Leisa Thompson captures our second baby, like she did the first

Our friend Leisa is a photographer. We first met her about six years ago, when she was assigned by the Ann Arbor News to come out to our house and shoot some photos for a piece that had been written about the “Ypsipanties” that Linette and I had been selling. The photo that she took, for those of you who have never seen it, was beautiful. Linette and I had been posing with the bottom half of a panty-clad mannequin, when Clementine, who was about two years old that the time, decided that she needed to claim her share of the spotlight. And, due to a strange confluence of events, the article got picked up by the national press. Sadly, it didn’t translate to any panty sales, but it was nice knowing that we’d shown up in papers across the country, and, more importantly, it introduced us to Leisa… Here’s a scan of the article.

That article, by the way written by another woman who would eventually become a friend as well – Jordan Miller… It hadn’t really occurred to me until this moment, but, not only did we become friends with everyone touched by the Ypsipanty project, but all of them have gone on to have successful careers. Jordan has gone on to a much talked about career at the University of Michigan, and Leisa, after leaving the News, has gone on to launch a successful company of her own. The panties, I’m thinking, must have had some magic in them.

Anyway, after all of these years, Leisa, a few days ago, once again had the opportunity to turn her camera on our family… Here’s one of my favorites.

For what it’s worth, the photo wasn’t staged. I happened to be carrying Arlo like a father gorilla at the time.

Oh, and I should also add that Linette designed Leisa’s logo, which you can see in bottom corner of the above photo. They do a lot of work together through Linette’s design business, Invisible Engines. Speaking of which, they’ve just worked on a series of websites together for local businesses. If you so inclined, and want to check them out, here are the first three to come to mind: Old School Construction, Flour Lab and Mighty Good Coffee… They’re all cool companies, and deserve your business. And, thanks to Linette and Leisa, they all now have great websites.