I am honored to share a middle name with you. You are such a beautiful young lady and your insights and perspective on the world are inspiring. Here is to you on your birthday love. Hope you enjoy these few little delights.
This girl is absolutely stunning. First shot, didn’t even need time to warm up. 
Oh did my heart skip a beat when I saw this light.
The fact that I have never been to a rodeo and I grew up in Charlotte is quite unusual, so when my bullfighter friend invited me up to Traverse City I jumped at the chance. Camera in hand I set out to capture this new experience with a ‘street photographer-esque’ point of view. By the time the rodeo was over I realized I had been so taken aback by the beauty of these very large and intimidatingly beautiful animals and the wonderful onlookers, that I had taken only a dozen images. I am determined to make it back to another this summer and bring you more of this new joy of mine, but for now here is a little glimpse.
Zack, the bull fighter, catching on fire.
The whole experience.
My new cowboy friend. It was his first time too!
The lovely lady who kissed the clown is now throwing her friends shoe into the arena during the little girls shoe shuffle. She was nearly as entertaining as the show.
Jesslyn: My oldest sister. Beautifully compassionate and better with words than anyone I know. 
Elliot my one and only nephew (for now). He does this with everything. Grass, sand, plants, dirt, water. He loves the earth. 
Kari: Sister # 2. She is secretly fiesty and has a heart big enough to change the whole world. 
I do exist. 
My Momma: She is absolutely stunning in every way. A wonderful mother, grandmother and teacher of life. Her strength is complimented with a willing vulnerability that has taught me how to be both tough and compassionate. 
Jesslyn & Nephew # 2!
A tired boy and his lovely Auntie Kari
Today I am overjoyed to share with you something that has been a long time in the making. This is the lovely Jennifer. She is my best friend through and through and every summer we dream about having a ‘big hat day.’ This has become intensely more difficult seeing as we live on opposite sides of the country, but it has finally happened. Here are two silly ladies, both old and young at heart, on an adventure to find the perfect picnic in our enormous hats. 
Getting to this bridge was a triumph to say the least. I had been by bike and foot many times. Who knew getting there by car would lead to so much trouble. It was worth it.
We finished the night with some delicious infused drinks at Grove.
This girl. You should know her. She’s great.
Adventure. That’s how I would describe the day I had with this lovely and fun couple. It is so hard to just give you a peek, but even in just these few it is evident how beautifully these two love each other. 
I am so very excited to share this with you friends. I have been working on this project for quite some time now and it is oh so near and dear to my heart. Many who know me are aware that I live on the NW side of Grand Rapids and have myself become a “WestSider”. Bring a positive sense of pride to this community is a fiery passion of mine and I have the incredible honor to do this through my photography. In a small nutshell here is the project. JR won the 2011 TED Prize and started an international collaboration called The Inside Out Project. We are a small part of that. Our goal is to have over 200 portraits of fellow WestSiders and wheat paste 3×4.5 foot images all over the West Side.
There will be much more information to come. So keep looking! We will also be creating a Kickstarter soon to raise money for supplies. Keep and eye out for that too.
We will have a blog just for this project! Check out this link for more portraits.
apriljoyphotography 