a good morning...

most mornings are the same. i fill the tea kettle with cold water and place it on a warming stove burner so that i can make my instant coffee {yes... i drink instant, but it's really good... better than brewed}. then, i get a banana {or some other breakfast food} for isaac, after which i enjoy spending some time watching him gaze out the window at the cars and birds and people. 

i love my mornings. being with him when he first wakes up is some of my favorite time of the day. but i have to say... each morning can be quite monotonous... especially during the week.

so i was more than tickled last weekend when my saturday started unfolding a bit out of the norm, holding some things that were sort of special to me. {and that's not including the anticipation i had of how we would be spending the day a few hours after we woke up.}...

i don't think i got around to mentioning it on my blog, but i know i said something on my facebook page about being approached by an editor at a local magazine to ask if they could possibly use one of my photos on the cover of the upcoming fall issue. i was sort of surprised when he contacted me, especially because he told me he became interested after seeing my photography on my blog. i wondered how he came across my blog in the first place. turns out, it was via a blog post that one of my extremely talented photographer friends did a while back... interviewing me and featuring some of my photos. she lived in nashville at the time... in texas now. just goes to show how the cyber world can be a wonderful way to connect people. this magazine is produced out of rockford, illinois, but the editor found his way to my friend in nashville, and then all the way back to his neck of the woods again to find me. 

anyway, after submitting four or five autumn shots i had taken over the past few years and waiting to hear back, i received word that they would not be using any of my images for the cover. but i was asked if they could use one of the images in the center of the magazine for a section of pages where they feature the work of various photographers.

they picked the shot they wanted to use and asked for my approval. i, of course, said YES!... and was thrilled and honored.

i had never been asked before... well, to have an image used in a printed publication, that is. i had been approached by a chicago area tourism guide, asking to use one of my images that they found on flickr for the page about morton arboretum {where the photo was taken} in their online guide. so i guess i have had one other image published before this.

but this is the first time i have been asked to have one of my photos used in print. that makes it more exciting, 'cause you get to hold something tangible when it happens. it's kind of cool!

anyway, saturday morning, i drank my coffee with delight while i perused through the magazine {one of three copies that were sent to me for my portfolio}.

in the picture below, you can see which image of mine that they used... right there on page 75.

{thanks for modeling, dear sweet hubby.}

anyway, the publication it was featured in is called northwest quarterly magazine....

now i have to say... before i was approached, i had not heard of this magazine. i might have seen it sitting in the lobby or entryway of some type of business establishment in the area... it's one of those kinds of magazines. but if i did, i never took notice or took the time to pick it up and check it out.

so when chris over at the magazine explained to me what type of magazine it was that they needed photos for, i pictured one of those newsprint mini-magazines that are mostly just filled with business ads... something sort of cheaply made that sits in a shop window for a couple weeks and then gets tossed.

but this is actually a very nice, high-quality printed publication! and it wasn't filled with only ads. there were some really interesting, substantial articles in there... like an article about fall travel destinations {written by chris who contacted me} and another about fall fashion {both pictured above}. i have to say, i was impressed. there are almost 200 pages in this issue, and the whole thing is printed on really nice thick, glossy paper. having worked in the printing industry for two decades, i know this was not cheaply produced.

there was no compensation for the use of my photo, and i was told that up front. but i honestly was not interested in money anyway, i was just honored {and compensated with a sense of accomplishment} to have my photo used at all... even just considered.

especially when i saw these other photos that mine was among... shown above. it's difficult to see in my photographs just how lovely they are. but trust me. they are beautiful shots. i especially loved the bird shot on the lower left. next to it is the photo that was chosen for the cover... a really neat close-up of an acorn in some fall leaves. i felt proud to be part of the group of featured photos/photographers.

i know i didn't win an award or anything like that. but it was something new and different and surprising. so it brought me joy. it's fun to hold one of your photos in your own hands for a change, instead of only ever seeing your work on a monitor.

so thank you to chris {and northwest quarterly} for the opportunity!

on another only slightly related note, something else that made my morning good... i also got to peruse through a disc of images that my sweet friend stacey sent in the mail {which arrived when the magazines did}.

i had linked to her sneak peak blog post of our family photo shoot several days back, where many of the shots she got of mr. b, isaac and me are featured. but up until the disc arrived, those were the only ones i had seen. now i've got them all, and it was so much fun to look through them last saturday morning. for the sake of family and friends who may want to see more, the rest of this post will include some of my favorites from the shoot that were not in stacey's post.

i adore this shot! he seems so tiny next to the great lake michigan.






















i had to include an old shot {taken by stacey also} from one year ago, too... just to show you a side-by-side comparison of how much isaac has changed in one year. his eyes look exactly the same. but he now has seven teeth more than he did a year ago, and a lot more hair! he's much more smiley now, as well.

thank you for taking these, stacey. i treasure them all. thank you for capturing so well the love we have for isaac and the joy he has for life. and thank you for adding to my joy on that just.like.christmas.good.morning.