Always have a great day and Stay Positive!
Cassie and Jude stopped by last Saturday for their engagement pictures and we had a blast! Their wedding is next April and I can’t wait!
Thank you Cassie and Jude for choosing Visions Photography!
As Always have a great day and Stay Positive!
On Sunday, June 12 I went up to Anamosa with a dear friend of mine, Stephanie Webb aka “Stubby” who is one awesome artist. She had been invited to be one of the artists and this was her first show. To see more of her work, check out her facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/Genre-Of-Stubby/164348730292414#!/pages/Genre-Of-Stubby/164348730292414
The pictures shown here are a sample of random shots that I took during the day. LoL If you know me, you know that my camera is never far away! 🙂
As Always have a great day and Stay Positive!
If it involves fighting cancer you can bet I will be there! Cancer has taken my father, two great friends, and two furry family members from me.
I hope you enjoy the slide show and that it makes you want to help with the battle against cancer! Please give what you can!
After the slide show scroll down and see some of my favorite images from the walk and as always let me know what you think.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja-uIKYfDCw&rel=0]
I know at first glance this is just a crowd of faces, but look deeper, study the faces! If you do so, you can see that cancer has touched the lives of each in the crowd.
This one speaks to me also! To view these luminaries once lit and to see the sheer number of them, it is just incredible to me how many lives have been affected by cancer. Each one represents a victim or survivor of cancer. Each day cancer finds more victims!
This shirt says it all!
No One Fights Alone!
As Always have a great day and Stay Positive!
