MudEyes

post by: holly

Last week she arrived! My brother has had Rebel for years and he is getting old now. Rebel is a golden retriever. Eve is his new little sister and she is a golden doodle, half golden retriever and half poodle.

She seems so smart and she just loves to cuddle. I instantly fell madly in love with her and it was so hard to leave. I went back to muskegon just for the day to take some photos of her.

{{She already has a little bear friend she likes to chew on}}

{{Sooo cute, I think they have already bonded}}

{{I KNOW we already bonded. 🙂 She layed on my lap and slept for hours.}}

{{BEHOLD! …a puppy}}

{{My brother Craig, and eve}}}

{{Gotta have an upshot, of course}}

I really hope to be able to visit again soon to love her some more. Hopefully, someday when Ryan and I can get a house and settle down we can get a puppy. I told him we need to get a puppy before we have babies…hah it is kind of like a baby, just fluffier.

post by: ryan

So we have been really wanting a new long zoom lens, because the copy we have of an 80-200mm f/2.8 nikkor was heavy and didn’t focus very closely. (we also suspected it wasn’t as sharp as it should be) I have been researching an alternative that didnt cost me $1,700 (nikon 70-200 VR) While that is an amazing lens, we aren’t famous enough yet to afford it!

Anyway! We were close to Norman Camera, and we lost the cap to our fisheye, and wanted to order a new one, so we stopped in there to do it and I asked if they had any of the Tamerons in. They had been announced last winter, and I had my name on the list. Supposedly they got their first copy in the previous day (lucky for us!) So we traded the big beast in for a smaller big beast with an equally big name… ready? The new lens is the

Tameron SP AF 70-200mm F2.8 Di LD (IF) Macro whaaat a mouthful…

We will stick with “big zoomie”

We will be doing a review soon when I get a taste for it at this weekend’s wedding! Stay tuned, lets see if the slow auto focus bugs me. the macro should be good for a less close ring shot as it has a reproduction rate of 1:3 not 1:1 only of the 50mm reversed.

Seeya soon!

post by: holly

We have been working so much lately so I thought it was about time we have a little date to get out of the apartment. So we went to see Eagle Eye last night. I must say, I really liked it!

This Shia LaBeouf fellow is a great actor. I have really liked him in all the movies he has done lately. He was kind of a stubborn jerk in most of this movie, but it worked.

The general idea is that these two characters “jerry” and “rachel” are brought together by a call from this woman neither of them knows. She threatens the life of Rachel’s son and sets Jerry up as a terrorist so he has to obey her so he doesn’t get locked up forever. Pretty clever…

This woman is everywhere…she uses all the technology everywhere to keep track of them and to communicate with them. I can’t help by think if something crazy like this happened to me if I would just comply. I think after the first act showing her power over everything around, I would be pretty willing.

I was pretty captivated through the whole movie, it kept me thinking which I like. I think it was a really smart movie because I think stuff like this really could happen someday….crazy stuff.

So, go watch it, it’s good! 🙂

{post by: holly}

{Wedding, iPhone(s), smores, shoes, oh my!!}

Last weekend Ryan and I had the opportunity to have a bit of relaxation and to shoot his friend Sarah Toupin’s wedding in Traverse City.

On thursday we went up to Muskegon to go to the dentist (no cavities for either of us, what are the odds?!) and to visit my mom. On the way up, I caved and decided to switch to AT&T and let Ryan get an iPhone. I have been saying we can’t afford it for a while, but verizon doesn’t work in our apartment and well…we just love gadgets. So that day we went and god new phones. I got the LG Shine and well…compared to the iPhone, it wasn’t very exciting.

Friday morning we headed up to Traverse City, I slept most of the way. 🙂 The location of their wedding was beautiful! It was kind of indoor/outdoor because the walls were rolled up since the weather held out. Speaking of the weather, it was perfect!

We stayed in a Baymont where most everyone from the wedding seemed to stay as well. It was really nice! For the wedding before this, which I will be writing about later, we stayed at a pretty sketchy motel 6 so I just loved this place. I wish I would have taken photos. The sheets were so soft I could have stayed in bed all day!

{{For our website, I add my favorites…of the favorites that we put up a few days after the wedding on the main page of the site. I thought it would be cool to kind of “present” the new couple before there photos with something cool. This is my first one and I like it, I think I shall continue it.}}

{{Getting ready in the hotel room. The girl who did the girls hair was actually one of Ryan’s really good friends from Junior high, what are the odds. She did a great job!}}

{{I usually do most of the getting ready shots but since it was all happening in the same hotel and Ryan wasn’t doing anything he went instead of me. I was playing bejewelled on the new iPhone anyways so I was like…go ahead haha. I LOVE how the hairspray actually shows!}}

{{The Dress! I love how the fisheye worked with this door without making the dress look all crazy.}}

{{I just love how soft this is. Just because a dress doesn’t have a gigantic train doesn’t mean it can’t be just as beautiful. Love it!}}

{{and…finally, the bride! I know there seems to be a lot of black and white, but it just edited so beautifully that way so I couldn’t resist.}}

{{Ryan does a jumping shot with the guys at all our weddings and I think this could quite possibly be my favorite. The guy second from the left cracks me up!}}

{{Something I really enjoyed about this wedding is that it was not all that traditional. It was really laid back and fun. The guys all had these shoes and to me, thats just the best. Way to step outside the box!}}

{{This is one of my favorite photos of the day. She was also my favorite flower girl so far. This girl was so crazy! She was just so curious about everything around her and just seemed so full of joy…and probably sugar, haha. She was just the cutest. Ryan got this shot and I was so excited because I couldn’t get it from across the room. Another reason its good to have two photographers!!}}

{{I was in the back with the bride but I assume he was playing while she went down the isle.}}

{{and of course, the upshot! I think this one turned out pretty good, I really love the red brick.}}

{{Their cake topper. I didn’t edit a full photo of the cake yet, but it was pretty cool. It was a little mountain with a trail going up the side. They are very outdoorsy people so it was cool that they had a cake that fit who they are. Josh and Sarah were at our wedding and they said our cake inspired them to do something different! That makes me feel good, I live to inspire. }}

{{There were a couple amazing little trees with the red leaves on them which is just perfect for the ring shot.}}

{{Ryan does the coolest stuff. They had little christmas lights over the dance floor and he thought of doing this. I love it! I learned how to do it too, so thats exciting for me.}}

{{They were crazy dancers! I loved watching them, wonderful for photos.}}

{{They had a pretty cool band play, I wish I could remember their name. They were really interesting. I liked it a lot, it was very different than most weddings}}

{{Smores!! What a fantastic idea! They had a table FULL of chocolates and marshmellows and a fire pit. I stashed a couple of those hershey bars in my pocket for later. 🙂 It was cool to take photos of fire, I don’t think I have ever really done that before. I got some cool ones, but ryan didn’t pick those as a favorite. They will be on the pictage when its up though.}}

That is the end of the night for us! The day seemed to go by really fast to me but I was exhausted by the end of it! The following morning we drove around Traverse City to see what everyone always talks about and we didn’t find much mostly because we didn’t know what we were looking for, so thats too bad, haha.

We went back to muskegon and stayed at my parents again to break up the drive. I went shopping with my mom on sunday and she bought me these amazing shoes!! They can be found at TARGET I call them my mac shoes, and yes that does show what a dork I am. 🙂

We also got ME AN IPHONE TOO!! Ryan saw how disappointed I was by my stupid phone so I get one too, gosh I love him. So overall, it was a pretty great long weekend! We have a couple weeks until our next wedding so that will give me some time to catch up on everything and update you all with the last few weddings.

…ok on to editing backed up weddings!

posted by: holly

It is a very odd feeling sometimes how time goes fast yet feels so long. Ryan and I have been married for like 3 months and it feels like it has been so much longer than that! We have been working non-stop which is a good thing. This summer really has been such a miracle to have all this business and to be booking for next year already! I am just so thankful for everyone who spreads the word about us.

Being married is shall I say, fabulous. I feel like we are getting more of a handle on it all and finding a way to separate and balance work and life. It feels good to figure things out together. I am finally feeling better and starting to adjust a lot more to our new life together which is a great feeling. I am so blessed that Ryan is such a sensitive guy. I would probably be a basket case all the time if he wasn’t so nice and patient with me. God really did make him for me that is for sure. 🙂

We have a few weddings and a bunch of seniors to put up here since katherines. I just got a new program called “Mars Edit” which makes updating the blog much easier now. It works directly with flickr for images so thats cool. I am going to be putting up a new design for the blog hopefully soon. When we get some extra cash that will be happening.

As far as other new things….I am trying to get my new website up sometime soon as well. During the winter months when photography is slow, I am going to try and shift back to doing graphic design so I want a new site to be able to showcase all my new work and such. If you know anyone or need any design work done for yourself, let me know! I would love to be filling up right now for the winter. That is something I am really praying for. After this break from it for the summer I am just so refreshed and itching to get back to that.

We added a new member to the family. A new 24 inch iMac and it is glorious. We were just to the point with the laptops that they couldn’t handle all these weddings. So it was time for an upgrade! This thing is amazing.

All in all, God has been really good to us. Things haven’t been perfect, but in the flaws of life is when you really see the beauty of love and it just makes you really grateful.

Ryan and I chose to write our own vows for the wedding. I highly recommend doing this as it makes the ceremony so personal and intimate. When will there be a better time to open your heart and share how much you love your future spouse in front of everyone you know and love. As you can see, our writing styles are very different but showcase who we are and how we communicate. I love weddings that are a little less traditional and a little more real and personal.

So for all of you who either could not make it to the wedding or just could not hear them – enjoy! :

HOLLY’S VOWS
Ryan,
It was really hard for me to summarize what I vow to you. It is unbelievable what God has brought each of us through to get to this place right now. I feel like my words are so small and just can’t express how thankful I am that God made you for me…and as of today, I get you forever.

There is nothing in this world that can hold us back but ourselves, and I promise to put forth my best effort to be strong when your not and lift you up when things get frustrating. I feel like our dreams and ambitions are so strong and clear that God has a purpose greater than ourselves. His plan is why we are together and I promise to faithfully be by your side every step of the way to fulfill it. I promise to trust you, lean on you, and be there for you no matter what.

I promise to always be open and excited to travel to new places as that will be a huge part of our lives and God’s plan for us. I promise to be willing to try new things even if they terrify me. and to trust that you wouldn’t put me in harms way and that you just want the best for me.

I know that there will be difficult times or things just won’t go right, but I promise to try and always be thankful for all the amazing things we do have in spite of what life brings our way. I hope that in the times that I forget to be thankful, you will be there to remind me and I will be there to remind you as well so we never take anything for granted.

I promise to put you before myself and do everything in my power to be there for you and help you in any way possible.

I know that I will just be human and that I will make mistakes. but I promise to always be open to learning from them even when I am being stubborn.

You are my best friend and now your going to be family and that means the world to me. I am thrilled to experience life with you because everything just means more when you can share it with someone you love and the thought of that gives me an unmeasurable amount of joy in my heart. It is so comforting to know that there is a reason we are standing here today. You are a rare find and only God could have created a man so unique that fits perfectly with me.

Most of all, I promise you will always be my #2 and God will always hold His place as the first love of my life. I know that it is only with that that our marriage will be filled with love that only He can give us the ability to have, give and experience.

I love you Ryan and i’m ready to be your wife and your helper and to love you sacrificially and unconditionally for the rest of our days together.

RYAN’S VOWS
Holly,
You are my prize of patience.
God has always promised me reward if I honor his will
His will isn’t easy and I wasn’t perfect, yet he still showed me his perfect grace.
When I cried out to find you, he challenged me further.
He challenged me to know him first. To love him first.
It was the biggest test of patience I have ever faced.
The reward was great… and the responsibility, even greater.

Therefor I promise to love you as he loves,
To guard you     as he guards, and to grow us in his love forever more.
I promise to stand above the world’s standard of effort, loyalty and patience.
I wont cease to try knowing you will love me if I don’t.
I will seek your love everyday.

I promise to defend you from those that mistreat you
I promise to guard your sensitive heart God has given you.
I promise to appreciate your whole being. All that he has made you.

Mostly I vow to put him first, and you second. And I pray you do the same.
I promise to love you more tomorrow then I do today,
as long as God blesses me with life, I will love you.
Through stress and pain, Angst and apathy
I will be yours and you will be mine. Forever, so help me God

So as many of you know I am in fact engaged as of this last saturday the 16th of February. This is the weird story. For anyone with a short attention span that doesn’t care about the details, skip to the end I will make a shortened version just for you.

It should be noted that I buttered her up for valentine’s day as I have never been able to celebrate with someone I love, or possibly with anyone for that matter! So anyway, there are photos at flickr.com/hollyjlynn. I made it look real nice, and I cooked a nice steak, corn, and my infamous mashed potatoes. I scattered 80 tea lights around the room and a few big candles so it was pretty nice. I figured she thought I would do it then but she was one step ahead when i was forced to tell her we had plans for Saturday.

Anyway! To start the morning Saturday before Chicago, I woke up early so that I could make her favorite cheesy eggs and fried potatoes. When i got downstairs and she realized i made her breakfast she gave me a loving slug on the arm and said “your nice!” And then she realized she hit me a lot when i did nice things =)

So at this point I still had to pick up the ring, since I was late getting home the night before, so i had her take a shower so I could wash the car, and do some “errands” once I had it i came home took a shower put on a nice shirt and tie and left with her to chicago. We arrived in the windy city (literally it was freezing) at 1:30 where we parked the car for the day near Geno’s east Pizza, where we had some deep dish pizza with was great. It was a cool restaurant, it had peoples writing and graffiti covering every wall seat and pillar. After we ate, I thought it would be nice to take a walk.

When we turned the corner to go back to drop of leftovers we were asked if we would share those same leftovers with a talkative guy who looked like he had a rough life, so we gladly gave up our extras, and had a chat with him on the way back to the car.

Anyway we started down the road toward a movie theater where we were to see the movie Juno. With the theater in sight and an hour to go we stopped in a grocery store with a Starbuck’s inside to get a hot chocolate, as we were pretty cold from walking only a few blocks. I gave holly my wallet, and had her get a hot chocolate for us, so I could use the restroom, and after a while warming up on we went the rest of the way to the theater.

The movie is actually quite funny, i recommend it much more then the shock value humor that has been more prevalent in resent times. Anyway after that we hailed a cab to take us to the Sears Tower. I was hoping to watch the sunset from the top but as I learned an hour and half long line of people had the same idea. So unfortunately we didn’t make it up in time. The line was very long, and I don’t know if I would say I would do that again. I mean its cool if you don’t have to wait, because then it was almost as long just getting back down. What a waste of time when time is short!

She later told me she thought I would propose up there, but then she remembers I wouldn’t have liked the attention of the 200+ people around us!

I had a big finally in mind where I would take her to the navy pier and do a cool night shot with both of us with the ferris wheel in the back round. With me tricking her into thinking we were just taking a photo of us in Chicago, when really I wanted to propose to her and catch it on “film”. My Plans were thwarted when number 1 the ferris wheel is not running in the winter for obvious, un-thought of reasons…and number 2 as we got a cab back to the car we had to use the GPS because the driver didn’t know where Jeno’s was. And Holly Dropped one of my $20 bills so i had to run to the car to pay him, and then we grabbed our things and left the cab. Then I went to find the GPS so i could go to the navy pier and salvage a cityscape photo, but when i went to get it I couldn’t find it! I was a little more then upset that the whole day could be thrown out of whack because l left the GPS in a car that we would never see again. While we were pulling out I found a quick way to the highway, and didn’t want to risk going into the interior of metro chicago and decided to head for home, severely disappointed I went to all that effort for it not to work out like I wanted.

I was thinking on the way home and praying, God what the heck am I supposed to be learning from this and why do I have to learn stuff when I just want to give Holly a great way to propose to her. And I guess I just kind of got from it that things aren’t going to always be perfect as you would like. That’s just life. This world isn’t perfect. Are you going to let it ruin things or are you going to make the best of what you are given?

So I pulled over in a hyundai dealership of all places, and told Holly I wasn’t upset with her, I just wanted to have a special day and I didn’t want it to end like this. I told her how much I loved her and how much I loved her heart for how she was dealing with conflict and disappointment. It’s really rare to find someone who hurts for you because she knew how upset i was.

I said I didn’t really want to propose to you in a car but this is what we have been dealt. I am going to love you even when things aren’t perfect and things don’t work out as planned. And I asked her to marry me. And she said, “I would marry you if we were covered in mud” =)

It wasn’t the most perfect story, but it’s ours, and we are thankful for what God has given us.

Short Version…
Went to Chicago, Had a great day, took a cab back to the car where I was going to drive to take a photo of us both, and surprise her by proposing while taking a photo. Couldn’t do that because we lost the gps. Was very pissed….

But didn’t want to end the weekend that way and pulled over and proposed to her there…..she said yes.