Cruizin'

I love New Orleans and our cruise to Mexico was a lot of fun too. The plane ride was horrible though. We were up all night and only had a few hours sleep and our flight in Houston was postponed for 15min because of weather which turned into about 4 hours of sitting in stale airplane cabin.

You might be surprised to find out Jessica doesn't like to fly. I know it's hard to tell by the look on her face but she was terrified and was a little upset I was taking her picture even though I felt bad taking it.

Drinks and shopping were in order for Cozumel. What a cool shit hole it was. It was as hot as it gets and street vendors out for blood. When it was all said and done we left a little dehydrated, really tired, a few bags and tequalized. PS These drinks are huge and mine was about 9 parts tequila and one part ice and it put me in my place.

New Orleans is amazing. I love this city. The music, the food, the people, everything is wonderful. There is strip club (one in a million) on Bourbon Street that has a window where the dancer is silhouetted on stage. I kept waiting for an old couple to walk by and it happened a few times, but never in unison with the stripper. 

There are a million more photo's and I hope you enjoy these in the mean time tell I get home. Off to Jazz-fest I am.

Wanting to done with school

This week has flown by and I feel like every time I accomplish one of my tasks two or three more appear out of thin air.
I'm leaving for our cruise on Friday, (no post between Friday and next Sunday) and I can't seem to finish my tasks.

Tomorrow I will be design editor Matthew Stephens for the day and honestly I'm not prepared. I haven't taken the proper steps into learning this job. It's because I keep telling myself I don't want this job because of the work load, but really I don't want it because I'm afraid to fail. It is the same reason I haven't applied for my PR internship I'm afraid I will not know my AP Style well enough and I will make an idiot of myself and get fired.

So instead of doing something about all of this I sit here and stress over it. I can't stop thinking about getting my taxes filled before I leave, finding someone to cover my shift at Boarders Corner Store
I promise to give you some pictures today. Promise.

Detroit News Assignment

The bottom photo ran in the Detroit News and the top two were portraits I took but they chose not to run. I'm very proud of these portraits, especially seeing as how I have never taken a lighting class. I would also like to mention that Brandon and Christian are the two nicest kids I have ever met. They both placed at Nationals this weekend and are now All-American wrestlers.

The Sinnott Brothers

Wrestling

I don't get to write in here or update this blog with photos as much as I want. Honestly I don't get to do a lot of things I want to do. School is getting harder and I'm putting less and less effort into it. I love school; I just have a million other things to worry about. I'm constantly dropping school work to work. Which is funny because I still feel broke and I really need to buy new photography equipment. There will be TONS more photos to follow these, but these should give you a feel of what I was doing for the last four days straight. I don't think I have taken so many photos and grown so much .

2008 NCAA Wrestling Tournament in St. Louis

Spring Break to Present

The Essence of Jessica
Jessica's favorite place to eat (Russ's) in Grand Haven and her favorite soup. It is an old school Dutch restaurant jokingly know as "Heavens waiting room." (Because of all the old people) I told Jessica if they don't die waiting, the food will kill them.

Homemade Pizza
I made breakfast, Jessica made dinner. Both were badass. As you can see I didn't do much for spring break which is ok with me because I just wanted to relax.

Goodnight, I'm off to sleep.

MPPA 2008 Part Two

This photo was taken by J. Kyle Keener himself. For those of you not in the photo world, he is a god among students and professionals.

Now that I have some what caught up on my sleep I'm willing to share some more photo's and stories with.

What is MPPA?
MPPA is an acronym if you didn't guess by now for Michigan Press Photographers Association.

In short is a conference/competition where once a year all of the MPPA members get together. The competition is judged by three judges who sit in a darkroom with a giant projector screen and go through all of the photo's and work submited. It is a long yet exciting process.

Then at night the photog's are unleashed throughout the hotel and we do crazy stuff like have portfolio critique's, and set up a photo studio.

We even take on young children in basketball.

And we even stand around in circles in take photo's of each other.

No matter what we do though it, it is guaranteed to be a good time, and a great experience. I met some many people who taught me a lot over a three day period. I feel rejuvenated and inspired to keep doing to what I'm doing.
Thanks all.

MPPA 2008

So much to say and edit. MPPA 2008 was awesome and the best thing I have ever done. I met some of the most amazing people, and learned so much about everything. Bedtime is calling, and more will come tomorrow.