January 31st - 7d

Today I upgraded to a Canon 7d; Collin, Dan and I drove to Grand Rapids to meet the guy that I found on craigslist. Then we had lunch at the Cherry Cafe (or something along those lines) with our buddy Jonny J. This is my first official posting with the 7d.
Here's Collin telling me something important.

January 31st

January 30th - Sunday morning through the trees

"Well I woke up Sunday morning, with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt"
    - and the hot cocoa I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert." - Johnny Cash (loosely translated)
Today was the last day at the Fire and Ice retreat and on my way to breakfast I saw this beautiful scene of falling snow. So after a weekend of insanity, I leave you with calming serenity.

January 30

January 29th - Saturday at CLBC

I'm not even going to explain these, just hadta be there.

January 29

January 28th - we're gonna shout loud

fire*ice

January 28

January 27th - I and love and you

wish I was there.

January 27

January 26th - Rima needs change

Tonight, Anna and I hung at Biggby on Stadium for a few hours while she got some work done and I kind of wandered around. The barista there is a junior at Mattawan and one of my official Rhino Media street teamers, very cool kid with very cool glasses.

January 26

January 25th - Walk with the wise and be wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm

This is picture compilation of my night tonight. I serve at church by hanging with high school kids, so naturally they are involved. We hold youth group at the historic Michigan Avenue Academy so the picture on the upper left is the stop sign in the middle of the hallway at night being lit from the gym doorway.
I came home to my wife watching a sermon by Pres Obama.

January 25

January 24th - falling behind...

Today is tuesday. This is going to be confusing. But I'm posting for yesterday. but the photo for yesterday was taken 5 weeks ago. The reason I'm posting it is that my friend Rachel asked me today how they looked, so it reminded me that I want to finish going through the pictures from our just for fun shoot around town just after Christmas.

January 24

January 23rd - a few of my favorite things

Just wanted to display a few of my favorite things.

January 23rd 

Jan 22nd - the horse

In the midst of a blizzard, Anna and I headed to our friend Sarah's for a sushi dinner. I wanted to stop in Hartford to take a picture of a 20 year old horse named Cody. Just one.

January 22

January 21st - guys night out

Tonight Collin decided to host a "guys night" at his house. Our buddy Jeff put together some killer burgers and good times were had by all. Today was probably the least ambitious I've been with a photo blog posting, so I fell back on my 2.8 fisheye. Lame I know. I promise I won't use the fisheye for a week. maybe. unless I get lazy again. oh yeah, the burgers smelled up my pea coat so bad, my wife won't even sit in the same room with me!

January 21

January 20th - Starting to day off in Fenton with the Vitarellis

Sofia Vitarelli is the quintessential gerber baby. Super cute, big chubby cheeks and always happy.
Last night Dan and I crashed at the Vitarelli's abode in Fenton, north of Ann Arbor because we had two separate video shoots on wednesday and thursday. So I took a few quick images of a cheerful Sofia, still shaking off the dust from her slumber.

January 20

January 19th - Viva Paw Paw Elvis

So there's this guy that sings really loudly outside my apartment quite a lot, and call me out of fashion, but I had never heard of the Paw Paw Elvis. With little research you can find Earl (his given name) claims that Elvis and his mom had a love child and he is that love child; he used to live in Paw Paw, moved to Dowagiac for a decade and is now back gracing the streets of Paw Paw with his presence. whatever his motives are, I like what he brings to the town of Paw Paw, I'm just not sure what it is yet.

January 19

song: Elvis - Hunka Burning Love 

(I think this is what Earl was singing today)

January 18th - the Office

When I was kid I always liked page 14 of the Highlights magazine where I could find stuff. This photo is my homage to pg 14.
In this photo you will find:
a bag of biggby coffee beans
a warm greeting
a lighting stand
a david crowder music video
an iMac box
2 manly men
a biggby bumper sticker
4 dry erase boards
$10,000 in cash... seriously if you find it let me know.

 Today my compadre, Dan Martinez, and I are back at the office after a couple weeks of hiatus, good to be back.

January 18

January 17th - MLK Day in Ann Arbor with the Freeburns

I love Adam Freeburn. He's been someone I've grown up with and had the privilege of calling a friend since the 6th grade. I also love his wife, Natalie. I also love that I am quasi responsible for them knowing each other. The best part is, my wife loves them too. So we make the trek to Ann Arbor every so often and spend a day or two with some of our favorite people.

January 17

January 16th - Ode De Troy

Most people who will read this will recognize this guy. He has been a huge influence on my life and I have  a lot of respect for him. This was meant to be a funny take on how expressive he is with his hands when he's teaching at Freshwater. But after I put it together I just thought it was a portrait of how he speaks.

January 16

January 15th - Roarin' like a lion

oh what a wonderful day today. My wife allowed me to use her for my photo of the day. I am cheating just a little by doing an assemblage (more than one photo). Ah well. I kicked off my day by eating the most amazing omelette I've ever tasted (Anna made it), went to the Freshwater creative meeting, ate 4 bowls of Kix... oh man did I eat like a king today. Here's Anna. 

January 15th

Song - David Crowder Band - Like a Lion

January 14th - a dog's life

I am in an extremely contemplative mood, listening to yeah yeah yeahs, David Crowder Band & Kari Jobe.

Unfortunately, I do not have any sort of complicated or thoughtful picture to post today. It's just my friend Justin Warner's pomeranian (I think it's a Pomeranian dude)... 

January 14

January 13th - I THROW MY HANDS UP IN THE AIR SOMETIMES...

Today, we find 3 mild mannered young men just having fun being men...  we decided to do a promo shot for Fire & Ice @ Center Lake! MAZELTOV!

January 13th

January 12th - when this was built, Teddy Roosevelt was reigning

This is the historic Paw Paw courthouse, originally constructed in 1901, is quite iconic in this area. I was half tempted to photoshop an image of Batman hanging out up there... To learn more about Paw Paw and it's history click here.

January 12

January 11th - now my feet won't touch the ground

well, it only took 11 day into January for the self portrait to appear. Guess that's a new record. Hey at least it's not the arm-extended-high-above-head, cell-phone-camera-in-front-of-the-bathroom-mirror photo.  (11 dashes in that sentence, coincidence? I think no). I like the confusing nature of this photo, kind of hard to see at first glance, but like those addicting photo eye puzzle books from grade school, the composition soon comes into view.

January 11

January 10th - someone always has to get hurt...

So yesterday was something heartfelt and genuine. Today's photo is not heartfelt or at all genuine. My good buddies Collin, Dan and I went for a little drive and found a quiet secluded graveyard to take a picture in. Collin just couldn't contain his joy for the snow.  Dan got the short end of the shtick.

January 10

super girl

This is Jen. Jen has beautiful, spiky & funky red hair. But she shaved it because her close friend has hair no  longer. She has cancer. I chose to highlight this because I sat a few rows behind Jen in church today and as I looked upon the back of her freshly buzzed head, I thought of how important our outward appearance is to us and how noble it was that Jen would do this. She was very gracious in allowing me to photo her tonight. 

January 9

January 8th - recollections of an Elton John song.

This may be cheating, a little. But I had a scheduled photo shoot today (that almost didn't happen) from which I will draw my "photo du Jour". Corey, a dancer friend of mine had a tumultuous trip home from Chicago yesterday and didn't get any of my messages, but thankfully we were able to reschedule.
 Here is, as promised, only one image from today.

January 8th

January 7th - the fabulous Johnny Cash

wow. I've already seen the benefits of this project stretching me. part of me wants to keep this thing strictly to one photo a day. another part of me can not do this. I'm already struggling to do this on time every day (as it is currently 1:17am on January EIGHTH)..  My wife Anna is watching a very dramatized hospital tv shows. one of her guilty pleasures, we got back from North Carolina with our friends, Dan and Karen at 430 AM this morning. so we are a little off on our sleep schedge.. Anyway here is my one photo.

It is from a piece of artwork involving some dumpster trash, used bass guitar strings and a johnny cash vinyl 33 1/3

365 images in one year from the wandering bear

So I'm actually a week behind on this. But I've been in North Carolina, we should be good from here on out. I have seen several people doing this and I LOVE the idea, my goal behind this for the year will be try out new ideas and burn out the sensor on my 30D.

January 2

January 3

January 4

January 5

January 6

this is actually part of a timelapse sequence which I will post shortly shorty.