Jennifer Leigh Photography

Hockey!

2012-01-16T22:40:00.000-05:00

As many of you know, I am a huge sports geek. This doesn't necessarily mean that I am up to date on all the pro leagues and teams of each sport, (although I am up to date on the Red Wings - thanks to my husband!) I really like going and watching local games when I know of someone playing. I like it even more when I'm allowed to bring my camera(s) along!
Luck would have it that I know of two hockey players that play for the same team, Oakland Junior Grizzlies. Both are actually from Russia, and are here in hopes of showcasing their hockey abilities to either get drafted or get picked up by other professional leagues such as the QHL(Quebec Hockey League), OHL(Ontario Hockey League), and CHL(Canadian Hockey League) being among them. In the meantime, I have been trying to catch a game here and there, as well as to get some shots they can send home to Russia.
Here are some of them:

Check out the Facebook link to the right for more images from this game and others!

I heart Faces - Best face of 2011

2012-01-10T18:12:00.005-05:00

Gabriel

(Photo taken 2/27/2011)

I have chosen Gabe for my entry into I Heart Faces "Best Face of 2011." He is such a courageous little man, who has such charisma, love, and playfulness, that if you were to meet him, you wouldn't think there was anything wrong...

You wouldn't know it from this image, but this young man has been facing an uphill battle most of his life. He has a rare, somewhat mysterious blood disorder that requires him to have blood transfusions every so many weeks, along with a regimen of medications that don't always make him feel better. To complicate things, early in 2011 he was diagnosed as having a malformation of his brain, known as Chiari Malformation. This condition causes fluid to build on the spine and could eventually cause him to ultimately lose feeling in his legs, bladder control, etc. From what I understand, these two problems are completely unrelated. If you find you have time, I ask you might spot a second to say a prayer for this little boy and his family to find peace, and that his doctors are able to determine a better way of treatment, if not ultimately a cure.
Thanks for reading, for your time, for your comments if you've left one, and for stopping in.

Jennifer

For updates on Gabe's progress & treatment, you can visit his journal here:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/bravebabygabe

First Art Show Recap

2011-09-27T11:04:00.000-04:00

I want to extend a very gracious thank you to everyone who came out to visit and support me on my first "big" art show venture, the Funky Ferndale Art Fair in Downtown Ferndale. I'd also like a thank you to my art show neighbors who were awesome to chat with and helped with a few pointers here and there! And also a thank you to the rest of the folks I had an opportunity to chat with, made compliments of my work, and those that took a piece(or two) home with them. You all made me feel welcome and accepted, and I cannot thank you enough!

Jennifer

Komen Ride

2011-09-13T08:30:00.000-04:00

Good Morning All!

Just a quick blog based wrap up for the Komen Ride for the Cure.
I want to extend a thank you to all the staff from the Mid-Michigan Affiliate for your support and help at this year's ride. You were all great to work with, and made the day a lot of fun! I also want to give a bit a praise to all the riders who came out to support the cause ~ you all did wonderfully ~ your awesome attitude and determination were inspiring!
Without further ado, for your viewing pleasure:

For more photos from the ride, head over to my facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/JenniferLeighPhoto

Susan G. Komen ~ Ride for the Cure 2011 ~ Are you ready??

2011-08-05T08:00:00.000-04:00

Good Morning & Happy Friday!

Tomorrow morning(8/6) in Ann Arbor, Michigan is a BIG day. I look forward to capturing all the action and more during the second annual Komen Ride! In the meantime, I am preparing my equipment, blanking out my cards, and getting psyched up to enjoy all the happenings!
After the Ride be sure to check back, both here and on my facebook page(Link at right or here: http://www.facebook.com/JenniferLeighPhoto) for a short recap, as well as albums of photos from the day you can share with friends and family!

I'm excited for a great day tomorrow, and I hope you are as well!
See you on the route & the Start/Finish line!

Jennifer

PS. If you were a rider or volunteer in last year's ride, be sure to head to Facebook and see if you can find/tag/share yourself in those photos!

iheartfaces - Floral Photo Challenge

2011-05-16T22:37:00.002-04:00

Here is my entry into this week's iheartfaces challenge: http://www.iheartfaces.com/2011/05/photo-contest-flowers/

I chose this photo and named it "Hand Picked."

While I know of several strong floral images in my bag, I am choosing this one, as I like it's contrasted colors, back story and sentiment best.

This image was shot while in Texas on our honeymoon. This particular day was spent with my husband's side of the family ~ now, I know you're thinking, why on earth would you spend time with family on your honeymoon? I kind of thought the same thing, but there is good reason. My husband and I live in Michigan, and with his family, and he having grown up in the South, we don't get to visit with his family near as much as we would like to. We find the quality of time spent with his family is always great, but we always wish there were more time for quantity. Anywho, in between talking and meeting family, we walked off into the acreage of the farm to explore, I saw several things up close and personal that day; a giant green cricket, lizard, and longhorn cattle to name a few. So in our walk, he picked this small sunflower and presented it to me ~ of course, before all else I forced him to hold it just so, that I may get the shot you see here, but to also document all I could of our trip. (For the record, I do believe I gave him a hug and a kiss for it!) In retrospect and in review of images such as this, and the context with what it was made, I see it now, and it is not perfect. Both as far as the sun flower itself, and of course my husband's hand modeling job(the cleanest skin/nails to recent memory), but it makes me realize that both are imperfectly perfect, we/they are as the Lord made them, and I love them for it.

Thanks for tuning in!
Catch ya next time!

Jennifer

Feel free to stop by my etsy shop and browse some more of my photography:

http://www.byjenniferleigh.etsy.com

i heart faces photo challenge: pets

2011-04-26T09:03:00.000-04:00

Meet, Red. He is my [first ever] entry for this week's "Pets" challenge over at iheartfaces.

Red is a favorite of mine. I met him on my first visit to my husband's family six years ago(We're in MI, they're in AR). Each and every visit, he has been a great companion on our adventures down the stream, into the fields, or up into the hills. Although our trips to visit seem few and far between, Red is always there to greet us upon arrival to say hello and promptly plop down [on our feet] for a subsequent belly rub.

Sammy

2011-03-06T15:39:00.000-05:00

Last week I was given the opportunity to do a small shoot for a family from our church. The plan was to focus on Sammy their newest addition, born on 12/22. He sure is quite the cutie. I have a feeling he(and his brothers, too) will be fighting off the ladies when the time comes.

Long awaited...

2011-01-17T08:26:00.001-05:00

Hello again,

Long time, no see... I've been on quite the hiatus lately. The holiday season was quite hectic, as I had an important family member go into the hospital, which led to many hours spent there making sure company was there. So in the end the photography has been left to the wayside for a good portion of that time.
I did manage to capture a few details of our Christmas and will share them with you now...

A small glimpse of the weather while visiting my husband's family down south for Thanksgiving:

Christmas Cookies!!

A few ornaments from our tree:

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse of our holidays, I'm glad you stopped by, I hope you and yours have a wonderful 2011.

~Jennifer

Happy [day after] Halloween!

2010-11-01T22:49:00.001-04:00

Halloween was such a blast this year. It's amazing the things you can do when you aren't required to be at work doing other things. Josh and I were able to spend our first official Halloween together at the house passing out candy. We managed to give away all of our candy despite having an overall low number of kids out(compared to how many kids went out when I was younger).

In addition to being home, I was able to put up a whole bunch of lights! I have ALWAYS wanted to light up my house, but was never able to when I lived with my folks. Now, there are lights nearly everywhere. In the windows, in the screen door, even found out that orange icicle lighting looks awesome along my garden edging. So, needless to say we had the brightest house on the block!

The only thing we wish we could have down, would have been to don costumes ourselves. Although even if we had, no one would have been the wiser, as we bundled up to beat the cold weather.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the pumpkins! Between the two of us, we carved four, count them FOUR pumpkins. All of which stuck to a Futurama theme, later renamed as "Pumpkin"-rama 2010. I found the stencil for the Bender pumpkin online here. For the other three I ended up utilizing my photoshop skills to create line drawings from some Windows icons that I found. Both Josh, I, and all the neighbors who walked by during Trick-or-Treating loved the final products. So the time spent turned out to be worth it. To answer one question we were asked quite often, no, we did not use any dremels to do our carvings.

Close-ups of the two I carved:

Leela

Bender Bending Rodríguez

Until Next time,

Jennifer

More photo sharing!

2010-10-25T23:17:00.001-04:00

Time sure does fly when you're having fun!

I can't believe it's already been a week since our 10 day Honeymoon/Vacation to Texas, most of which was spent on Padre Island with a view of the ocean. My husband and I had such an amazing time. Somewhere between spending hours upon hours exploring Padre Island's beaches, visiting local and historical locations and travelling in a rental car(Catch me on facebook for full story on this car); I managed to capture an astounding 16 cards worth of images, plus 2 rolls of slide film, and point & shoot images(& My husband didn't once complain!?! [even with a near loss of data from a corrupted card]). On with the show:

We saw many awesome sunrises...

We witnessed some active wildlife too...

Some more wildlife...

Saw some beautiful flora...

One of several fiesty blue claw crabbies...

A shy Hermit Crab...

First time seeing a live jellyfish(This one is a Sea Nettle)...

First time seeing a living starfish...

Loved the waves crashing in...

Witnessed some beautifully lit scenes...

Have I mentioned the sunsets?!?...

That concludes all of my image sharing for now...

Anyways, so yes, not only do I have more images to shuffle through, but I have also decided to scrapbook this honeymoon adventure, as well as our post wedding Mackinac trip, dubbed honeymoon 1.o(noted in previous posting).

If you're interested in following my other photo uploads you can check me out elsewhere on the web with

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenniferleighphotography

http://photo.net/photos/JenniferNeal

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/pages/Detroit-MI/Jennifer-Leigh-Photography/148226101856213

With all the things to come, I look forward to uploading more images, working on my scrapbooks, spending time with my husband, and everything else in between. Life sure is busy, and it doesn't look to be slowing down. I just pray I am able to slow down long enough to capture all the memories along the way!

Until next time!
~ Jennifer

Photo Share Time

2010-09-28T22:12:00.000-04:00

I've finally had time to go through some of our photos from what has been dubbed "Honeymoon 1.o." After our awesome wedding in early July, we ventured up for a long weekend to Mackinaw City, as well as a day spent on Mackinac Island. Today, I have a handful of images to share from the trip. I think you may find them enjoyable, and I hope soon to share more from this specific trip.

Without further ado:

Until next time...

Food!

2010-08-27T21:26:00.000-04:00

So in my "free" time while not either at work or shooting an event of some sort, I have found myself shooting a variety of things around the house. The majority of which has to do with food. In some cases, I have taken shots of preparing food, shooting images of a variety of things coming out of my garden, or the final product of how dinner turned out.
I have found in the short time Josh and I have been married that I thoroughly enjoy making food and trying new recipes. The only unfortunate thing is that not everything is exactly good for you, if you know what I mean!

Until next time, I will leave you with a feast for the eyes (I apologize for ~~the bad pun~~ nothing).

Things from my garden:

One of my fun oven mitts:

From meals:

(these were soooo good!)

Change of pace

2010-08-22T17:19:00.000-04:00

Hi All!

The past week or so has been a bit of a change of pace. The Komen photos as you can see have been available online, and I've wrapped shooting some product toy shots - which was pretty fun - and as far as I can tell my being in weddings has come to a close. Currently I am in the midst of helping my husband around the house to get things ready and planning for our official honeymoon coming in October.

As summer slowly winds down as the kids head back to school, I look forward to the fall color and all it brings. I look forward to photographing landscapes and portraits alike, especially in the pumpkin patches - what fun!! In the meantime I have some personal studio shot ideas I am putting together and hope to get those going, though it is difficult to stay indoors in the weather we've been experiencing lately - my garden has provided much fun and delight this season!! I am going to miss it greatly!

Anyways, I am off to do a few chores and plan for dinner... Perhaps I will take some photographic evidence....

Hope you are having a wonderful Sunday,

for now, I will leave you with one of my recent nature shots!

Komen Ride Photos!

2010-08-16T09:40:00.003-04:00

Hi All!

If you haven't heard the word already, be sure to check out the ride photos from the Susan G. Komen Ride for the Cure, August 7, 2010. You can reach them by going here. From there you can choose which catergory to view. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via email at jleighphoto@gmail.com.

Once again, I want to commend everyone who was involved in this first successful bike riding event! It was a blast to be a part of. THANK YOU.

I hope everyone enjoys the photos!

Jennifer

PS. Congratulations also goes out to my big brother, Joe, and his new beautiful bride, Theresa. Welcome to the family!

Great ride!

2010-08-08T16:38:00.000-04:00

Wow. What an experience!

The Ride went great yesterday! You couldn't have asked for better weather. Mostly sunny, not too hot with a slight breeze for the better part of the day. The day was filled with incredible personal stories of experiences dealing with breast cancer. While emotional, everyone was happy to be there, either celebrating those who lost there battle, or those who have survived and are there simply to help those others still battling. If ever you need strength in a battle of your own, knowing/listening/hearing what some of these women, as well as men and their familes, have gone through can certainly inspire anyone to be motivated.

As for the photos taken throughout the day, we did our best to capture everyone and everything we could. We did our best to capture the activities around base camp, at the aid stations we were able to get to, as well as many riders as we could doing their respective rides, whether on the 27, 57 or 97 mile rides.

I am grateful for my experience working with all of the volunteers and Komen Foundation for this ride, and not just looking forward to getting photos up, but look forward to the future possibilites in the coming years. To everyone who was involved in this ride, I commend you on a job well done, and congratulate those who did there best and gave their all on the routes, both volunteers and riders.

Also a big congratulations to Tracy and Todd on doing an absolutely AWESOME job with getting the ride to come together. They not only met but exceeded their expectations for the ride in both the number of riders, but in the overall funds raised. Todd & Tracy:

Komen Ride Tomorrow!

2010-08-06T13:35:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is a big day! I'm looking forward to tomorrow's Komen Ride for the Cure in Ann Arbor. I've been spending my(furlough) day preparing my equipment, clearing my cards, and trying to do all of the house chores with the hopes of spending Sunday both relaxing and preparing the images from the ride to go on the web.

We're also excited for the ride's Volunteer meeting tonight as we will be going over everything in regards to tomorrow. After the meeting we're planning on scouting the route(s) for places to shoot the riders as they pedal by!

Later for now, there is still much[chores] to do!

Happy August!

2010-08-02T07:07:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the new blog! There is so much to catch up on! Awesome things are happening - with even more coming up!

First off, this week Josh [my husband] will be celebrating our 1 month anniversary since we've been married - yay! We've been having fun looking at all of our images from the big day. A Big thank you to our photographer of choice, Kim Allmand - you can see some of her work over at http://www.daydreamgalleries.com/

Next up on Saturday[August 7] we'll be in Ann Arbor shooting the first ever Susan G. Komen Mid-Michigan Ride for the Cure. We're looking forward to capturing this emotional day as riders from all over put themselves to the test in the 27, 57, or 97 mile ride. To read more on this ride or to figure out how you can get involved check out http://www.komenmidmichigan.org/get-involved/komen-activities/ride-for-the-cure.html

On a side note, I came upon a whole bunch of slide protectors! Why would I make such a big deal about it? No one sells them anymore! - and now I will be in the process of organizing my piles of slides, revisiting memories, and, as soon as I have time, will be scanning some in to hopefully share with everyone!

Happy Birthday Allison!