Wednesday, April 22, 2009

April 22nd The Kroeninger Interpretive Center






Well, weddings are slow to come this spring, so my husband and I have been out checking on the birds. We went to a new location, The Kroeninger Interpretive Center along the Mississippi river. Great spot! There's a heron rookery there, which is super cool to watch the heron's flying in and out. And! I saw my new favorite bird. The Northern Flicker! These guys have a crazy laughing sound that they make and it totally cracks me up! And they dress really nicely as well.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Easter Sunday 2009

It was a typical Minnesota Family Gathering. Words were said, feelings were hurt... or perhaps it was more that certain words were not said, which lead to confusion and misunderstandings... and heartbreak.

In the meantime, much food was eaten and beverages drank and I caught this great photo of this adorable Downy Woodpecker eating suet outside my dad's home.

Try to keep in mind what is most important to you.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Driving Across South Dakota

Fortunately my husband came along with me to the South Dakota wedding and did most of the driving, well probably all of it! He is so good like that. We made a little side trip out of our days not dedicated to the wedding. For the most part there is not a lot to see along I-90 across South Dakota, it's very brown in March. Until you hit Rapid City, there's not much going on. There is however this hauntingly beautiful quality about the landscape. I just kept thinking about how people ever decided to stop there and start a family.

We drove through the Badlands and into Interior, a town in the Badlands, population 67! Very desolate. We needed to find something to eat so we managed to wrangle some stuff up at the tiny little grocery store (being we're both vegetarian this was a little more difficult). We found some tortillas and a tomato and mustard packets and we had some cheese in the car and some chips and we set out to have a little pic-nick in the church park. Quite nice. It was so quite there, there weren't any airplanes flying overhead, no cars passing by, and no people, well maybe 4 that we could see. I felt like we were on another planet!

We eventually arrived in Rapid City to find that there was a highschool basketball tournament going on that weekend and that one of the teams was staying on our floor, in the rooms right next to ours. We were a little concerned at first, but they proved to be well behaved and dedicated players.

On our way out of town after the wedding we first had to take a trip to Wyoming so that we could collect another State magnet (we collect magnets of all of the states that we travel to together). We visited Devils Tower and drove through more hauntingly beautiful landscape, but we couldn't stay long as there were reports of a nasty snow storm headed our way. We took a nice drive through the Black Hills and then high-tailed it out of there! The Black Hills area is beautiful! I wish we could've stayed there longer. Another time! I've posted some of the photos from our journey below.

Driving Across South Dakota












Friday, April 3, 2009

The Wedding of Lexie and Casey




















Ok! So I'm going to try out the blog thing! I have my MFA in photography and it is absolutely what I love to do most, mostly, (besides hanging out in nature and playing with animals). I have been shooting weddings now for 3 years and I truely enjoy it, I'm just not very good at marketing myself, I'll be honest. I'm a very honest person. So I'm going to try the blog in hopes of allowing people to see more about myself and that, yes I can say it, I'm a cool person! I know it's more Minnesotan to be more modest but what the heck!

So, on March 21st I got to photograph a really awesome wedding in Rapid City South Dakota! Yes a little out of my range but so worth it! Lexie and Casey are awesome and hilarious and have the greatest group of party friends that I've seen in a long time! I got to ride in their limo with them and stop at a drive through liquor store (why don't we have those here?), climb over stone walls into The Chapel in the Hills which was closed for the season, but hey, they were getting married! Lets make an exception here! Thank you, Thank you to those kind grounds keepers! This group was a blast, I'm so happy I was able to take part in their awesome day! Take a look at some of the pictures.