Parades and children, what a perfect combination! Cartier-Bresson would have been proud of me as I waited and waited for just the right moment to capture this girl waving the Stars and Stripes!As most of you know I am always looking to experiment and try new things with my photography. Well, I had never really done much street photography until I watched a
Kelby Training course with the famous
Jay Maisel and
Scott Kelby.

- I just love all the interesting patterns in old architecture!
To put it simply it rocked my world! It was such an eye opening experience to watch Jay just walking around New York, creating these amazing photos of life around him! Jay is sort of an opinionated old man(He's 80 yrs old and still walks the streets of NY everyday shooting! How cool is that!!), so he has plenty of funny, biased views but they are based on decades of wisdom, so the grain of salt you take them with should be pretty small!! Until now I had not ever really done much street photography, I think mostly because I live in the cliche' urban sprawl land of asphalt, concrete, and strip malls. After seeing Jay work, I was hooked! I have talked about how I am attracted to the intimate details of the natural and man made world in front of my lens, so I guess its not a big surprise that I would be attracted to street photography and its capture of intimate details of the street and the life that's in those streets!
"'S" Before neon and plastic signs were these perfect letters of steel, installed to last for decades and aged to perfection by Mother Nature.Recently we went to visit some friends in South Haven,MI and they have a great old downtown and as we walked I got to channel my inner Jay Maisel! I still lean towards lines, patterns and color and not people quite yet, but I had so much fun shooting and I could have shot for many more hours!! I can't wait for my next opportunity to go to the streets and continue to capture beauty that most people walk past everyday.

Environmentally- friendly parking lot! I just loved all the colors and lines of these group of bikes I found during our walk
I spent the first couple years of my journey as a photography learning the technical parts, all about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc... and although I am a very technical person who loves the geek side of digital photography, at my core I am a creative, and it was SO validating, and inspiring to hear Jay say, "Every photo has a who, what, where, when, why, and how. Only the how has anything to do with the technical side of photography" WOW! what a great reminder! Yes, we have to learn the technical, but get it done, learn it, and then move on to the creative part of our art! Its just a tool, just like a painter, we have to pick the "right" paint brush for the job, but its only the vehicle to get to the final image, I used to get so caught up in the technical side and now that I have learned the ins and outs of my camera and understand what everything does I have been able to let it go and it has become nearly unconscious and it's such a freeing feeling for a creative to not have to get hung up on the tools, and be able to focus on the creation of images!