Outside of Oregon there is a tree farm that we went to do some Christmas tree shopping. Apparently, it’s a swiss tradition to hunt cut down your own Christmas Tree. I don’t know if this is true or not. Luckily, this was the only day it stopped raining in Portland, Oregon.

This is part of our expedition for the perfect tree. That day me and my brother in law were talking about the paradox of how one can be alienated by the freedom of choice.

This is the turkey i help make. One of them. There were two birds. The bird we bought was grown on a whole-foods type farm. Organic and cage free. Thus the turkey was very tasty and supported local farmers in Oregon.

This is in downtown Seattle, Washington the day after thanksgiving. More specifically at the Westlake Shopping center. This tree is the macy’s tree. They lit it with LED lightbulbs that day and had a huge turnout of people.
This is Seattle. I traveled there after Thanksgiving with my parents. They wanted to travel to Vancouver. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of Vancouver. It rained alot and it was pretty cold so I had no chance of shooting photos.

I visited the Seattle Art Museum. I did a previous post about that earlier too.

Wedfog (Wedfog.com - Wedding Photography, Demystified) is a great resource for brides and grooms looking to research wedding photography pricing, contracts of sample wedding photographers, advice and tips from wedding photographers  and information about wedding photographers in their area. The website features an advertising directory that is primarily founded by a community called the digital wedding forum (or DWF). The digital wedding forum DWF was originally founded by Jeff Caplan as a way to build a subscription based community that would support and help other photographers in the field and eliminate the inherent barriers of entry.

The Digital Wedding Forum moderator, Mark Lutz eventually spearheaded the Wedfog (wedfog.com) requiring members of the digital wedding forum to help fun the advertising network that will eventually provide their community with leads as well as mutual benefit for all photographers. For wedding photographers of the Digital Wedding Forum its a win-win situation!

Recently, Detroit, Michigan was ranked number 18 for walkability throughout the city. One thing i did notice about the time i spent in Seattle and Portland is that it was very walkable. It isn’t too huge and their public transportation made it easier to move around.

In Seattle, it felt very comfortable to walk from one place to another. In fact i’ve never seen so many people on the streets in such a while. In Detroit thats seldom rare to find that many people around town unless there is an event down at hart plaza or other sports venues like Ford field or Tiger Stadium in the Fox Town District. With the shopping district especially there was convenient monorail transportation to take me to my hotel.

Number 18 for Detroit? That’s very surprising that Detroit is even on the list. I find it hard to believe because Detroit is a large city and Detroit is the only major city without Mass Transportation. According to wikipedia Detroit is the ninth largest metropolitan city in the US. Detroit would be around number 5 if Windsor counted as the US actually. The study actually does not consider the size of the total city but only considers areas where they are walkable. That might explain why Detroit is up there.

CNN reports, the study done by the think tank Brooking’s Institute,Washington as the top city of walkability with 20 areas within their metropolitan area.

Another recent report a couple weeks ago also stated that Detroit is at the top for crime. So I don’t know how many people would be willing to walk around all parts of Detroit.

I’ve just got back from thanksgiving vacation Wednesday. My family and I went to Portland, Oregon for 10 days.  The best part of Oregon is that there is no sales tax. So i loaded up on some clothes, shoes and Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii. While we were in Oregon for thanksgiving we traveled up the Pacific Northwest coast. I drove up to seattle, and then vancouver with my parents. I enjoyed seattle the most. I’ve probably mentioned that before already.

I’ve finally got some time to catch up and fix up some of my personal photos. Here’s a picture i took of my new niece: Reagan Wiss. She was born in the same month of mine: September.  But three days after mine (10th). So shes going to be 3 months old.

Reagan is smart for her own good. Shes growing very fast. Reagan likes sleeping in a baby bjorn & being held. Reagan likes sleeping every 2 hours. She doesn’t fuss very much as long as shes fed, has a fresh pair of diapers.

She’s just got her first cold as we left. She was very unhappy and crying a lot. I hope she gets over that.

I sat down and have been musing through work. I can’t say i’m the best photographer in the world. But for me I felt I’ve  significantly grown, learned and gotten even better as a photographer. Photography is like a martial arts in a way. You don’t learn everything in a day. I thought i’d post my top ten favorite photographs of 2007.

Also, not all these photographs are wedding photographs. They’re some from my personal pursuits and projects that i’ve done.  Some are part of my night photography series and some are part of this fashion photography series that I’ve done.

There are a lot of photos that i’ve shot! I’ve checked too. I have about 400gb’s of photos (mirrored data which means actually 800gb’s except the other 400 gb’s are exact copies of the drive; for backup purposes).

I’d also like to thank everyone that’s given me a chance and has invested time, provided instruction and hiring me for helping me do what I love: photography.

Honorable mention:

10.

Frankenmuth, Michigan

9.

Kensington park with the Secord

8. 

Grand Ledge Opera House wit Mollie lehman and her father

7.

“Plastic Knife Fight” on MAC street and Albert in East Lansing, Michigan

6. 

A wedding in Dearborn, Michigan at the Hyatt with Anu, his mother and horse in parking the lot

5.

Bride and groom Nadia and Scott in downtown windsor during sunset.

4.

Groom John near the Fox  theater and Tiger stadium in Foxtown detroit.

3. 

Wedding in badaxe, michigan.

2.

Detroit, Michigan at the Steve Ragland Seminar

1. Of course this one.

Belle Isle, Michigan in october with the Leach’s Post bridal photos of the Detroit Skyline

I owe due credit and thanks to these people for letting me create these photos: Photos 3,4,10 & honorable mention was second shot for abby rose photo. Photo 6 was  second  shot with the destination photographer, jonathan thrasher photography. and number 5 was  second  shot with John Lyons.

Happy holidays everyone & happy new year! Oh p.s. i hope that everyone else writes posts their top 10’s we can link to each other!