Katie Gregory Photography: The Blog » michigan

Tons of News!

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:15:09 +0000

First and foremost, I am no longer Katie G.! I am now Katie Mollon
Our September wedding back in Michigan went amazingly well. When I think back, it feels more like a dream than something that we meticulously planned for a year and then finally happened! One of my favorite parts that I hadn’t realized I was missing was spending so much time with my girlfriends (aka bridesmaids): new and old. It was just wonderful to have them all with me, in my favorite city (shhh don’t tell anyone in Grand Rapids I miss it – they think I’m cool for living in Seattle).

Getting our hair & makeup ‘did at Salon:Re. I remember being sooo tired because I was up all night catching up with Michelle & Adrienne, my friends since middle school! Totally worth it though – as soon as the ceremony started I was too overwhelmed with activity and happiness to ever notice I was tired

I’m so glad that we booked my former co-worker Amanda to capture our memories: I can’t tell you how much time I spend re-living our big day through these beautiful images. We didn’t even think about how well our colors would go with GVSU’s orange buildings — not to mention how lucky we were to get blue skies in autumn! I couldn’t have asked for more comfortable weather.

I could go on and on about our wedding trip home… it was so great that I’ve been in a bit of a mental funk since returning to WA. So, to get myself motivated, I decided to start entering photography shows again. I was fortunate enough to be juried into Glazers Camera’s Holga Competition for the second year in a row! Last time they had four different categories – but this time it was narrowed down to just portraits. So when I planned to visit Kelly on our drive between southern & northern MI, I knew I just had to get her to pose for a few frames! I’m so pleased that I did, because this image got my very first honorable mention:

There was a closing event at Glazers, and I got to meet one of the jurors Michelle Bates, and get an autographed copy of her book! It felt really good that a few of my newer Seattle friends came out to support me – and even a friend from GVSU who also lives out here! City of transplants

I was just notified that another photography show I entered, Shadows & Reflections, has accepted three of my entries! I think that’s a new personal record for me, beating Edmonds Art Fest in 2010, in which I had two entries selected This show is curated by June Sekiguchi, and will take place in February-June at University House Wallingford. That’s right – it’s at a senior living center. I loved reading this article about how retirement community art exhibits are quickly growing in popularity! I can’t wait to see how other artists interpreted the theme. Here are the pieces I had accepted:

The first two should look familiar if you follow my blog (I seriously thought I took those a couple months ago, not over a year ago…), and the third one if you follow me on flickr (sorry I’ve been neglecting you).

So there you have it: how I’ve been occupying my time for the last three months. Don’t worry – I’ve got plenty of new projects in the works, including:

Promo shots for Bleeding at Dawn while I’m home for Christmas
Hanging photos up for sale at Lah Lah’s Pre-Loved Clothing (new store run by three of my favorite Petoskey women)
Blazing through a refrigerator full of expired film that was so kindly donated!

Easter Sunday Adventure

admin — Sat, 14 May 2011 07:38:26 +0000

A lot of people have big family get-togethers to celebrate Easter. My parents and I always celebrated with a ham “dinner” (lunch) together, which is really special, because the three of us are the full-time work or school eat-on-the-run types. It’s nice to have holidays like Easter to just enjoy being home together – so it was a great time to be home from Seattle.

I’m an only child and our extended family is spread all over Michigan, so I would usually walk over to a neighbor’s house for someone to play with after our family meal. Well we’re all grown up now and spread across the country! So I was really happy that my friend Kelly wanted to come visit & take photos with film cameras. In a lot of ways it was just like what I used to do with my best friend growing up on Easter Sunday: go exploring outside, and bring along a lot of imagination.

When thinking of where in all of Petoskey I wanted to take Kelly, I thought of a place my Dad took me to five years ago to photograph. It goes along the railroad tracks, and has lots of random abandoned things… a photographer’s favorite subject! I was shooting with E6 film that amazingly expired even before then, back in 2002! It was processed in C-41 chemistry to produce cross-processed colors. These are 35mm half frames, scanned as if they were a single negative.

By this point in our walk we had stopped at K-Mart for more film (didn’t want the fun to end) and headed in the opposite direction: along the Bear River towards the waterfront. This is another path I used to take with my parents, but it didn’t used to be an official / paved trail. Things looked the same and yet different. The Mitchell Street Bridge area always makes me feel connected to my Gregory family because we used to have reunions down there. These are regular C-41, dedicated to my aunts Fay & Shelley.

Bridal Shower #2

admin — Tue, 03 May 2011 06:19:40 +0000

On to my second bridal shower! (see previous blog if you missed the first installment). Hosted by my mom, Julie, and aunt Jennifer, this shower was located at the historic Terrace Inn in the Bay View neighborhood of my hometown – Petoskey, MI.

I am skipping ahead a day, but in between showers (Easter Sunday), my friend Kelly and I shot a bunch of film. I ended in the middle of a roll on my new/old half-frame camera, so decided to bring it along to this shower – it’s so tiny and convenient compared to my digital. Well, I had only used the camera once before this trip, so I hadn’t discovered how touchy the focus is. When it says ‘portrait’, it means, you better be right up in the person’s face!

Despite the soft focus on some of these, I’m really quite fond of the ones that turned out. [Kodak] film has such a warmth to it – no color adjustments necessary.

There’s something about Northern MI that makes you want to just sit down and relax

The curtains and chandeliers in this room were stunning. I loved seeing our wedding colors together for the first time via the table decorations! (and cake my friend Jenny made, which I will hopefully get a better photo of)

This cracked me up. Both shower hosts thought of having a “guess-the-number-of-coffee-beans” game, I guess everyone associates Seattle with coffee

We played another game out back in which we had to toss the bouquet the farthest (I need a lot of practice).

I’ve known these three ladies since grade school, I feel really lucky to have seen them all together again!

Kloee, grand-daughter of my childhood babysitter, was so cute during the shower. I guess she thought it was a birthday party because she kept singing ‘happy birthday’ and trying to blow out the Christmas lights (as if they were candles)!

At least I know everyone else had their cameras because there were so many other great people in attendance at my bridal showers – but as a bride-to-be I have to set down mine every once in awhile. Don’t forget to e-mail me your pics

Bridal Shower #1

admin — Sun, 01 May 2011 19:00:13 +0000

Joel and I just returned to Seattle from the most eventful trip back to Michigan yet! The highlights included:

Two Bridal Showers
Easter (and a film adventure deserving of its own blog post)
Joel’s cousin’s wedding
2 days of back-to-back meetings with our wedding vendors, including trial hair & makeup (so fun)
Wedding dress fitting at Petoskey Bridal
Rehearsal dinner tasting at San Chez
Attending the “soft opening” of The Pyramid Scheme

Needless to say, I slept right through the Royal Wedding with all of my own royal events happening! I’m feeling great about the direction of our wedding after meeting with Jenn from Modern Day Floral at the JW Marriott. I am told I can’t give away all of the surprises though!!

I took many photos on this trip with my vintage 35mm half-frame camera, so I will need to get caught up at work this week before I can process & scan them

However, I managed to sneak in a few digital photos at my first bridal shower, hosted by my soon-to-be-Mom, Mrs. Katherine Mollon. Yes – we are going to share the same name! Good thing we have different middle names.

As a professional wedding photographer, you know I can’t stop myself from photographing details before an event begins!

Professional engagement photo by Tonhya Kae, cupcake tower by Cup.Cake

This photo is from The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, the night we announced our engagement (which happened at Arch Rock earlier in the day).

With my Mom

With Joel

With Joel’s Mom

How am I shorter than both of my Moms!?!

With my Mom’s sister Jennifer

Laura flew in all the way from New Jersey for her MOH duties. She did an excellent job recording all of our gifts!!

More Michigan photos to come!!

Happy 2010!

admin — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:12:31 +0000

Well hello there new decade! It’s been awhile since I’ve updated – and for once it was not my fault (server upgrades). Unfortunately the majority of my comments got deleted somewhere along the line. Maybe my faithful followers will leave me new ones

I got to spend two-and-a-half weeks back in my home mitten state. I spent a few days with my boyfriend’s family in the SE, a few days in Grand Rapids (yay Flickr friends!), and a ton of days relaxing in Petoskey!

I’m back in rainy Seattle now… no complaints from this snow-hater
I’m happy to report that Joel and I have acquired an amazing apartment to move into next month, some great IKEA furniture, and I even started working again! Photography is an expensive little endeavor, as was college

Well, then again, snow is great for one thing… photographs! Here are my favorites from over the holidays: