Blue Meets Blue

The sky and Lake Michigan were the same color Tuesday night. I have never seen this before.

I'm back in Muskegon for a couple weeks. It feels good to be shooting again. I can't upload much right away because most of my stuff is on the computer at the Chronicle.

My camera is broken

this is what i get...if it even allows me to take a photo. which means no photos this summer.

I want to upload my Summer Celebration photos from when I freelanced for Muskegon back in June and July but I forgot to bring a DVD on my last day so sadly they are still sitting at the Chronicle. I will upload them next week when I go back to freelance for two weeks :) :) :)

I have tried to use my camera numerous times this summer and here are a couple images from when it has sporratically worked for a few minutes.


I have been spending most of my summer babysitting my little sister Chelsea. I am so grateful for this time with her. The last time I lived with her she was 4 years old. She is now 10. It's important to me that I have a strong relationship with her since I will most likely be leaving the state eventually for a job. I may not be creating as many pictures as I would like but I wouldn't change this summer for the world. She has taught me to be more in-tune with my youth and love for life.


Chels and her friend decided to make a fort in our hallway. Leaving me to have to crawl through it anytime I had to get to the other side of the house. While they were building it, I made a sneak attack and shined a flashlight in Chels' face which resulted in this face. haha. might just be one of my favorite photos. It's kind of hard to see this small but she has a SUPER pissed off face. This may also be why they decided to sneak in my room while i was researching jobs and steal pretty much everything they could get their hands on without me noticing. Gotta hand it to them, they stole a lot of things. Notice the dog getting in the pounce position because she saw me creeping up. haha!


I have been missing taking pictures and while I was sitting at my desk looking out the window staring at the clouds I felt like photographing. So I took out my camera and lucky me. It let me take one photo! ONE! I really liked the colors anyways.

Can't wait to get to Muskegon next week and start photographing again.

Some Muskegon Favorites

Just a few images or assignments that I really enjoyed covering during my internship.



I sat for 45 minutes in this spot waiting for the players to come over to the side of the glass during Kids Day at a Muskegon Fury game. Two minutes before the end of the game I finally decided to give up and try to get something different. As I was getting the kids names before moving on, one of the players scored and there they were. Whew. I would have been furious if I had left a minute earlier.



I covered the MHSAA basketball championship and Western Michigan Christian High ended up winning D class. They worked so hard to win. During the first half I thought for sure they were going to lose and right up until the last minute it was back and forth. I have never felt so emotionally attached while covering a sports team. I was just as excited they had won. and that is why I love my job.



I spent the afternoon with the Kruckenberg family and a reporter at the Chronicle one day. They were part of a piece in the Chronicle's "Working Poor" project. This family has been going through some tough times but while I was with them I was amazed at how close the family was and how much they work together. To me this photo showed the love and compassion they have for each other and how they work through their hard times instead of letting their financial problems break the family apart. Which is not how most family's end up. Of course this photo was never used. Ended up using a lame portrait and picture of the mom crying.




Miss America 2008 Kirsten Haglund. How many chances in your life do you get to see Miss America? Maybe it excited me because I am a girl but I thought it was really cool. At one point in the show she came up and sat next to me to watch the show. It was way too dark to produce an image though.

to be young again

this week I went to GR with Kaity and Jeffrey. We went swinging on the tire swing.

Jeffrey pushed...

I also found this feature today of these girls enjoying a much smaller tire swing.

It's been awhile

what I've been up to

I took this photo while I was still in Kalamazoo. It was voted the best picture for the week of Dec. 27-Jan. 3 on msnbc.com "week in pictures". very exciting. It's one of the prettiest photos I have ever taken.

I've been at the Muskegon Chronicle for a little over a month now. I like the people I work with here a lot. In the last month I have really felt happy with the photographer I am becoming. It's a good feeling as I start to look for a job rather than an internship. Here's some of my favorite assignments or cool things I've done.

The Harlem Globetrotters came to town. It was a really fun assignment.

Winter here has been a complete white out for the most part.

Air Jordan baby. haha. I got to photograph Marcus Jordan, Michael Jordan's son (he's the one on top incase you didn't know). Michael didn't show up. But it was still pretty cool.

Lake Michigan can be pretty in the winter. A reader is going to make a watercolor of this and give me a copy. I'm excited about it. 

At a sledding and snowboarding competition.

I tried uploading more photos but for some reason it wont let me. So, some cool assignments I've done:

-photographing a roller coaster being built at Michigan's Adventure. I don't think I will ever ride it since I watched it be built from scratch. 

-I got to go all the way up in the bucket of a fire truck. It was really sweet. 

-photographed Darren McCarty when he started playing for the Flint Generals against the Muskegon Fury. and that photo ran in the Free Press. 

Overall my stay in Muskegon photography wise has been great. I sure do miss Kalamazoo though.

New York City

Me and Jess went to New York City to visit Jeffrey in November. It was great times. Here are a few of my favorite things we did and photos.

Jess and I in Central Park


Central Park was my favorite


Jeffrey and I :)


on the subway


Ground Zero


on the brooklyn bridge


the city at night from atop the empire state building


macy's. I don't really like macy's, just this photo.


times square was also my favorite

some things in life make you giggle

Occasionally when feature hunting you find some pretty hilarious things


I sat in my car for a bit staring to make sure I wasn't reading it wrong...Don't worry I didn't turn this in for the paper...

I turned this in instead...

Sixth graders read in the window sill at Parchment Middle School.