The Bird and the Plum

My friend Jalynn and I have been doing a collaborative photography project called The Bird and the Plum.  It's been great fun to do something with my friend and it's caused me to have to think more creatively about photography.  Here are a few of our recent diptychs.  If you want to see more, please check it out here!

Jalynn's pictures are on the left and mine are on the right.

Random Ramblings

Hi there, everyone.  I actually have another post planned for today (that will be going up soon!), but in the meantime, there are things I wanted to tell you, and I needed another post to do it in.  First of all, I want to share a book I've been loving lately.

This book is The Valley of Vision, edited by Arthur Bennett.  It's a collection of wonderful, very rich Puritan prayers.  I've been trying to read one every morning for the past few days, and I've been enjoying them so much!  They are packed with truth that it is so good to remind myself of.  I have been writing lots of notes in the margins because so many things stick out to me!  If you don't have this book, I highly recommend it.  You may be able to find at some Christian bookstores, but you can also order it on Amazon.com.  The prayers are only one page long, so it's not hard to read, and I am certain you will benefit from reading this book because it's so packed with treasures!  It's quickly becoming one of my all-time favorites, next to the Bible, that is.  I'd like to share a quote from this book with you, so here it is.

O Lord God, who inhabitest eternity,
The heavens declare thy glory,
The earth thy riches,
The universe is thy temple;
Thy presence fills immensity,
Yet thou has of thy pleasure created life, and communicated happiness;
Thou has made me what I am, and given me what I have;
In thee I live and move and have my being;
Thy providence has set the bounds of my habitation,
and wisely administers all my affairs.
I thank thee for thy riches to me in Jesus,
for the unclouded revelation of him in thy Word,
where I behold his Person, character, grace, glory,
humiliation, sufferings, death, and resurrection;
Give me to feel a need of his continual saviourhood.
- From "God the Source of All Good" in The Valley of Vision

I hope you enjoyed that quote.  It was such a great reminder to me of the fact that God is amazing and omnipresent, and yet he has blessed me so wonderfully - most of all with the gospel!

Another thing I wanted to share with you is something that me and my friend, Jalynn, are working on.  Can you guess what it is?

It's a blog!  See?

So what is this blog about, you ask?  Jalynn and I are going to do another diptych project, like this one we did this past summer.  It's going to be more on-going this time, so we've created a blog to chronicle our project!  Please check out our blog, The Bird and the Plum.

Oh, and I will definitely still be blogging here every day, too.  But either Jalynn or I will try to post once a week on The Bird and the Plum to share our diptychs.

Also, I wanted to share a neat web shop that I found recently.  It's called Inkello Letterpress.  There are lots of neat letterpressed items to be found here.  Here's one thing I like: mini matchbook calendars.

Aren't they so cute?  I really like the color and font choice, too.  If you want some fun paper goods to look at, I'd recommend Inkello Letterpress.

That's all for now!  But check back later today for a big announcement!

Ellie B Photography

Preface: I did not take any of the pictures in this post.  They are all from other, much more talented people.  But on to the reason for the post...

I have a really good friend.  Her name is Ellie.  And she takes great pictures.  So great that, in fact, she has her own photography business.  I've designed a couple things for her business that you can check out in my portfolio.  Ellie just opened up a brand new website.  This is a very momentous occasion that she's been looking forward to for a long time, so I thought I'd celebrate with her and give her some free advertising as well, just for fun.

Let's start way back at the beginning.  I met Ellie when we were probably about seven or eight.  We met at church, in children's ministry.  Since then, we've gotten to be better and better friends.  We love spending time together, and have had numerous fun memories together.  Just for laughs (thanks, Ellie, for that great phrase idea!), here's a picture of us four years ago.

{photo credit: my mom}

Wow.  Now that's a major flashback.  And notice the different colored writing on the lunch bags?  We liked being creative together even then.  But moving on...

Fast forward to the present time.

My graphic design business is just starting up, but Ellie's photography business has been going for a good while.  She's now a lovely young woman who's a fabulous photographer and a super fun Biblical friend to me.  Ellie and I laugh a lot together, and she also encourages me to love Jesus more.

{photo credit: rachael boer photography}

And she takes some pretty fabulous pictures.  (Did I say that already?)  To give you an idea of what she does and why it's so great, I've taken some pictures off her blog (with her permission of course) to show you. 

She does very cute newborn sessions.

{photo credit: ellie b photography}

And she's very talented at capturing family portraits in a real down-to-earth, precious way.

{photo credit: ellie b photography}

{photo credit: ellie b photography}

She also does great individual portraits.  Really, she is a very good portrait photographer.

{photo credit: ellie b photography}

Ellie also does senior photoshoots. (Attention seniors: I know graduations aren't until next spring, but start planning ahead and book a session with Ellie!  I'm sure she won't mind!)  I'm impressed by all the creatively posed shots she does.

{photo credit: ellie b photography}

{photo credit: ellie b photography}

And believe it or not, on top of all this fabulous lifestyle portraiture, Ellie also does weddings!  She will shoot or second-shoot your wedding.

{photo credit: ellie b photography}

All that said, I think the best thing about Ellie's photography is that it's real.  When you get pictures taken of yourself, or your family, or your wedding, or whatever, you want them to really capture who you are, don't you?  That's what's really precious about pictures, right?  And Ellie's pictures truly do this, in a way that not all pictures do.  There's nothing dressed-up or stuffy about her photography.  She takes pictures that reflect the real you and your real personality.

Please head on over to Ellie's website and check it out for yourself.  If you need a photographer who will do everything she can to capture your family or your special day or your new baby...or yourself, let Ellie know.  I know she'd be happy to be that photographer.

Photography Collaboration

Even though design is the creative endeavor I like the best, I also really enjoy playing around with photography.  I have several friends who are great photographers.  They inspire me and it's always fun to read their blogs, check their Flickr accounts, and sometimes take pictures with them.

One of those friends is named Jalynn.  We met when I was seven and she was eight, and even though she moved away one year later, we've been friends ever since!  She's such a faithful friend to me and cares for my soul as well as being a lot of fun.  And I love her photography!  So, I thought it'd be fun to do a photo project with her.  I've seen projects before where two friends each take a picture per day and then combine them into a diptych.  That's what Jalynn and I did.  We picked one theme a day for a week, each took photos, and came up with these sets.  Jalynn's photos are all on the left, and mine are on the right.

Our first theme was shoes and feet - always a cooperative photo subject! 

And then, the next day, our theme was music and instruments.  We both ended up taking pictures of "our" instruments - Jalynn plays piano and I play violin.

Our third day's subject was summer, for obvious reasons.  It was interesting to see how such a broad topic came out, though.

Day four's theme was colors of the rainbow...

Theme number five was breakfast, a brilliantly random idea from Jalynn.  Muffins + crepes are both pretty yummy.  And ironically, we both had a small, dark-colored, spherical fruit on the plates we photographed.  That was entirely unplanned.

The sixth theme we had was America, since day six fell on July 4th.  These pictures ended up totally opposite, but at least they both involve red, white, and blue.

Jalynn, thanks for doing this fun project with me, and for being my friend!  I am grateful for you!

And now, blog readers, what do you think of the photos?  Do you have a favorite diptych?  Or maybe some comments, critique, or constructive criticism?  All those things are welcome!