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when you're underwater, you see such a great variety of creatures and fish, that it's actually mind boggling sometimes! God has created so many weird and unusual life forms, and sometimes it's hard to even see their purpose at all. i love the diversity under the ocean, and i crave finding the weird, the cool and the rare.
Darryl and i have been to Roatan five times, and we always stay at the same resort ,every time. we love the people, we love the resort, and we just feel like we've arrived at home every time we step off the boat.
the first year that we went to Cocoview Resort, i learned the skill of underwater photography, but at the same time, it was my very first on a reef and in the caribbean!! i was enthralled by all the fish, and i thought every one of them were cool, awesome, and photo worthy!! i took pictures of EVERYTHING!!!! it was actually quite ridiculous. i think i averaged about 1000+ photos a day, and i couldn't get enough of it.
unfortunately, i don't get quite as excited about parrot fish as i used to, and i don't even take photos of damsel fish anymore. i know, it's so sad.
i crave the small, i crave the unique, i crave the rare.
now, i do have to say that it's pushing it so show me MICROSCOPIC!!! please Kirk, put away your magnifying glass and stop finding stuff that makes my eyes cross just trying to see what the crap you're showing me!!!
a nudibranch is like a slug, and they are not very common along the reef. well, they're probably more common than i think, but they're nearly impossible to see because they blend into the reef so well.
Kirk (our awesome dive master) kept telling me that he was going to find me a lettuce leaf sea slug ( and i told him that was his goal for the week), but every we went to a dive site, we came up empty handed!! i didn't even know what to look for to find one of these things!!!
after a few days, i was ready to give up on finding one.
one afternoon, i was diving along Cocoview Wall with the hubby, and we were going so slowly along the reef that we were almost going backwards! in my head, i was talking to myself about the sea slug problem, and i was just REALLY wanting to find one!!!
all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, i see something fall from a coral head.
it was white, about 2 inches long, and it caught my attention.
i stopped, swam over to see what fell, and saw a little white thing. i thought it might be a piece of coral that had just fallen from a reef head down to another piece of coral.
well, slowly this little white thing moved, started righting itself, and KAPOW, it was a LETTUCE LEAF SEA SLUG (or nudibranch)!!
can you believe it?
God gave me a lettuce leaf sea slug at the very same second that i asked for it! LOL!
i should have asked to see a million dollars, since i've never seen that either.
ahhhhhhh.... the little miracles that make me smile.
here it is (oh, and you'll see why they're hard to find. they look like the reef!!)
there are fish in the caribbean, called 'blennies' . they are usually very small, and i seem to have an incurable addiction to photographing them. most of them are 1 inch long, teeny tiny, and super fast and hard to photograph. you'd think i'd give up on trying to get photos of them, but nope. the challenge just makes me want to photograph them even more!!! LOL!
my old underwater camera, couldn't really take photos of blennies, since they were too small. i wanted to beat my camera up.
Darryl bought me a new underwater camera for Christmas, and it was the maiden voyage of my Canon G11 last week. i found out that it does a decent job on the macro stuff.
good times!!
ok, back to the blenny story.
Darryl and i were going along Cocoview Wall again, and i was photographing some little blenny on a sponge, and he summoned me over to photograph something else. i swam over, and found the weirdest looking fish staring back at me. it was about 3 inches long, brown, and it was butting it's head against the coral in front of it.
i took a bunch of photos of it, and then swam away.
up on land, we tried to figure out what the heck this fish was!
nobody knew.
NOBODY!!!!!
it wasn't until the next day, that we found a dive master that knew what the heck it was. Kirk told me that it was a 'Goatee Blenny', and that he's only ever seen ONE in his entire life! when a dive master says he's only seen something once, it's a big deal , since he does thousands of dives!!
when i say that i've only seen something once, it's not big deal, since we've only done just over 200 dives in the last few years, and some of those are fresh water dives when zebra mussels are the most exciting thing you ever see. i did dive in the Detroit River once , and that was just disgusting!!!
ok, so without further ado, here is the GOATEE BLENNY!
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a rare find and falling from the sky
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141
yesterday, my good friend and fellow wedding photographer, Jayme Morrison and I, took to the streets of Windsor to scout some cool new shooting locations for our upcoming wedding season.
ummmm......
it didn't go very well.
you see, we got off to a rocky start when we got sidetracked by talking too much, and then we realized that we were driving aimlessly around! we quickly got back on track, tried to focus, and then decided that we needed to eat.
we have our priorities ya know.
after a yummy lunch and some good conversation at Chanoso's , right in downtown Windsor, we set off on foot to discover some treasures. actually, we thought we might get lucky and come across some REALLY great shooting locations, but we soon realized that it wasn't going to be our lucky day.
well, what do you do when you can't find any awesome locations?
you photograph OTHER COOL STUFF!
some of our finds of the day include an alley with cool shadows, a fair trade store that smelled like incense and had a Matryoshka doll with the face of Vladmir Putin, a night club called the Boom Boom Room (i like the name), a Windsor Symphony schedule so that Jayme can take her son to the Peanut Butter n' Jam concerts, and some mud.
all in all, it wasn't a total loss.
you see, i had a great time getting to know Jayme better, it was beautiful and sunny outside and we got to walk around AND it was a day away from work at the computer, which doesn't happen very often.
here are a few photos from our adventures in Windsor...
since wedding photographers in WIndsor aren't very busy during the winter months, we resort to shooting murals! LOL!
ITDR:
Testing 123
(03.10.10)
Jayme:
You know, it's so funny how we were both at the same place and different images came about ;) Well, I guess we know this about photography though - there can never be a duplication in how one sees the world ;)
(03.27.10)
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139
March 4th, 1983
the beginning of the life as i know it.
you see, March 4th 1983 is the day that Darryl asked me to be his girlfriend.
it was 2 weeks after my 14th birthday, and it was a friday.
i wish that i still had the original note, but after all of our moving around and the age of the paper, i guess it got lost or thrown out. i still remember the gist though.
Darryl was too shy to ask me out in person, so on that fateful friday morning, before classes started, i was handed a little piece of paper. i was also told not to read it until after he left the room. talk about shy!
it went something like this
"Michele, I like you a lot, and I'd like to ask you to be my girlfriend. I had to ask you today, because I couldn't live through the weekend. Love always, Darryl"
Yep.
Short and to the point.
Darryl and i met in Jr.High in Toronto. I was in grade 8 and he was in grade 9.
for me, it was love at first sight, but it took Darryl a little bit longer to realize that i was the girl for him. i was willing to wait.
Darryl played violin and i played viola, and it was actually the music that brought us together. he happened to be the best violinist in the school, and i was the best violist. it was a match made in heaven.
two music nerds, staring at each other from across the orchestra.
man, i had such a crush on that guy! it was crazy!!!
so, 27 years later, we are still together and we are celebrating our 21 anniversary this coming August.
we have 3 teenagers and a lifetime of memories.
through all the trials and all the journeys, i can still say that i'm crazy about this guy.
we still play in an orchestra, and we still stare across the room at each other and i still get that loving wink from the man of my dreams.
of course, we're older, we have a few gray hairs (well, him more than me of course) and we're far from those being those kids with a crush.
we are two 41 year olds with a crush!
even after all these years we adore each other, lust after each other, and can't get enough of each other.
not much has changed in the last 27 years.
when i talk to my clients about love and marriage, i know what i'm talking about!
here are a few embarrassing photos of us together, from ages 14 to 19.
this was taken on a school music trip, about 2 months after we started dating. it was a LONG bus ride to Washington DC, and we fell asleep. i'm so thankful that i have great friends to take embarrassing photos of me at my best!
yep, i had a puppet muppet! i still love Animal!
i think i am in grade 10 in this photo. as you can see, we had some issues with using Sun In during the summer, and we were still sporting the awesome YELLOW hair! LOL!
this was taken a few months after we got engaged. i was 19 yrs old here.
man, i LOVED that sweatshirt and wore it until it was in tatters!
this was the Christmas, after we were engaged. i was still 19 years old here. Darryl was 20.
it was the December before we got married.
these are our kids!
it's hard to believe that 27 years later, we would have these awesome kids!
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there are times when you just need to step back and enjoy the little things in life, like the feel of bread dough between your fingers.
sometimes life gets away from you, and you just need to regroup and put the computer down.
when my kids were little, i took the time to learn the art of bread making. trust me when i say that bread making is an art, because not only is it NOT for the faint hearted, but it takes the patience of a saint!
i took out a little video from the library, and found out the right way to mix, knead and help bread to rise properly.
i needed a big bowl, some good flour, and patience in large amounts.
it wasn't long before i was a bread baking fool, making all our family's bread. my kids actually got excited when i bought store-bought bread, because it was such a weird thing for me to do. i got into making breads made into braids, sourdough bread, and my favourite thing, which is artisan breads.
i used to tell my hubby that i made bread to save some money, but it wasn't just the money i had in mind.
kneading bread takes time and energy, and it is extremely relaxing.
i liked how it made me feel.
i liked how it felt between my fingers.
i liked the how my kids got excited about punching down the dough once it had risen.
i liked how the house smelled like yummy goodness for hours after the bread was taken from the oven.
bread.
the other day, i just needed a moment to relax and get back to all that makes me who i really am.
it's easy to lose sight of who you really are.
i once again, became the woman that makes bread for her family.
i once again, got to smell the awesomeness that fills the house once bread starts to get all brown and lovely in the oven.
of course, i had to document the event with a photo.
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a little bread
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127
there are times when i write about my escapades as a wedding photographer, and some days that i write about other stuff.
this is other stuff.
here are a few things i've realized lately.....
- every time my phone rings, my dogs jump up and run to the back door to be let out. i never trained them to do this, but they must have read the report about Pavlov's dog and thought it would be a good idea to test the theory on me. i think it's actually a reverse thing for them. i think they are actually training ME to jump up every time my phone rings, so that they can stop being ignored and let out more than once a day. smart dogs, but i'm onto them BIGTIME!
- i'm not as afraid if trying new foods as i once was. i tried Mulligwatany soup the other day, and not only was it curry based, but it was delish! i didn't try the sashimi, but come on people, FRIED EEL and raw oily fish? not gonna happen any time soon.
- i seriously dislike photos with vignetting all over the place. come on now......
does every single photo need to be surrounded in black blur? sorry, but i feel opinionated today, and i just can't take all that vignette!
- one more thing i don't care for is tilting. i was actually nauseous the other day, while i was looking at some photos that were all tilted to the left. it looked like everyone was just about to slide off the road or off the dance floor. too much, too much!!!! TOO MUCH TILTING!!!!!
- i am feeling the urge to sign up for Rosetta Stone and learn spanish. hey, why not?
- i think i might break down and get some artificial nails soon. my nails are so soft and split every time i try to grow them. it might just happen!
- i have never liked Shostakovich, but the orchestra that i'm performing with, is playing the 3rd mov't from his 10th symphony. it's actually pretty cool and i'm sorry for disliking this poor, misunderstood and oppressed composer. i will say, that if i am asked to perform something by Phillip Glass, then i'm walking out! Philip Glass's music makes me want to run over a cute little animal or something. shoot me now.
- i am excited about some new endeavours for 2010, and that includes advertising with www.everythingwedding.ca . i never really wanted to advertise with anyone, since i am a firm believer in word of mouth, but is such a good opportunity! YAY!
- i wish i could wear my Croc slippers everywhere i go, but i don't want to be judged by my footwear! oh, who am i kidding? i wear crazy shoes all the time, so why should i stop now!
that's the world according to me :)
what's a post without a photo?
it's my niece giving her baby a kiss!
HAHAHA!!!
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something in the wind.....
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