Jonathan Thrasher Photography Blog

Happy Freakin Valentines day!

2008-02-14T11:33:00.004-05:00

Happy V-day! Or for us single folk... D-day. Yay.... valentines day. Another made up holiday by Halmark, the flower shops or jewelry stores. But I suppose not as bad as "sweetest day". Can you sense my enthusiasm? :-)

I guess I probably wouldn't be such a cynic if I actually had someone to share V-day with.....ever. Yes, it's true, I've never shared a v-day with anyone. Yes, I know, I'm 32. Thanks for reminding me :-) But, it's really not that bad. I don't sit at home feeling sorry for myself stuffing my face with food. I do that at Christmas time. haha. I'm kidding. But seriously, it's not that bad. I've grown accustom to it. I just have more to look forward to.

To all my clients past present and future, friends, family and everyone else with special someone's....Happy Valentines day! And to all you single people.....see you at the bar! oh come on... I'm kidding! I'll be drinking at home. :-)

New blog coming soon....

2008-02-08T15:14:00.000-05:00

Hey peeps! I'm having a new custom blog made as we speak... well, as I type I guess. It's going to rock! I can't wait. This will make me want to blog more because I hate the way blogger works so it's kind of a pain in the you butt to make a post with photos. So, once the new blog is done, I'm going to try and be better about posting. It might be a few weeks until it's done so stay tuned....

Stewie is famous!

2008-01-18T18:15:00.000-05:00

My new puppy, Stewie was on the local news yesterday because my vet wanted to use him in a segment they do on Thursdays on the local ABC station. He did so well, he just sat there like a good boy.

I'm such a proud parent!

Here's the link the the news clip

Stewie on the news

You can also see it as a podcast on itunes. Just search for WZZM13 in the itunes music store. It's a podcast called "Pet Peeves - Jealousy amongst dogs"

Winter Special!

2008-01-17T16:46:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone! I've decided to run a special for brides doing destination weddings from now until May 31st.

If you're doing a destination wedding during that time you van receive a 20% discount off any package!!! Not including travel.

I'm getting new inquiries daily so don't wait and lose out on this amazing offer!

Please contact me if you have any questions or a quote.

here are some photos from destination weddings last season.

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Santorini, Greece!

Chris & Vince

2008-01-10T00:20:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year everyone!! 2007 has been my best year yet and I can't wait to see what's in store this year.

I closed out my 2007 wedding season shooting Chris & Vince's wedding just before Christmas. It was held at the beautiful St. John's in Plymouth, MI. It was a wonderfully beautiful wedding and I had a great time with Chris & Vince. Thank you both so much!

My new puppy!!!! Stewie

2007-12-20T14:26:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! My christmas present to myself this year was a new puppy. He's a pug and his name is Stewie, after one of the characters from one of my favorite TV shows... The Family Guy

what? I can chew this right?

Erin & Brandon

2007-11-07T13:35:00.000-05:00

Last week I headed up to Midland, MI for Erin & Brandon's engagement shoot. It was such a beautiful day, probably the last one for months to come, unfortunately. We couldn't have asked for more perfect weather and we got some great shots. Their dog "Martini" joined us as well. Such a cute little ball of fur.

Laura & Pete

2007-11-05T14:57:00.000-05:00

Here are a bunch of photos from Laura & Pete's wedding from a couple weeks back. Sorry it's taken so long to get these up. I've fallen way behind, but now that I'm pretty much done for the season, I can get caught up.

I had a great time with Laura & Pete as I did on their engagement shoot, and their "trash the dress" session. They are both so easy going and just a lot of fun to be around.

Thanks guys!

Kim & Dave - engagement session

2007-11-02T17:24:00.000-04:00

Last week I had the pleasure of shooting Kim & Dave's engagement session. We brought along their dog Pete who ended up steeling the show. He's a little ball of energy but very friendly. He looked adorable in his little Halloween costume but he had that look on his face like "you've GOT to be kidding me" So cute.

new photos of me!

2007-11-01T14:23:00.001-04:00

Thanks to my good friends Ben & Laura Harrison, of Ben Harrison Photography, I finally have some new photos of myself. We went out a couple of days ago and I took photos of them, and they returned the favor.

Thanks guys!

Encouraging words

2007-11-01T13:53:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to share a couple of emails I got from recent clients. I always feel so encouraged when I get letters like this. I'm blessed to be able to do what I love to do and letters like these just confirm that.

This is from Vu and Anil

Hi Jonathan,

The pictures are wonderful!!! Anil, myself, and our families really couldn't have been happier with them. The pictures you have taken for us are a perfect blend of everything that Anil and I were looking for – portraits, photojournalism, creativity/art (in the angles, the lenses, the editing, etc), action, and detail. You have truly captured the important details and emotions of the events.

We have received a plethora of very positive comments regarding you and your work. They range from these are the best wedding photographs I've ever seen, to I've never seen so much emotions captured, your photographer has an amazing eye for shots, etc. We couldn't agree more : )

Thank you so much for working with us. I know our day was painfully long and on-top of that a little crazy with all the different events. We really appreciate you accommodating the crazy photography schedule that was needed to capture what we and our families wanted. We are all extremely happy with your work and will recommend you highly to friends and family.

Thank you sincerely,

Vu & Anil

This is from Laura and Bryan

Jonathan-you are the best photographer-everyone is raving about you from my wedding. I have had three people ask for your information since I posted some wedding pics on Myspace. Thank you for capturing my day!

Thank you Vu & Anil and Laura & Bryan!

Laura & Bryan

2007-10-25T15:28:00.000-04:00

These are from Laura & Bryan's wedding on Oct. 13th. It was a beautiful wedding. Laura and Bryan were a blast to work with and were up for any ideas I had including pushing Laura around Meijer in a shopping cart. Thanks guys!

Erika & Don

2007-10-16T14:20:00.000-04:00

On Oct. 6th I photographed Erika & Don's wedding at the Henry For Museum in Dearborn, MIchigan. It was a lovely wedding. Erika looked amazing, like she just stepped out of the 1930's. The Henry Ford is a great place to shoot. Thanks Erika & Don!

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world domination

2007-10-05T12:43:00.000-04:00

I had to share this photo I found in a recent thread on Mac Rumors, which is a site for us Apple geeks. It was a thread talking about the growing percentage of University student who are now using Macs instead of Windows computers.

How do ya like them Apples Mr. Gates?

World domination in 20?? !!!

Aboslutely BRILLIANT!

2007-10-03T13:22:00.000-04:00

I just want to take this time to acknowledge the brilliant minds behind the planning of the great city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. I think, whoever these genius folk are, should be given some kind of award for their outstanding achievements in city planning. Every city in the world should take a great long look at how Grand Rapids is built and model their cities after us.

There are far to many examples of perfect city planning to list here, but I'd like to point out just a couple which perfectly demonstrate my point.

example #1 - Fulton Street.

If you notice on the map, I've marked off a section of Fulton street which is approx. a half mile stretch. In this half mile stretch there are 10 traffic lights. yes.... 10!!! Now, I realize this is downtown, and there are lots of pedestrians but come on... 10 traffic lights in .5 miles? Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if they were in sync and you wouldn't get stopped by a red light every 200-300 feet. So... thank you, you genius city planners. Way to go. Give yourselves a nice pat on the back.

example #2 Interstates 131/196 intersections.

This is probably even a better example of the sheer genius that Grand Rapids is riddled with.

At this intersection that are 4 areas where there are entrances on both the right and left sides of the freeway. As you can imagine, this really helps the flow of traffic, especially during rush hours. There is no place for vehicle to get over to avoid traffic entering from the entrance ramps. Not to mention the fact that for some odd reason the north and south bound lanes of 131 crisscross themselves twice. Hmmm. Sounds logical I guess?

So, here's to you city planners for doing such a marvelous job on our wonderful city. Job well done. All you other cities in the world, take note.

Vu & Anil

2007-09-25T09:32:00.000-04:00

A couple of weekends ago I had the privilege of shooting Vu & Anil's wedding in Dearborn, Michigan. It was amazing! Definitely the most elaborate wedding I've ever shot and just an incredibly beautiful cultural experience. They had two different ceremonies on Saturday. A traditional Hindu ceremony and a traditional Christian/Vietnamese ceremony. They also had three different outfit changes. Hindu, Vietnamese, and western outfits. All of which were stunning. There was also an event held on Friday with a dinner and special dancing performances put on by Vu & Anil's family and friends.

There was so much to take in. I literally could have shot photos for days. I was a little bummed I didn't get to spend as much time taking photos of them in their Hindu outfits but we got some great shots throughout the day.

Thank you Vu & Anil for letting me a part of your amazing wedding!

Here are a few from Friday's events

And from Saturday's events

my booth!

2007-09-24T13:51:00.000-04:00

I'm exhausted after a very looooooong weekend of bridal shows. It was a crazy weekend but worth it in the end. I met some wonderful people and I got some great feedback.

I learned some lessons about my new booth. I know how I can improve it in the future but I think it looked great and I had tons of people tell me how great it was. I'm glad I made the extra effort.

The image of your business is very important. If the image you are portraying doesn't match with the work you do, than what's the point? My tag line is "artistic. elegant. worldwide" I want to portray that in every aspect of my business. There are still areas that still need work, including my house. Since I work from home, sometimes the first impression a potential client gets of me is how my house and yard looks. I've been wanting to do some major landscaping work to my front yard for that very reason because.... well.... it's just not all that elegant right now :-) Hopefully I'll have some time this fall.

Anyway, here are a couple shots of my booth

For the Detroit show, I changed up the photos a little to make it balance more. I'm so mad I forgot to take more photos of the whole booth in Detroit. Oh well.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by! Also a VERY special thanks to past clients and more importantly, friends, Jenny & Justin for coming out and talking with brides about their experience hiring me as their photographer. Thanks guys!

my first magazine ad is out!

2007-09-20T11:16:00.001-04:00

I'm VERY excited about this! My first magazine ad is out! I have a full page ad in Destination I Do magazine and it's out on newstands everywhere across the country!

It was fun to be able to walk into Border's yesterday and pull the magazine off the shelf and see my ad.

So... go pick up a copy and check it out!

Here's what it looks like

jam packed bridal show weekend!

2007-09-18T16:43:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone. It's that time of year again. Yes... that's right... it's fall bridal show time! yay. No, in all honesty I really love doing these shows. It's a great way to meet potential clients face to face and show people my work.

The sucky thing about them is the preparation and work that goes into them, and setting the booths up. My booth especially isn't all that fun to set up because I'm the kind of person that has to go all out and it has to be the best booth in the show. When you do these shows, you have to have a booth that stands out from everyone else's. The past few shows I've put down a hard wood floor and brought some furniture. I also rented a trade show display to put my photos on. Here is a photo from my booth last year at The Palace of Auburn hills.

This year I'm upgrading the booth a little. I'm still having the wood flooring but I'm making my own walls to make it really look like a living room. It will be a corner booth so there will be two walls that make a corner. I'm going to bring my very hip and cool victorian couch....

...and I've also rented a nice 42" plasma TV to run a slideshow on. I'll take some photos of it for sure and post them next week.

Please come by and visit me at my booths! I'd love some company. The shows are Friday 5-9, Sat. 10-4 here in Grand Rapids at the Devos Place. And Sunday 12-5 at the Palace of Auburn hills in Detroit.

See you there!!!

Rachel & Rory

2007-09-13T21:28:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I had the pleasure of shooting Rachel & Rory's wedding at the famous Gem theatre in downtown Detroit. The Gem is a wonderful place for a wedding. Even though it's very dark, it's a beautiful place. It's in a great location as well, just blocks from Comerica Park and Ford Field and Greektown. The Gem also has an amazing wait staff and chefs. The food we were served at the reception was outstanding. It's rare that cool venues have both atmosphere and great food.

Rachel & Rory were so much fun. They both have a great sense of humor. They were very hospitable and at the end of the night they practically forced me to put my cameras down and shoved two drinks in my hands. Thanks guys for everything!

After the dancing and drinks I decided to head over to the Greektown Casino to play a little blackjack. :-) I walked away with $800!!! I have to admit, it's a little scary walking downtown Detroit alone at 2am with $800 in your pocket. Probably not the smartest thing I've ever done. I was suppose to go to the casino with Rachel's hair and make-up guys, John and Brian but I never heard from them when I got back to the hotel. Sorry I missed you guys!

Again, thanks Rachel & Rory!

Fotini & Jay - Santorini, Greece

2007-09-05T21:01:00.000-04:00

Fotini & Jay's wedding in Greece was simply amazing and breathtakingly beautiful. There is no other place in the world quite like Santorini. Entire cities and villages built into the side of cliffs with views that words don't do justice, which is why I'm a photographer and not a writer.

I had such a great time with Fo & Jay and all their guests. Everyone was very friendly and hospitable. Jay had me come with him & the guys fishing wednesday morning. Unfortunately it wasn't much of a "fishing" trip because only one of us caught anything but we had a great time swimming and jumping off the boat. On Thursday Fo & Jay had a beach day planned for all their guests at one of the black sand beaches on the island. Greece gets extremely hot during the summer so it was great to cool off in the ocean. Friday, the wedding day, was perfect. The wind had died down which made it more comfortable at the reception venue which was perched up on the cliff overlooking the city and port. Easily the most amazing reception venue I've ever been to. In true Santorini fashion, the sunset was spectacular. And in true Greek fashion, the part lasted until 4am I think. I didn't have the stamina to stay out that late.

I feel completely honored and blessed to have been a part of their wedding. Thank you Fo & Jay!

Back home

2007-09-05T16:24:00.000-04:00

Well, I made it home from Greece yesterday around 6pm. After standing in crazy long lines all day, only 5 hours of sleep in 48 hours, missing a flight due to the long lines in customs, it's great to be back.

Fotini & Jay's wedding was simply amazing. I'll be posting photos from it later this week so stay tuned. We had a great time. Santorini is the perfect place for a destination wedding. The views are breathtaking. I would love to go back someday.

Sorry I wasn't able to post more while I was gone. It was hard to find time to get to an internet cafe. So, here are some photos from my amazing trip.

Greece!!

2007-08-27T08:50:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! I'm in Greece! Well, I've actually been here a few days already but I haven't been able to have internet access until now. As those of us who travel know, internet access is limited, at best.

My sister, Nicole, lives in Athens as a missionary but was home in the States visiting for a month this summer. She had to get back about the same time I had to leave for the wedding in Santorini, so we traveled together. We arrived in Athens on Friday the 24th. My sister has a friend who was getting married on the island of Crete the next day so we only had 2 hours after we landed before we had to jump on an overnight ferry to Crete. So, at this point we'd already been up for 24+ hours and as if the hard wooden bench on the ferry isn't enough to keep you from getting any sleep, the constantly barking puppy that's locked up in the ferry's kennel is. Buzz, Nicole's dog, who is traveling with us, was very good and didn't make a peep. We didn't have to lock him up in the kennel because we had a little cage for him.

We arrived in Crete at 5am on Saturday but we couldn't check in to our hotel right away so we hung out at another one of my sister's friends, Johnny's place. We were able to crash for a couple hours later that afternoon so it was good to finally get some good sleep.

Greeks love to stay up late. For the past two nights we've been out socializing until 4am and have slept until 1pm. The Greeks have it right. This is how it should be. It's way to hot to be out in the middle of the afternoon anyway so the night time is the best time to be out.

Tomorrow we are leaving at 5am to catch a ferry to Santorini, where the wedding I'm shooting next weekend will be. I can't wait! well... getting up at 5am doesn't excite me much. We might just end up staying up all night again. :-)

I should be able to post more often because the hotel there will have internet access. Whether or not I'll be able to use my laptop is another thing. Hopefully.

I'll try my best to keep blogging as much as I can. Stay tuned....

one of the small streets in Crete right near the hotel where we are staying

The harbor in Hania, Crete

Buzz! Nicole's dog. our traveling watch dog.

"trashing the dress"

2007-08-12T16:43:00.001-04:00

Wedding photographers all over the world have joined in the growing trend, affectionately known as "trashing the dress". Why you ask? Are you insane? Well, yes, maybe a little. It started as a way to crate very unique photos that were almost "anit-wedding". For me, it's about the contrast of a bride in places or situations you wouldn't see a bride in. It's about putting placing something of beauty in not always beautiful environments and somehow turning that environment into something beautiful as well.

It's rare that I get opportunities like this, as not all brides are into it. Laura, however was one of those rarities and I couldn't believe how willing she was to trust me and my creativity, knowing good and well she was going to get dirty. Laura and Pete aren't getting married until later this year and if we waited to do this shoot until after their wedding, it would have been to cold. So, Laura bought a dress on Ebay, specifically for this shoot.

It was so much fun to do something completely different than I normally do. Laura was amazing. I don't think I would have got into the swamp like she did. Especially after a passerby told us about the snapping turtles. But, nothing phased her. Pete, hold onto this one! Girls like her are EXTREMELY rare. Thanks you guys for your willingness. I had a great time.

Allison & Tobin

2007-08-11T22:07:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I had the pleasure of shooting Allison & Tobin's wedding at St. Andrews Cathedral in downtown Grand Rapids. It's probably one of Grand Rapids' most beautiful cathedrals. At least it's one of my favorites. Allison looked absolutely stunning. Her dress was gorgeous, brought from Columbia.

As always, I had a great time and I'm excited about the photos we got.

Thanks Allison & Tobin!!!!