We’ve done photos with little Fallon for the last few years and it’s really neat to watch her grow.  This year we headed out to Rochester park in Rochester, MI and she had fun running around and playing with her parents.
She’s three years old now, and here’s a link to some pics when she was two years old, and another for one years old.

This morning we did our first INYH (IN Your Home) portrait special. We had a great time with our friend Julie and her two boys.
Here are a few of the photos from their shoot:

We just recently launched a bunch of new websites that do a much better job showing off our photos.
Our main site (www.arisingimages.com) is still the main hub, but it splits off into our new wedding site (www.arisingweddings.com), our new high school senior site (www.arisingseniors.com), our new babies site (www.arisingbabies.com), and our new kids site (www.arisingkids.com). We really felt that our website is one of the first points of contact for a lot of our clients so we wanted to have an impactful website that showed large photos with fitting music. We’re very excited to have this completed.

Yesterday afternoon my good friend Frank Lombardo who is a photographer did some family photos with us. It was really run, he took pics, we took pics, and we were all coming up with ideas…it was a good time!! Here’s a link for the slideshow:

http://www.arisingimages.com/miscellaneous/personal/mukherjee_20080127/

Here are a few favs:

Every year Cheridys mom gets us together to take photos for her Christmas card. This year we waited for little Mayz to be born so he could be included too.

One of the traditions is to do what we call a “big head” photo where we mess with everyones picture using Photoshop.

This afternoon we did some portraits for young Will. His Bar Mitzvah is coming up in January. Will was the nicest and most relaxed and polite 12 year old that I’ve ever met. He took direction better than most adults and we’re really looking forward to shooting his big event in a couple months.

This afternoon we did some pics with little Caroline at Rochester Park. Their family stuck it out through the intermittent wind and rain and we got a ton of fun pics!!

Today we got to shoot some fun photos for our friend Kristan who is the catering director at Cherry Creek Golf Club where we shoot a lot of weddings. These kids will soon be Kristan’s step kids and she already has a great bond with these kids.

The Wilson family won our summer contest by coming up with the fun idea of having a family slip and slide / shaving cream fight.
After some scheduling difficulties, we finally got the chance to get together with them and we had a riot!!
One of the goals of this contest was to be able to do a fun shoot and create images that will be treasured as a fun memory. So many portrait shoots are traditional and tame and…boring and part of our goals as photographers is to step out of the box and create/capture energy and fun as opposed to just taking stagnant posed pictures where everyone is wearing jeans and white shirts. These pictures do NOT show off the perfect pose, the perfect smiles, the perfect lighting, etc. etc. That’s good!! They’re not supposed to…instead, they show off fun and laughter and they are REAL. This is the Wilson family having fun together and we are so blessed to have been a part of this!! In twenty years from now, it will be really fun for the boys to be able to look at these pictures and remember how much fun they had and to be able to see their parents laughing hysterically on the slip and slide. Likewise, Dave and Ann will be able to look at these pics and see the boys laughing as they tackle one another. What a great day!!
I hope that when we have grown kids, we will be able to play together as a family and laugh hysterically with each other.

Here are a few favorites:

Below is their slideshow that shows off some of the favorite photos. Press the play button once it comes up (fast internet connection required):

Last week we got to do a photoshoot for the Schoenbeck family. We first learned about their family from a church because a few years ago, their son Andrew went through a difficult battle with cancer. His story gave inspiration to thousands of people and through his trials, he brought God to a lot of people. Andrew and the family are now doing fantastic!

Below is a photo of Andrew and here are some words from him:
Hi, my name is Andrew Schoenbeck. I am 12 years old. When I was 10, I was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer. I had two concerns. My first concern was dying and my second concern was if I would lose all my hair.

Cancer gave me a power. People would listen to me when they wouldn’t listen to me before. I thought it was an excellent time to spread God’s word. On Good Friday I sat down and wrote a song about God. It got on the radio and everybody listened to it. God threw a curveball at me in life and I swung. So when God gives you an opportunity to spread His word, take a chance and go for it.

For anyone that wants to read more about Andrew, you can do so here:
http://www.caringbridge.org/mi/andrew/
user: andrew
pass: believeit

The winner of our 2007 summer contest is Ann Wilson and family. We had 23 entries and it was definitely hard to choose. Congrats Wilsons!! We’re looking forward to doing your photo shoot.
I will not be releasing the details of the photo shoot that they will be doing…that’s going to stay a secret, but I will be sure to post lots of pics once the shoot happens!

Yesterday the Medfords came back over to see their pictures and they put together a couple of really cool composite layouts: