Professional Services in Jenison

Fruit Basket Flowerland’s 20 acres of nursery space contain beautiful hanging baskets, annuals, and perennials. The nursery has seen those perennials bloom dozens of times since it opened back in 1949, and today the business has blossomed out to three locations. Home gardeners can peruse a huge selection of soil, fertilizer, and plants, or sign up for instructive gardening classes, which teach participants to care for their plants and to exterminate weeds without running afoul of weeds-rights activists. Fruit Basket Flowerland also houses a vast selection of patio furniture and three lines of Weber grills.

Portage Cleaners & Laundry owner Shirley Winterburn shares her 37 years of experience with her staff as they spiff up wardrobes with eco-friendly GreenEarth Cleaning solvents, which render colors brighter and fabrics softer. The shop's dry-cleaning experts scrub stains out of casual clothing and business wear with an especially delicate handling of silk shirts and sport coats made out of eyelashes. Visitors can bring in their duds for professional laundering services, or take on the garment-cleansing endeavor themselves by feeding their soiled linens to more than 100 washers and dryers. The staff also complimentarily performs minor repairs such as quick hemming or replacing lost buttons. Portage cleaners offers free pick-up and delivery to homes and offices in the Kalamazoo and Portage areas, and same-day service is available on weekdays.

Jessica Christensen has spent much of her decade-long career photographing models prone to unexplained screaming fits—babies. Families in her First Year Baby Club enjoy a year’s worth of quarterly photo sessions, which document their tot’s transformation from a baby to a baby who makes mortgage payments. For subjects with more birthdays under their belts, Christensen captures lifelong connections in vivid, high-contrast shots of parents and children or newlyweds.

Christensen also helps budding photographers to compose their own professional-quality images with hands-on photo courses. Her introductory sessions focus on camera settings for point-and-shoots and DSLRs alike. More advanced workshops explore the shores of Lake Michigan and other outdoor venues, and they frequently involve portraiture practice with live models, rather than the less expressive faces of text-message emoticons.

Shannon, the professional shutterbug behind Revealed Images, knows that in order for a woman to strut her stuff she needs to feel comfortable. With that in mind, she consults with each client before determining the wardrobe, location, theme, and objective of each of her models before they begin. After they’ve been styled by Lauren, a professional makeup artist from Folio Salon, clients strike a pose while Shannon aims to snap glamorous images that convey inner confidence and outer beauty in a tasteful manner.

Paris Studios of Photography’s team snaps eclectic subjects and scenes, from a baby grinning in a metal bathtub to a dog wearing a tie on the beach. However, since 1960, the studio has specialized in one subject in particular: the family. Shoots document parents and kids walking hand in hand along the beach, sharing a stone bench, or lounging in their own living room. The studio’s sessions, held in-house or on-location, can also extend to weddings and engagements.

Skilled shutterbug Dusty Brown snaps images that capture candid expressions and draw out interpersonal dynamics during in-studio and on-location shoots. To tell the unique story of each family, Brown encourages everyone to be themselves. He clicks away as moms smile, teenagers remain in their comfort zones, and toddlers play and pretend to invest in real estate. His family portrait sessions depict kin's togetherness and moments of genuine laughter, whereas his engagement and wedding shoots delve into the special relationship of each couple, memorializing their union with giddy interactions in fields, on carousels, or at the diamond store they first robbed together. After Brown has recorded a story with his camera, he invites patrons to view images on an online gallery and order prints or photo CDs of high-resolution images.