This afternoon we went to The Skyline Club to shoot some photos for their advertisement brochure they’re putting together. The Skyline Club is part of the same organization that owns The Renaissance Club where we shot pics of a few weeks ago. The layout is very similar with lots of big windows and an incredible view!

We live in the city of Sterling Heights and every year they have an annual Christmas celebration. There was music, animals, carraige rides, and of course…Santa Claus!

This is a photo of the Upton House which is historical house right by City Hall.

Mayor Richard Notte just before giving Santa Claus the key to the city.

Santa gets the key.

There was a steady crowd around the bonfire to keep warm.

Horses pull a carraige around Dodge Park.

An inflatable snowman is one of many decorations.

This afternoon we did some photographs for The Renaissance Club in downtown Detroit. We’re going to be doing an ad in their brochure and the photoshoot today were some other pics to use in there brochure.

A couple days ago, I had the chance to visit a fellow artist named Robin Remick. Robin does some amazing abstract paintings that have some really cool textures and other 3-D details. Her paintings are quite large. The first two images below are 4′x4′ paintings and then the second two images show some of the texture and detail in some of her other work. Robin had me take some photos of her images that she could use on her website. If you like her work, she can be reached at robinre883@aol.com.

This evening we went to downtown Detroit to the Roostertail Club where City Mission was having their annual fundraising gala. They had a super hero theme “ordinary people doing extraordinary things” which is a perfect description for what happens at City Mission. For those that don’t know about City Mission, they do amazing things for their community. From their website:

Our mission is to break the cycle of generational poverty by meeting the educational, physical and spiritual needs of families in the Brightmoor community, through loving, mentoring relationships that make life-change possible.

We have structured City Mission around four foundational “pillars” we believe will make transformation in the Brightmoor community possible. The four pillars are Education, Leadership, Family and Community.

Anyway, tonight as the event started we got to see an incredible sunset over the city. The event itself was a packed house and they had lots of items available for their silent auction along with a live auction and we can only hope/pray that they reached their financial goals for this evening.
Cheridy and I took some pictures there just to provide them with a little bit of documentation of their event. We also donated a portrait shoot for their silent auction and will be interested to see who the winning bidder is.

A few more pics can be viewed here.

Our chuch (Kensington) just opened a new campus on the east side of town near M-59 and Gratiot at the Armstrong Performing Arts Center. We were expecting a lot of people but there were a LOOOTTTT of people which was awesome!!! For anyone that wants to learn more about Kensington, check out kensingtonchurch.org.

Saturday night we were driving home from a wedding and we stopped to view the detroit skyline and take some night photos and while we were out there, a fireworks display kicked off in front of cobo hall and we had quite a view!!

Tonight, our church (Kensington Community Church) held baptisms for about 160 people at Stony Creek Metro Park. Cheridy and I went and took photos for them. It was a beautiful sunny evening and we got to witness the baptisms in the lake at sunset which was really cool. While we were at it, we tried grabbing a few artistic shots as well.

Sterlingfest 2006 has been taking place over the last three days at Dodge Park about a half mile up the road from our house. We wanted to get out there to document the event for the city of Sterling Heights. The last few days have been extremely busy, but we were able to get out there this afternoon and again this evening. Here are just a few of the pics - the rest of them can be seen here:
http://www.arisingimages.com/event/sterlingfest_2006/index.html

Cheridy and I went to church this morning. Kensington church is known for being over the top sometimes, but today was really wild. They were talking about the Davinci Code and as part of the opener they played a song from an 80’s hair band called the CodeBreakers. They went all out with the outfits and the stage lighting and everything. It was so funny that Cheridy and I went home after the second service, got our cameras and went back for the last service to take photos. Then I made up a little poster:

Today we were brought in to shoot some pictures of the building that Detroit’s City Mission uses.
City mission’s goal is to “break the cycle of generational poverty by meeting the educational, physical and spiritual needs of families in the Brightmoor community, through loving, mentoring relationships that make life-change possible.”
What a great goal that is!!! There are some amazing people that are working and helping out there.

Well, we’re moved in to our new house now…no photos to show yet because it’s still somewhat messy. We’ve been working on getting the studio up and running for some portrait shoots.
We had our first shoot yesterday for some basic headshots. We’re definitely looking forward to the upcoming season!!

Here are some of the pics from our first pics taken in the new studio space.