Inside the Painting

The air is crisping up now, the leaves blow around my feet, the dogs love the chill and everything is red, yellow or orange against a carpet of green. I walk out the door and step into a colorful world. Where did this come from? It smells like cinnamon and someone is having a fire in their fireplace, maybe even toasting marshmellows or hazelnuts or certainly glasses of champagne. Everyday is different now, it's cool, it's frosty, it's 58 degrees. Sunday means roasted chicken dinner with hot apple cider at almost every restaurant in town. But today is Monday and we start our week a little sleepy, a little transported into the world of autumn.
I am thinking that I live inside of a painting.

Katy Abraham marries Eric Oliveri

This past weekend, Katy Abraham exchanged vows with Eric Oliveri at the Sweetest Mary Sacred Heart church in Detroit, Michigan, an old and elegant, historic church situated in downtown Detroit. Their reception was at Petruzello's later that evening. Their wedding was a photographer's delight in that the wedding ceremony was held earlier in the day and the reception followed later that evening, leaving lots of time for photographs in the afternoon. That is really the way to schedule a wedding, I have now determined. We had at least two hours for photos in between. In addition, the colors that Katy chose for her wedding party were a luxurious shade of cinnamon and ivory; beautiful colors for a fall wedding in Michigan.

Portraits in Houston

I'm thinking that this series of portraits done for University of Houston Clear Lake represents some of my best commercial portrait work. I'm thrilled with how the series has evolved. Sometimes, when I am shooting alot, every day, I see my portrait solutions so much more clearly. Here are two representative portraits from the full page collection of ten. On the left is Charles Milby whose body is surrounded by the piano, much as he is in life, surrounded by his music. On the right is Rose Zacaro from Geo Control. Her company trains engineers and other personel for NASA and supporting businesses. I placed her in a dark chair in front of a painting of the earth from the vantage point of the moon. I thought of her head and face as a planet within a universe.

Apples and ponies

Traverse City is abloom with apples, pumpkins and red leaves and cool frosty air. The leaves are dropping randomly, rythmically from the trees now and everything smells of cinnamon.
I've made a few friends this fall. Most of them coming from Jen's family. Jen runs a shelter for horses called Horse North located in the Fife Lake area of Northern Michigan. Her children help her with the horse chores. Her "fur children" ( horses) number anywhere between 6-16 at any time. She's told me that the winter can be especially bad for the horses- with many people surrendering thier animals because of the high cost of feeding them. Something to look forward to.
This is a picture of Katelynn feeding an apple to one of the ponies.