Featured • Glamour and Grace Wedding Blog

Glamour and Grace Wedding Blog did a post on Jessica Keener Photography today! Below is a little screen shot of part of the feature. You can check out the whole post here. Glamour and Grace blog shares beautiful wedding ideas for the modern vintage bride.

Foodie Friday • Arabica Lounge • Seattle, WA Photographer

As many of you may know, Seattle is known for its coffee so todays post is paying tribute to one of my favorite little coffee shops nestled in the heart of Capitol Hill. Arabica Lounge not only sells fantastic coffee from Stumptown Coffee but they always impress me with their artistic presentation.

  

Arabica serves a scrumptious variety of homemade foods and pastries. You can check out their full menu here and their "booze" menu here. A few of my favorites are the Smoked Salmon Toast, Bacon Egg & Cream Cheese Crepe, Soldier Eggs with Proscuitto, Yogurt with Granola, and the Luchador Cake although you really can't go wrong with anything on the menu. They use the freshest ingredients and offer many items that are gluten free and vegan. 

Soldier Eggs

 Bacon, Egg, Cream Cheese and Onion Crepe

  Smoked Salmon, Cream Cheese, Sun-dried Tomato & Caper Toast

 Luchador Cake (Almond and Orange) gluten free and heavenly

Meringue and Pistachio Toffee

A really nice touch to the eclectic atmosphere is the grand piano that often gets played by customers, otherwise vinyl sings through the speakers.

 

Arabica hosts many events in the evening as well. Check out what is happening now under their "events" tab here.

Foodie Friday • Cafe Presse • Seattle, WA

Cafe Presse has become a favorite place of mine in Capitol Hill to have breakfast and lunch. This french style bar/cafe makes delicious things from a Croque Madame to yogurt with honey and walnuts. You can check out there fantastic menu here. They are open from 7am-2am daily! The atmosphere is also lovely with lots of natural light pouring in from the sky lights and large windows at the front. Every time I have eaten here I have been greeted at the door within seconds of my arrival and taken care of by the nicest of servers.

Pictured first is the Croque Madame, my personal favorite thing on the menu which is a baked ham, gruyere and béchamel sandwich with a sunny side up egg on top.

   They offer full coffee service using exclusively Caffe Vita coffee.

   Eating these olives really reminded me of being in France. Quite tasty!

   Full bar  

    Fresh flowers brighten up the tables

   They feature affordable wine from the French countryside

Seattle Public Library • Seattle, WA • Awesome

Today I got to visit the Seattle Public Library located on 1000 Fourth Ave. What an amazing space! Besides the extensive book collection it holds, the building itself is an impressive and fascinating piece of architecture. It has a lot of sustainable systems in place to lessen it's energy and environmental impact. One of the neatest systems is the way they use a Tech Logic system to check-in and sort books. Click these links to read more about it and watch a video on the process. Here are a few of the photographs I took with my iPhone while I was there.

   Looking down into the Library from the top floor.

   Elevator

   Escalator

 

    The floor has words in many of languages carved into the floor on the base level.

GLEE Flash Mob • Seattle, WA • Official Photographer

I got to be an official photographer for one of the largest flash mobs to ever occur in Seattle recently, with 1300 dancers! Bobby Bonsey and Beth Mehberg did an awesome job choreographing this momentous event. Jalen Testerman (9yrs old!) the youngest "America's Best Dance Crew-Season 2" winner, break danced at the beginning! The GLEE flash mob performed in three locations on 4/11/11, the Seattle Center (just under the Space Needle), Westlake Park, and on the road by Cal Anderson Park in Capitol Hill.  I wouldn't mind making flash mob photography a regular occurrence in my life. So much fun! Here is the official video (focusing on the Westlake performance) along with some of my favorite shots from the day!

         

 

          

 

        

 

 

             

              

Inspiration

For the past two days I have been taking an online class through CreativeLIVE with Jasmine Star. She is a wedding photographer I greatly admire and I could not have been more inspired by her class. I wanted to share a few of my favorite quotes with you from the past two days. Many are wise words to live by even not in a photography context. Thank you Jasmine Star!

"Schedule time to help others."
"Be personal within social media. Talk back!"
"Queet, a quote tweet."
"If you're not uncomfortable, you're not working hard enough."
"Out shoot, out run, out hustle."
"Luck is when preparation meets opportunity."
"Have someone believe in you if you don't believe in yourself."
"If you don't got the funk, don't fake the funk. They will smell it."
"Put out what you want to get back. You will get clients that want you, for you."
"My goal for your engagement session is for you to have a good time, my job is to make you look good."
"It's my job to make every client, look, feel and KNOW they are beautiful."
"I am like a party in a box."
"Under promise and Over deliver."

You can read many more of my favorites on my twitter: JessKeenerPhoto and if you search for #JasmineLIVE you can read what others thought as well.

Since every post is better with photographs, although unrelated, here are two delicious things I had a taste of recently.

Vivace coffee Icecream with vanilla bean caramel in a homemade waffle cone
from Molly Moon's.         

Mocha from Arabica Lounge