the brighten blog » the photo blog of brighten photography

So this week I got a hold of a few good ol’ flicks that I watched relentlessly growing up. I was a little wannabe punk/skater kid, and my movie selection only reflected that. So I did some digging and got my hands on these:

Yes… RAD and Gleaming the Cube. You didn’t even know Christian Slater was that good looking, now did you?

Either way. I can’t wait to find some free time to fire these babies up on the ol’ screen.

I’ve also lately been dying to throw a few decade themed movie night parties. Every Friday night, we celebrate a different decade and watch some golden movies in the process…

If you’re in, hit us up. As soon as the season slows down a bit, the festivities will explode.

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On another note… we got a new studio phone line. And by studio, I really mean that we got a phone in our ‘office’ (read: second bedroom). Either way I have already gotten 4 phone calls from telemarketers. Looks like I’ll be paying the $2 a month to go unlisted.

206.695.2875

Feel free to hit us up there if you would like. Otherwise the same good ol’ number you have is golden.

So my sweet lil’ mom has been in town for the past few days. It has been quite lovely. When she first arrived I shared with her my dream of eventually owning a crepe cafe. Our own cafe to meet with clients in? Are you kidding me… it’d be amazing.

Crepes are ridiculous. And the best ones we’ve ever had are in Vancouver. Side note.

So one day while she (my mother) was wandering around Seattle, she decided to get us a few supplies so we can start the Harms’ crepe cafe in our own kitchen. So tonight we decided to fire up the stove and get to cookin’.

Buuuuuut….. before the party got rollin’, I made a little trip to the super market. Fred Meyer to be exact. And while literally fumbling around in the whip cream cooler, I dropped a can of said whipped cream and suddenly found myself covered, head to toe, in artificial heavy whipped cream.

The results:

One might immediately be frustrated by such an event, especially after having a bit of a hellish afternoon. However, I happened to be carrying in my wallet my official Ryler Society membership card. As the frustration began to seep to the surface, I was reminded of my calling as a member of the Ryler Society. According to my official membership kit:

“Say some bird poop hits you on your way to lunch… do you laugh at that? Or how about when the sink splashes you in the crotch just enough to make it look like you’ve peed yourself — or maybe you did a little bit. People are so quick to get upset. And that crap should be funny. We aren’t alive long enough to miss these things; to be embarrassed, fearful, or angry. And it’s not worth it anyway.”

And the fact that I literally EXPLODED a can of whipped cream all over myself in the middle of the grocery story, is in fact, hilarious. And should be. Life is too short to be angry at such beautiful moments.

aaaaanyway….

We ended up making some incredible crepes. Phenomenal actually. With no further adue…

We started the night with a spinach, mushroom, bacon + cheese combo and finished with the above nutella, strawberry + banana combo.

Mmmmm. Lovely indeed. Hope you had a happy Sunday.

Even if you did find yourself near the dairy cooler completely covered in whipped cream.

Well… at least in my opinion. But most people would disagree.

But either way, this past year I’ve jumped back into hockey after an eight year break. I grew up playing Junior B hockey, but had put my skates away for the foreseeable future.

But then I busted them back out. And it’s been a blast.

This summer season our team played as close to awful as possible. We went 2-9-1.

Horrible.

But we pulled our crap together just in time for the playoffs, beat the number one seed and found ourselves in the finals. We lost 1-0, but had a ridiculously good time doing it. Here’s a few pics that Whitney snapped the other night.

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Random thought… is anyone irritated by how when watching the Olympics on the West coast it constantly says ‘Live’, but I can definitely look up the results online far before they are ‘Live’ on TV? Stupid. Don’t lie to me NBC. I’m not stupid.

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Second random thought…. I do the majority of my blog posting during the 23rd hour of the day. Hmmm.

Normally our Sundays are filled with nothing. Nada. Typically we’re busy trying to recover from the day before. And although we need a day of recovery after our spankin’ awesome wedding yesterday… we have far too much to accomplish in such little time.

So here is a sneak peak into our Sunday…

So far, everything’s got a little check next to it.. minus the hockey game that is starting T minus one hour. And the clean the office part. That’s just a disaster.

I’d say we gave Sunday a pretty solid kick in the pants.

Since the first real launch of Brighten Photography just this past winter (atleast the launch that was above the table), we have been incredibly humbled by the many amazing people that have trusted us to be a part of this season of their lives. This journey for Whitney and I has been filled with incredible risk and wonder, and we’ve often questioned if it would ever amount to anything at all. But with much anticipation we lunged forward into the unknown world of creating a business out of a passion to capture the beauty that is found in love and relationships.

And tonight, just past 11 o’clock, I find myself holding both the incredible joy and excitement that this summer has brought, and the crazy reality that is required of such a venture.

And I am loving it.

I could not ask for a more rewarding opportunity than to help people see and remember the beauty that is creation–the joy and wholeness that is found in the utter abandonment that relationships require.

We are so thankful for the love and life that we have been able to share with each and every one of our clients. With all cheeziness aside (o.k., so it may be a bit cheezy)… we are truly grateful. Even if every night at 11 o’clock, our world looks like this:

So this all may be a bit more transparent than most normal photographers would project to the world. But as it turns out…we’ve never really gotten along very well with normalcy.

Here’s to the crazy person whose idea it was to blog for thirty days straight in the middle of wedding season. What a nut case.

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On a side note… we are really thankful for the feedback that we have gotten about our, ummmm…. HORRIBLE proofing system. We’ve been working really hard at coming up with a better solution and finally feel as though we have found the best system out there. So we are working like crazy to get all of our current clients proofing galleries switched over to our new system (which if you are one of our clients that are currently viewing your images through our site, you will get an updated email from us soon.)

So thanks to the many who have given us the MUCH needed (and incredibly kind) feedback. We really believe you (and your fam and friends) will have a much more enjoyable process of viewing and ordering custom prints.

So thanks for your patience as we switch things over, as we know that we are running a bit behind at the moment!

Sleep tight.