Mark's Musings

Of Sons, Grandsons, and Exquisite Timing

2011-06-13T20:19:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Allan Cohran (1 day old)

I have a little story that goes along with the birth of each of my children. They're somewhat funny, a little whimsical, and I've always enjoyed telling the tales to new friends or even old acquaintances that I haven't seen in many, many years. I haven't told the stories in a very long time. Most of our current friends have heard them, and my kids know almost every detail from years of repetition. I do look forward to recounting the anecdotes to each of my children's children, but it will be a little while yet before they are old enough to understand the nuances of the events.

In any case, I was reminded today of the first tale--that of the birth of my son. His birth was the only one of my children that I missed (though there was at least one other close call). Today, by purest chance, I happened to be in Arizona, where he and his family currently reside. I was there on a short business trip and while I was there his own son was born and he was there to share the experience with his wife.

Kaden wasn't due until the 23rd of June, but as I see it, he knew how special it would be for him to come into the world while his "papa" was visiting and decided to make his debut early. Believe you me, he was far more considerate with his timing than was his daddy.

When my son, Jeremy, was born on December 23rd, 1979, I was far beneath the Atlantic Ocean aboard the USS Daniel Webster, SSBN 626 (Gold Crew). I was on my 3rd of my 15 strategic deterrent patrols and the Cold War was in full swing. My son was due to on December 17th and as luck would have it, after finishing our 30 day refit period and torpedo certifications out of Charleston, SC we were pleasantly surprised to learn that we were to get a 4 day port call in New London, Connecticut which was technically our home port. All that really meant was that New London was where we lived when we were "off-crew" and where our families lived all the time. We were a forward-deployed unit which meant we conducted most of our refits in Holy Loch, Scotland and returned there after our patrols. To have a chance to visit our families for even a few short days during a patrol cycle was a real treat. It was especially exciting for me because we were to be visiting there from the 15th to the 19th of December. If my son cooperated, I was most certainly going to get to see him born.

Kaden Murray Cohran - a few minutes old

I had taken all the lamaze classes with Wanda even though we both knew that, given the patrol schedule, I would not be with her for the birth. So when the port call was announced I was pretty damn pleased that I had taken the classes. After all, this was my chance!

Connecticut was freezing compared to the southern climes from which we recently navigated, but we were all very happy to see our families. I hadn't seen my wife in over a month and I can remember thinking "she wasn't that big when I left." I had duty on the 2nd day of our visit home, and we were allowed to have our families join us for dinner and movies if we weren't actually on watch. I made sure the hospital corpsman knew how very pregnant my wife was before she came down for the evening meal and I think he kept an extremely nervous eye on her during the entire time she was on board.

Jeremy and his bear

It was a bit amusing to watch her slowly descend the ladder down the hatch from the missile deck. There were three of us gathered below to catch her in the event she slipped and the corpsman wasn't the only nervous sailor during the meal and the subsequent movie. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your perspective, there was no excitement for us that evening. I felt sure that the next day, the due date, would actually yield me a child (we had no idea what sex our first born would be - ultrasounds were simply not that sophisticated back then). After all, fate had to have a reason for this unexplained and unusual port call. It simply had to be because I was meant to be there for the birth.

Kaden and the same 30 year old bear

The next two days came a went and before I knew it, All too soon, I was kissing my tearful wife goodbye and headed down the Thames into Long Island Sound and then out to the deep ocean. For the next few days I was on pins and needles waiting for the 18 word "babygram" that would tell me about the birth of my child. For three days we transited to our patrol area and on the fourth day we went patrol quiet and started our sixty day game of hide and seek with the Soviets.

On Christmas Eve I was standing watch in Auxiliary Machinery Room Two Upper Level. I had the swing watch that ran from 6 pm to midnight and I remember standing near our electronics workbench with my clipboard making a log entry when the I saw a man in red suit and hat come through the reactor tunnel watertight door. He had a white beard, a jolly smile and a large red bag. As he passed by me on the way to the main engine room, he wished me Merry Christmas and handed me a small candy cane.

Not long afterwards, he passed me again and with a jolly twinkle in eye he told me that the captain wanted to see me in his cabin after I got off watch. Of course, as soon as I was relieved and signed out of the log, I hustled up to the skipper's stateroom and knocked on the door. When I entered Santa was sitting there in his suit, sans beard and hat though, and he shook my hand, congratulated me and handed me a small slip of paper that said something along the lines of "Baby boy Cohran born on December 23rd. Mother and baby doing fine." And that, my friends is how Santa told me I was a daddy.

It was over six long weeks before I got to see my son. It's a good thing my grandson has a better sense of timing.

Father and Son 1980

Father and Son 2011

Kaden sleeping in his grandpapa's arms

The Beginning

2011-06-12T15:10:00.000-07:00

When Wanda suggested this endeavor (writing stories about our family and our life), I wasn't sure what form it would take. A chronological narrative would be boring to say the least, and I sure didn't want to spend hours writing something that would never get read. Additionally, I wanted to write tales that could be illustrated with images, if not of the tale itself, with images as least marginally related to the events described. My prose tends to be stiff, almost formal, and I guess that comes from years of writing technical procedures, business letters, and other engineering or project related documents. When I tell a story, however, I am much more relaxed and use more vernacular to spin the yarn. I can't say that I'll be able to write like that here, but I'll try not to be so formal and I'll definitely attempt to keep your interest.

In any case, I should like to start this series of narratives with the tale of how I met my wife. In late 1972, my dad decided we should try a new church. Dad is a "preacher" in what he thinks is the only true religion—that being anything that wasn't associated with the Southern Baptists, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Catholics, the Episcopalians, the Mormons, or any other major Christian sect. I guess he most closely identifies with the Pentecostals in that he believes in "speaking in tongues," no shorts for women, and "spare the rod, spoil the child."

As I recall, we went to a lot of different churches over the years as he looked for a place where he could fit in with the congregation. Typically, he'd join a church for a few months or years then something would happen or someone would express a belief that he didn't share and he would go looking for another place of worship. Most times, we (his children) weren't given a choice as to whether we would attend or not. That's just how it was.

The structure in 2010 - now it's a store

So, in the early fall of 1972, my dad took us to a church on Bright Star Road in Douglasville, Georgia. I believe the name of the church at that time was Bright Star Old Gospel church or something like that. The church structure itself was a long, single story, white building that obviously used to be a warehouse, a feed store or some other industrial building. This was quite typical of the various churches we used to attend. The structure had a concrete porch that ran the length of the building, rusted metal poles that held up the porch roof, and a narrow, dirt parking lot that, like the building itself, ran parallel to the road.

I was always pretty nervous about going to new churches. In those days, I was pretty good at playing the piano, especially the gospel music the congregations loved to belt out as loudly and as off-key as they could during the service. My dad made sure I started piano lessons at age 6 and by age 15, I was a decent pianist. Well, I was good enough to accompany him on the piano while he sang for the church - that was the main reason I was brought along. Of course, playing meant getting up in front of all those strangers whether I wanted to or not, but eventually, this simply became routine for me.

Nonetheless, it was a new church, full of new faces, though dad did tell us that we would have some distant relatives there. I recall riding up to the church in my dad's "new" car, a bright yellow, Plymouth Roadrunner. We parked on the narrow strip of dirt, got out of the car, and went up on the porch where all the adults and elders had gathered. I can't remember if it was just me and my sister with my dad that night, or if my younger brothers were there as well, but I do remember it was still hot and muggy, and the cigarette smoke hung in the humid air and swirled around the small crowd as they puffed and gossiped for the requisite 20 minutes before the service. They would do it again after church let out, but it would be cooler then, and I could go sit in the car to avoid all the smoke and talk.

I think it was because of the smoke I decided to go on into the building without my dad. I opened the doors and looked for an open bench near the back, though I knew I wouldn't get to sit there. Dad would always insist on sitting near the front and we would have to sit with him. I was fifteen at the time, and as anyone who has ever been a 15 year old boy would know, I was looking for the girls who were there. There was only one that I remember. There may have been a dozen or more, but I only remember one.

She was in the back, far corner of the room. She had long, wavy brown hair, a pixie's face, and was a tiny thing. She was with a little boy, obviously her brother, and was talking to some other kids when I walked through the door. I looked back at her and something about her struck me. I can't say what it was. I can't tell you that it was love at first sight. I can't tell you what she was wearing and I can't tell you that a spark jumped between us. I can't tell you any of that. But I can tell you that I noticed her and I noticed her noticing me. And I think that we smiled at each other.

I don't remember much else about that night. But, as clear as yesterday, I remember seeing her.

Back from Belize

2010-08-02T22:35:00.000-07:00

Belize was great. We snorkeled with the sharks, snuba dived withe the sea turtles, climbed ancient Mayan temples, and drank copious quantities of the local rum and beer and ate our fill of seafood. After a few days home to rest, take care of some chores, and to play with two of our grandkids, we're off for a visit with our son and his family, including our little granddaughter, in Mesa Arizona. We'll take the fast route down, spend some time with them, then take a slow, scenic route back that will include the Grand Canyon, Historic Route 66, Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, Death Valley, Mono Lake, Carson City, Reno, and scenic views of the Sierra Nevadas and the Cascade Mountain Range. It should be a fun trip - especially the visit with the family.

We'll post more photos and information about our trip to Belize in the days to come, but we'll be traveling for a couple of days so bear with us until then.

Weather Woes!

2010-06-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

It's been the wettest and coolest June I've seen in the 14 years I've lived in the Pacific Northwest. Some here are calling it Junuary, and I can't disagree. Usually by this time of year we've had plenty of dry weather, a couple of heat waves, and I'd be thinking about when to turn on my sprinkler system to keep the lawn green. Not this year, though.

We've had a few nice days here and there, but never more than two or three in a row. The Jet Stream seems to be driving the Pacific moisture right into the Portland area, and frankly we're getting pretty tired of it. We did have a decent weekend this last week, and Wanda and I managed to get out for a ride on the MP3 500 and headed up to visit our friends, Mark and Gabi, out on Bald Peak. It was a fun ride, but the temperature at the top crest of the mountain was at least ten degrees cooler than down in the valley. We stopped for a quick break on the way at Bald Peak State Park and took some photos. It was nice to be able to see the mountains and horizon for a change.

Wanda looks pretty good in her riding gear, don't you think? We took a walk around the park to check out the views of the Mount Hood and the surrounding valleys. Riding has been one of our get away activities lately, since we've been spending quite a lot of our time watching two little ones. It provides us with an excuse to get out of the house and to do a bit of exploring. Unfortunately, it is quite weather dependent as neither of us have any desire to ride in the rain and cold.

Well, with any luck, the rains will end soon and we'll get some warmer weather. That will get us out in the yard, out on the town, and maybe even out on the trails for a hike or two. If not, there's always Belize in July, and Arizona and Mexico in August. We'll find a way to dry out one way or another.

Visiting the South

2010-05-31T22:34:00.000-07:00

Just a short week ago, I returned from a 10 day trip to my home town of Douglasville, a small town in a mostly rural county about 25 miles west of Atlanta. I hadn't visited there since my mother's funeral back in August of 2007 and I really felt the need to spend some time with my dad who is turning 74 this year. He had had back and neck surgery earlier this year and I had sent my oldest daughter to stay with him for a few weeks while he recovered, but I really needed to see him as a few phone calls each week just isn't the same, though he'll probably outlive all his children.

An unusual tree in my dad's yard - this is the flower bud.

This is a partially open bud.

This is the fully opened flower.

And this is the full tree - my dad gave me a cutting from it.

I alway feel a bit of trepidation when I plan a visit back to the South. I haven't lived in Georgia since I was 18 years old, though we did live in South Carolina and Florida from 1985 - 1993. I always feel like I've moved on from a lot of the attitudes and biases that still permeate the region, and I'm never sure how well I'll be able to bite my tongue and not get into any political, religious or social arguments. Actually, it turned out pretty well and my tongue was only slightly sore at the end of the trip. I did, of course, encounter some attitudes that run counter to my world view, but they weren't so strident that I couldn't just ignore them, though I did have to say a word or two to one of my nephews over the course of a dinner.

The Southeast experience significant flooding two years ago.

Some of the repairs are not yet complete.

I enjoyed spending time with my dad, though. Although he's an ordained minister, he didn't bring up religion at all to me. I did, however, spend quite a bit of time listening to his gospel music, but that was nostalgic for me since we all spent a lot of time at church, revivals, and "singings" with him. He did have on DVD of a gospel group in concert that was quite good. The music was good and the singers were obviously having a lot of fun playing their music and joking around with each other.

Over the course of my visit with my dad, I felt like I accomplished quite a lot with/for him. The first day I was there, I was able to complete setting up his wireless network, connect his computer and printer to it, and set him up a gmail account so he could send and receive e-mails. My sister had done most of the work before I arrived (connecting the wireless model up and setting the password), but it was fun to help my dad enter the 21st century. During the rest of the week we replaced the faucets in his downstairs apartment, refinished some of the caulking on the downstairs tub, pulled wild blackberry vines out of his shrubbery, planted a dozen tomato plants for him, and helped him with a few smaller projects around his home.

I did manage to get some time for myself as well. I got out for a hike along Sweetwater Creek one afternoon. The heat and humidity were certainly more that I was used to after living so many years out of the South, and I was soaked from collar to waist by the time I returned to the air conditioned car, but it was well worth it.

Sweetwater Creek

The ruins of the New Manchester Textile Mill along the creek.

Looking upstream from the old mill ruins.

Rough water and storm clouds in the distance.

A creek bed of granite.

The Monday after my arrival I was fortunate enough to be able to meet an old friend from high school for lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. Tim was one of my best friends in middle and high school and we spent 6 years in band playing the trombone (Tim) and the tenor saxophone (me). In fact, both Tim and I joined the Navy out of high school and I moved up my active duty date by over a week so we could go to boot camp together. Alas, Tim had a medical condition that kept him from completing his service, while I went on to complete 21 years of total service.

It sure was good to see him again, though the years have definitely changed us both. Tim had a terrible auto accident a few years ago, but has made a remarkable recovery considering the extent of his injuries. What amazed me though, was Tim's great attitude and sense of humor about his ordeal. He mentioned that we was hoping to write a book, and I hope that he does. I, for one, would be among the first to buy it.

I also managed to go fishing with a boyhood companion. Randy and I were the best of friends while we were growing up together. He moved away sometime when we were in high school, but until he moved we would fish, ride motorcycles, swim, and just ramble around the county together. We were in 1st grade together and spent lots of time at each other's homes while we were growing up. In any case, the last time I had seen Randy was at my wedding over 31 years ago, and shortly before my trip to Georgia he and I reconnected via Facebook. I learned that he had moved back to Georgia after living many years in the Florida Panhandle and we made arrangements for me to come up to meet him in Woodstock for some fishing on Lake Altoona.

Lake Altoona at Dawn.

We made a day of it. I met Randy at 6 am on a dock and we headed out for a day of fishing. When we were lads, fishing mean cane poles, small hooks, bobbers and catching grasshoppers or digging worms for bait. We fished in small pools and streams, often in pastures or along the side of highways. Our catches typically included bream, small catfish, and other panfish. This fishing trip was quite different. Randy has a center console fishing boat with an oxygenated bait tank, a 150 hp Mercury outboard, a sophisticated sonar/fish finder/navigation system and a remote controlled trolling motor that was GPS enabled. The fish we caught were significantly different too. I caught a huge crappie and several striped and hybrid bass, while Randy caught even more than I did. The best part of the whole fishing trip wasn't catching fish though, rather it was reconnecting with a boyhood friend and learning about his life over the last 30 years as well as laughing about all the trouble we used to get into when we were kids. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to meet his wife and family, but on my next trip to Georgia I'll make the time to do so.

One of the dams on Lake Altoona.

Fishing on the lake.

For my dad, the best part of my visit was probably our trip to Biloxi, Mississippi to see some of his grandsons and great grandsons. It's about a 6 hour drive to Biloxi from where he lives, and he wanted to take his new truck to show it to his grandsons. It was a fun trip. Dad and I talked a lot about our family history, relatives I haven't seen in years, and he told me stories about his childhood and mine. We took our time, and stopped a few times along the way to walk around, sit at the rest area to enjoy our lunch, and to enjoy the scenery.

When we got to Biloxi, I was delighted to find that our hotel was right on the Gulf. We could literally walk across the street and stand on a lovely white sand beach. Since we had some time before my nephews got off work, we took a walk on the beach and out to the end of a pier (rebuilt since Katrina) to enjoy the view and for me to take some photos. My dad enjoyed the walk, as did I, but he really enjoyed seeing his grandsons when they showed up at our hotel room a bit later.

Dad at the souvenir shop.

The pier and the lighthouse along the beach.

Bradley showed up first with 5 year old son, Gavin and we got to visit with them while we waited for Brent, his girlfriend and his son, Conner to arrive. Brian, Bradley and Brent's brother didn't make it over, but the rest of us went out to dinner that evening and spent some time talking and catching up with each other.

Brent, Dad and Bradley.

The next day, Dad and I did some souvenir shopping and a little bit of sight seeing. Brent was working, so he invited us out to the terminal to see his workplace and we got a little lesson in how commercial container ships were unloaded and the containers mounted onto chassis and sent out onto the road. Brent certainly has to work hard for his paycheck and I admire his ability to perform such hard physical labor in such a hard environment.

After our visit with Brent we went over to Bradley's apartment (right next to our hotel), and spent some time with Bradley and Gavin and to prepare that evenings meal. Dad had promised his "boys" some fresh cooked biscuits, their favorites, and I offered to prepare the rest of the meal which consisted of cube steak with onions, cole slaw, and creamed potatoes. I'll have to say the meal went over quite well with everyone and we had a fun time eating, chatting and talking about life.

Bradley is an electricians apprentice and he showed me some of the work he has been doing in his classes and on the job. He's quite adept at the vocation and I'm sure he'll do quite well with the rest of his studies and with his chosen profession.

After dinner, a few of us took a walk on the beach and I got some final photos of Biloxi and some of the people on the beach. Brent and Jessica, his girlfriend, wanted some photos of themselves and Conner so I happily obliged their request.

Brent, Conner and Jessica.

Conner enjoys the water.

Conner and his daddy.

Dad and I had to leave the next day as I had to pack and prepare for my flight back to Portland, but we did make it back over to Bradley's the next morning for a final visit with the boys. Dad get to speak with his other grandson that morning, but he wasn't able to talk him into coming over for a visit and that was a shame because I could tell my dad really wanted to see him.

Dad, his grandsons and great-grandsons.

Saying goodbye required a pose in front of dad's truck.

That was pretty much it for the visit. Our drive back to Douglasville was as pleasant as our drive to Biloxi and my flight to Portland the next day was fairly uneventful, though there was the upset child in the seat behind me that I always seem to attract. Wanda met me at the airport and we took a little detour so I could visit my own grandchildren.

I don't know when I'll get back to Georgia for another visit, but I do feel like I made the best of this one.

There's a Kernel of Truth Here

2010-04-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

Men Are Just Happier People:

Your last name stays put.
The garage is all yours.
Wedding plans take care of themselves.
Chocolate is just another snack.
You can never be pregnant.
Car mechanics tell you the truth.
The world is your urinal.
You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky.
You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
Same work, more pay.
Wrinkles add character.

Gray hair makes you look distinguished.
People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.
New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
You know stuff about tanks and engines.
A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.
You can open all your own jars.
You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
Your underwear is $9.99 for a three-pack.
Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
You never have strap problems in public.

Your can't see wrinkles in your clothes.

Everything on your face stays its original color.

One mood all the time.
The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.
You only have to shave your face and neck.
You can play with toys all your life.
One wallet and one pair of shoes -- one color for all seasons.
You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.
You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife.
You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.

No wonder men are happier.

Ryker Dude!

2010-04-27T22:01:00.000-07:00

I have only one grandson at this point in my life. I hope to have more in the future, but at the moment, Ryker is the one and only. One thing is for sure, he's all boy. He bundles ten times the energy and curiosity of his sister (and 20 times that of his cousin) in one small bundle. He's a little tornado and one of his t-shirts sums it up succinctly: "Here comes Trouble." But it's the best of trouble and I can't imagine life without this little bundle of energetic joy.

He gives the huge, spontaneous hugs and seems to be always smiling. Nothing warms the heart like having a little boy throw his arms open wide and come running toward you yelling, "Papa, Papa, Papa."

He loves climbing, running, dancing, slides, swings, hot dogs, yogurt, music, dogs, cats and baths. He hates milk, getting his nose wiped, and loud noises. He enjoys sitting on my scooter and making funny noises and loves to get his toy lawnmower out to help me cut the grass. He thinks that when I get in the floor it's time for a horsie-back ride, and when I sit down to watch TV, he thinks my lap is the place to be.

He's my grill buddy, and always helps me when we cookout. Of course, he gets the first taste of anything coming off the grill. One handed grilling can be tough, though, since Ryker insist that he be able to see the food at all times. Fortunately, his attention span is short enough at this age that my arms get frequent breaks during grilling time.

Ryker loves his grandma too, but I think I get the majority of his attention these days. She's not the least bit jealous, of course. :)

It's great to have grandkids, and I look forward to having more in the future, though if there are any more like this little boy, I need to find a new energy drink to keep up with them.

We'll get to have all three grandkids together this July, and it's going to be so fun to see them all interact. I'm sure they'll run us both ragged, but that's really part of the fun of being a Papa.

Another Visit with Jocelyn

2010-04-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

I had a great visit with Jocelyn and her parents over the weekend. I had to be in Phoenix for a business meeting on Monday evening, so I flew down on Friday evening and was able to spend the entire weekend with the family. I hadn't seen Jocelyn of her daddy since before Christmas, so it was a great opportunity for me to get reacquainted with my youngest granddaughter, who has grown so much since I last visited her. Who would think that a mere 4 months would make so much difference?

On Saturday we essentially spent the morning letting her get familiar with me again. She's a bit of a shy baby, so you can't just snatch her up and expect her to take right to you. So I simply sat in the floor and let her approach me. Pretty quickly were were playing with her Lego blocks, throwing her big, blue ball back and forth (she's getting pretty good at that), and putting her puzzles together. While she's definitely a daddy's girl, I think she enjoyed playing with her "Papa."

Her parents have her on a good schedule and routine. Much like her grandmama, she needs time to fully awaken, so she gets an hour of Yo Gabba Gabba in the morning. He daddy seems to like the show, but I think her mommy just barely handles it. After breakfast, she gets playtime, and on Saturday and Sunday that meant we got down in the floor and scattered toys everywhere. She goes down for about a two hour nap after lunch, so on Saturday I took advantage of that time to go for a walk and to dry out from all the rain we've been getting in Oregon lately.

The weather was beautiful in the Phoenix area over the weekend. The heat wasn't bad at all and the temperatures stayed mainly in the 80's, so I had a nice long walk and grabbed a burrito for lunch while I was out. One thing I noticed on my walk was the large number of Harley-Davidson motorcyle riders out and about. I kid you not, during my 90 minute walk I bet I saw a couple of dozen riders, all but a couple of them on Harleys. Arizona doesn't have a helmet law, so the vast majority of them were riding without protective head gear, and I saw a at least 3 riders in shorts and tank tops. Come on, it wan't that warm.

Later Saturday afternoon we went to tour the house that Jeremy and Kristin have made an offer on. It's a short sale, so they're getting a great deal. At the moment, their loan is approved and they are just waiting for the banks on the seller's side of the transaction to approve the sale. With any luck they will be able to move into the house in a few weeks.

I went along with them to see the house, watch Jocelyn and take some photos for them. The house has 3100 square feet of floor space, a pool, a hot tub, and an exterior kitchen area. It's very nice and I do hope they're able to conclude the sale soon. Jocelyn seem to like the house, especially the stairs. She and I went exploring on our own and she wandered from room to room checking out all the closets.

On Sunday we went to the zoo. The Phoenix zoo is smaller, but well designed. The desert landscape certainly lends itself to the zoo's design and inhabitants. The zoo features giraffes, gazelles, tigers, cheetahs, and lions for the larger animals, and a smattering of smaller creatures such as otters, meerkats, and African wild dogs. And there were squirrels everywhere. I think they were freaking out Jeremy a little bit since they got so close to the people.

The zoo features a lovely carousel, and I'm not sure who enjoyed it most, Jeremy or Jocelyn. His smile was certainly bigger than hers. They also have a small water park area with slides, sprayers and a tunnel. It was hot enough that day to certainly make it tempting for all the kids. There is a little pond adjacent to the water play area, and Jocelyn really wanted to jump into it. She got a little pissed when her daddy would let her jump in - though, I do think she managed to get at least one foot into the water.

One neat thing about the Phoeniz zoo is that they have a monkey enclosure where the zoo patrons can actually enter a fenced area where a number of monkeys are free to roam within the enclosure. You were prohibted from touching the monkeys or getting too close, but the little creatures were right there in the trees or in platforms with nothing between them and you.

Kristin, thrifty girl that she is, purchased an annual membership to the zoo. I think it cost her $80 for the family pass, but now she and Jeremy can bring Jocelyn to the zoo as often as they want and save the $32 entrance fee. Because she also got two free quest tickets when she signed up, getting me in for free, she saved $64 off that $80 pass on the very first visit. Seems like a great deal to me.

We called it a day around 1 pm as it was Jocelyn's nap time and the day was getting a bit warm (high 80's). All in all it was a fun first time zoo trip with my granddaughter and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I've always had great memories of zoos. My parents used to take me to the Atlanta zoo when I was small, and Wanda nd I always enjoyed taking our children to the zoo as well. Now, I'm getting to enjoy taking my grandkids to the zoo.

Jeremy had to work Monday and didn't get home until I had to leave for the airport on Tuesday, so I had to say my goodbyes to him that evening. After he went to bed, I went for another short walk and on my way back I stopped in by a place called Tom Ryan's. It was a small hole-in-the-wall country bar, but the staff was friendly and the beer was exceedingly cold. It was nice to be able to sit down, have a cold one, and listen to some music for a little bit. I had a couple of beers, a few pretzels, and then walked back to their place to turn in for the night. I, too, had ot work the next day, so I went to bed pretty early.

On Monday, I had a lunch date with Kristin and Jocelyn at a local park. Kristin had made a friend from an on-line forum for mom's and she was meeting a lady named Kim, her two little boys, and Kim's mom at Espee park and invited me to join them.

The park is quite lovely. Wanda mentioned how nice the Chandler, AZ parks were when she came home from Spring Break, and I have to agree with her. Jocelyn and I had a great time. We chased each other around the park, played on the huge covered play structure, and then Jocelyn had some fun on the water pad. She really enjoyed the water until the very end when she stepped directly into a large stream of water falling from a fake water tower above her. The unexpected shock of the cold water suprised her and really pissed her off - and when she gets pissed, she has a screech that will clear the wax right from your ears. After that she was done. She just crawled up in mommy's lap and fell asleep.

Unfortunately, that was really the end of my time with her. By the time I got back from work that evening, she was already in the bed, and I had to head back into work the next morning before she awoke. I did get to see her briefly on the ride to the airport the next afternoon, and she sure was cute as she chattered and talked to herself in the backseat on the 20 minute ride, and it was sure nice to get a smile and a kiss from her before I had to fly back to Portland.

After over 10 years of traveling back and forth between Portland and Phoenix, I used to dread traveling, but I sure don't mind now. Too bad there are fewer business reasons for me to travel so much these days, but I'm sure I'll get at least one more trip in before summer.

Back from Spring Break

2010-04-06T23:01:00.000-07:00

Wanda got back from Spring Break the day after the POTN Portland Meetup. She had a very relaxing and fun visit with our granddaughter, Jocelyn, and with our son and daughter-in-law, Jeremy and Kristin. Fortunately she brought lots of fun photos back to share with the rest of the family, most of which I've posted on Facebook but here are a few of my special favorites from her trip.

The Chandler area has some amazing parks, and it turns out that Jocelyn is quite the little climber. She seems to match her cousin Ryker in that regard in that the both have no fear of heights and will climb on anything with sufficient protrusions to grip. Jocelyn also enjoys her slides and bouncy play areas. On some of the larger slides she needs her daddy's help, but on many of them she'll willing to wind her way down all alone. You can't fault her for lack of bravery.

She's not nearly as shy, I'm told, as she was when we first visited her in her new home. She warmed up to her grandmother quite quickly and spent a lot of time playing with her grandmother, both at home and in the local parks and playgrounds

Fortunately, there was lots of warm weather and sunshine to recharge her grandmother's batteries and she loved helping with Jocelyn's meals. Jocelyn parents have her on a great schedule with a definite meal time, bath time and bed time. Something her Auntie Talitha really needs to work on with her two cousins. A steady and consistent routine gives small children needed structure to their day and triggers for specific behavior patterns of wake, eat, play, eat, sleep, wake, play, eat, bath, quiet time, bedtime. That was the process we used when our children were younger - or I should say the pattern that Wanda established and maintained during they're younger years.

Children adapt to those routine and their behaviors are triggered by the pattern of the day. The structure is important to them and helps cue them to be hungry, sleepy or playful. A good schedule can accomodate some flexibility in unexpected circumstances, but strives to get back on track as soon as possible. Over time, children learn their schedules well via their biological clocks and can get quite upset if their schedule is disrupted.

Her mommy and daddy have Jocelyn on a great schedule, so Papa and Grandma are going to work getting the other two on a schedule as well so when their mommy goes back to work we can keep it up and accomodate her work schedule.

There's obviously some monkey in this girl's genes. She probably gets it from her mom, though her dad was quite a climber too. As long as she doesn't start hanging from her prehensile toes like her mommy, she'll probably be fine. I'm not sure what's going on with the tongue though. It might just be a new way to cope with the Arizona heat.

This is one of the many fanciful playgrounds in the area. Wanda told me that she was quite in impressed with the variety and the size of the play areas and structures available in the area near my son's home. From the looks of it, Jocelyn is quiet impressed too.

Little girls can't play outside all the time. When it's dark, they get to go play inside with their grandmother who gives them their batch, dresses them for bed, and reads them their books. And this grandma is a great reader of books, reading every single word with great enthusiasm and with the very best pronunciation. She also reads with great dramatic flair and wonderful voices, making the stories come alive for her wonderful babies, creating fond memories for the little ones to cherish for many years to come.

Portland Photo Meet

2010-03-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

The Pacific Northwest Chapter of Photography-on-the-Net (POTN) met today at the Saturday Market in downtown Portland. We had a terrific weather for the event and 8 our our members showed up to shoot. We all met at the Skidmore Fountain next to the Max Lightrail Line, and dispersed for an afternoon of shooting. Our newest member, Marlene, joined us along with several other members from Washington State. We had a number of locals as well, including myself, Tony Long and Daniel Browning (and his wife and daughter).

To the left here, we see Matt and Marlene meeting each other for the first time next to the Skidmore Fountain. Marlene is one of our newest members and she came down earlier than the rest of us to get a jump on the day and the crowds. She told me she spent a good part of the morning shooting ar
ound the waterfront park. She's a new photographer (or rather, at least new to Canon DSLRs), and seems very methodical in her approach to photography. Not a bad way to learn and grow if you ask me.

Tony Long was the organizer for today's event. He can be seen leading the pack of photographers in the image to the right.

Tony is an enthusiastic photographer and attends almost all of our events. He also tends to get separated from the group more often than not as his photographic style is very deliberative. He's also quite the talker and engaged with a number of pedestrians and street people during out stroll around Portland. He's an engaging fellow and just plain fun to be around. Tony has a custom title on our photography forum that says, "winded" - combine that with his user name, and you get Tony Long"winded." A title he earned while defending a post from one of our other attendees, Daniel Browning (seen with the little girl on his shoulders in the image above.

We spent a bit of time at the Saturday Market, then wandered over to the Tom McCall Waterfront Park to do some people watching and shooting. We did take a few minutes to visit the Beer Garden before we headed over to Pioneer Square. Along the way, we got stopped several times and asked "what's happening?" I guess a group of photographers wandering around town with big lenses and professional looking cameras had everyone wondering if there was some special event in progress. I wish I had been quick-witted enough to answer that we were paparazzi stalking Jennifer Lopez or some other celebrity, but alas I was too slow on the uptake.

Of course, the streets of Portland offered their own unique sites, such as the vehicle in the image to the left. I saw it several times during our stroll to and from Pioneer Square, but I never quite got a long enough look to determine what message the driver was trying to convey.

We took a different route back to the Saturday Market from Pioneer Square and that led us down to Burnside Street, one of the major avenues dividing the city. Burnside and the Willamette River divide Portland into quadrants. Burnside defines the boundary between the north and south sections of town, will the Willamette determines east and west. So, streets north of Burnside and West of the Willamette are designated NW, while those south of Burnside and east of the Willamette ore designated SE.

Portland is known for its numerous strip clubs and, in fact, it's been said that Portland has more strip clubs per capita than any other city in North America. Whether that's true or not, I have no idea, but there are certainly a lot of them. One of the most famous is Mary's, one of the first strip clubs established in the city. Most of us had to get shots of this notorious club, and Mat went a step further - literally a step further, into the street to get a shot of the sign, and I assume the folks sitting on the sidewalk in front of the club.

All in all, is was a fun day for photography with wonderful spring weather for the meet. We're already talking about having our next meet in Seattle and perhaps shooting in the arboretum there. With any luck, we'll have several meets over the course of the good weather months.

I Want an MP3-500

2010-03-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

I understand the art of compromise, or at least I thought I did. A couple of years ago, I decided I wanted to learn to ride a motorcycle, and I thought about getting a Harley. Hey, it's everyman's dream, right? I'm a responsible person. I've taken care of my wife and family for over 30 years. I earn a good living, so I can afford a few luxuries and I've bought just about everything my wife has wanted for our home. I spoil her, our children and our grandchildren.

But, when I mentioned a Harley, all hell broke loose and I was threatened with both divorce and eviction. Okay, I can understand her point to some degree - she loves me and doesn't want to lose me - but she's willing to divorce me and kick me out to keep from losing me? Say that again? Female logic just isn't logical.

So, I thought I'd compromise, so I started doing some research, and I found out that the Piaggio MP3-500 scooter was an excellent choice for someone who wanted the experience of riding a bike while having a more stable and safe platform. The additional front wheel provides extra stability, more capability to handle gravel and sand, and yet maintain cornering capability. The 500cc engine powers the machine nicely and allows highway speeds, but isn't so much that dangerous acceleration and speeds are possible.

So, I took her up to the local scooter shop to take a look - well, I learned there's not much compromise available in her opinion. Hmmm, very interesting.

Construction

2010-02-24T21:25:00.000-08:00

For most of the past 14 years, there has been a wooded lot directly across from our home. When we moved here in 1996 our neighborhood was only about 6 years old and the area was surrounded by large fields or red clover, hay, and other grass crops. Over the years, the fields have slowly disappeared, replaced by subdivisions, apartment complexes and shopping areas. There are still a number of large fields and farms to the north and west of us since we live on the edge of the Urban Growth Boundary, but the fields directly around our home have been developed.

We had thought the wooded area across from us would remain untouched for some time to come, even though we knew that a major portion of the lot was owned by the Catholic Archdiocese. About two years ago, though, we noticed surveyors and other workers moving through the trees and orange tape and paint began showing up on the various limbs and trunks. Shortly after that we were invited to various meetings with the parish as they began to discuss their plans to build a new church on the lot. The church congretation and priest for St. Juan Diego parish were quite good about sharing their plans with us, and Father John, the parish priest came through the neighborhood several times to meet with the residents and to chat with us about the construction plans.

The congregation did some of the initial work of clearing out the brush between the trees during late spring and early summer of 2009, and they had the archbishop bless the construction site before the initial groundbreaking. The parish children went through and picked out some of the larger trees and named them for various saints. Quite a few of the trees are actually being used in the construction of the church and the larger ones will be used to form the interior support columns in the church proper. In fact, they set some of those interior columns into the ground last week. I'm sure the polished wood will be quite beautiful when the church is finished.

Construction began in earnest in late summer and most of the trees were cleared from the property owned by the archdiocese. They did keep some trees for ambience, but most had to be removed to meet the county requirements for parking. The construction company had to move a lot of dirt fast during the first couple of months of construction since they had to get the area graded, drainage pipes installed, and gravel down before the winter rains set in or they faced delays in trying to work in the inevitable mud pit that would follow. There was a lot of noise during that time, even on the weekends, but once the gravel was down, the construction slowed from a frenzy to a more normal pace.

The parking area is quite large and extends from what used to be a dead end street to near the top of the hill where our house sits. There are still a few trees and bushes directly across from our house, and the church plans to extend the sidewalk that used to end about halfway up the lot all the way around the corner and to connect with the sidewalk one street over. They also improved the drainage at the lower end of the lot by installing a larger drainage pipe. The plans for the church are quite lovely, and the congregation seems very friendly, It seems that they will be good neighbors to those around them.

I've been sporadically documenting the construction process via photographs since last spring. Today I took a new photo of the building itself and processed a number of the photos from the previous phases of construction and sent them to Father John so he could share them with his parish he wanted to do so. The last photo would be much better without the traffic one and the porta-potty in the shot, but there wasn't much I could do about that.

I'm not sure when the construction is scheduled to be complete, but I hope that the church will be a positive addition to the neighborhood. It certainly seems that it will be. Father John has mentioned that the parish hopes to work with the local Parks and Recreation district to improve the undeveloped land adjacent to the church, and it would be nice to have a wooded area with some picnic or meditation spaces in the neighborhood. In any event, we're making the best of it, and I'm actually quite interested to see how things develop.

Playtime in the Park

2010-01-25T19:26:00.000-08:00

We had a rare day of warm weather and sunshine this weekend. The rain stopped, the clouds parted, and the sun shined on the valley. The temperatures soared into the mid-50's (hey, it's still January, remember), so we bundled up the kids and took them to the park for a bit of playtime (I'm sure my son and daughter-in-law in Arizona are laughing by now - or maybe not given the rain they've had recently).

It was good to get out of the house and to the park. Ryker and Makayla got to play on the sides, to swing for a while and even managed to kick the soccer ball around a little bit. Their grandmother enjoyed getting out in the sunshine too. She's always claimed to be solar powered.

We all enjoyed getting out actually. It's been raining quite a lot lately, though the temperatures haven't been too cool. The ground is soggy and the moss has a jumpstart on all the susceptible surfaces, and I can see the lawn is going to need lots of attention come spring. We took a towel to the park, though, and once the water had been wiped from the slides and the swings, all was well and kids were able to run around and spend some of the energy that had been pent up over the last few days.

Ryker especially enjoyed his time in the sun. The little tyke has really been using his energy in creative ways. His latest antics have included pushing the kitchen chairs around to whatever surface he is interested in at the time and gaining access to whatever he wants. He especially enjoys playing with the ice water dispenser on the refrigerator.

After about an hour in the park, the kids were tired, a bit cold, and ready for a hot snack and a nap. Nap times are good. Nap times are quiet. Nap times mean that Papa gets a few minutes of uninterrupted reading. And when the little ones wake up from their naps, they're much happier than right before their naps, and you get lots of big smiles like you see in these images.

A Full House

2010-01-15T15:03:00.000-08:00

My youngest daughter had some shoulder surgery on Tuesday. Fortunately, it was all done orthoscopically and the surgeon was able to find and repair a defect that had caused her left shoulder to sporadically dislocate with certain movements, which is not a good thing at all when your a paramedic and the mother of two young children. Her arm will be immobilized with a shoulder and wrist cuff for the next six weeks. That means she and her two children will be staying with us for a while. That's lots of grandkid time, but Wanda and I both love it, even if we get a bit worn out at time. We sure aren't as young as we used to be.

Fortunately, they are both good kids and we've spent some time baby-proofing the house in advance. The little one, Ryker, has 5 teeth coming in and can be somewhat irritable at times, but when he smiles at you, you forget all that and just want to pick him up and give him a great big hug. Makayla is just a joy these days. She's so funny and smart, and she can be quite lovable with spontaneous kisses and hugs when you're least expecting it.

I guess what I'm saying is that a house full can be a little stressful at times, especially when you're not all that used to it, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I'll find a little quiet time as needed, but I'm going to enjoy my grandchildren as much as possible (now if I could only get the third one here for a while), because I know someday they may not have time for me.

Dancing with the Wii

2010-01-02T20:23:00.001-08:00

I've been seeing a few commercials lately for a game called Just Dance for the Wii. It looked like a very fun family game and I thought the grandkids would really enjoy it. Makayla and Ryker certainly love to dance, and I'm sure Jocelyn will enjoy it as well when she comes to visit with her parents. Target had the Wii Console and the game on sale, so I picked it up to install in the family room. Like I said, I knew the kids would enjoy the game, but I didn't expect that the adults would enjoy it so much too. Wanda and I tried out a few songs that evening and it was fun (and funny to watch).

The game is simple. You hold the Wii Controller in your hand and attempt to follow the moves of the animated dancer on the television screen. The Wii senses the movements of the controller and grades your movements against that of the dancers. If you really get into the game's premise and movements, your can get a pretty decent workout too. I was certainly out of breath after a couple of songs, and when Wanda tried it she found the same to be true.

On Thursday (New Year's Eve) when Amber brought the grandkids over we fixed some new recipes for a little party, played some games with Makayla and Ryker, and then put on the Just Dance game. Ryker fell asleep before we got started, but as I suspected Makayla loved it. She didn't actually play the game, but instead danced alongside each of the adults. I managed to get some video of it, but Wanda won't let me posts any of the video where she's actually in the frame. So, I thought I'd post this little cut that shows just Makayla dancing to the music (Wanda threatened me with dire consequences if I included her so the video is cut somewhat). So here's about 15 seconds of laughs.

Reorganizing

2009-12-28T20:31:00.001-08:00

I've decided to revamp my blog, and to some extent my website. This particular journal will be family centric and will concentrate not only photographic events related to the family, but to generally family friendly events like the various fairs and festivals that we attend during the year. I've gone back through the previous entries and deleted many that were not appropriate for a family journal. Other entries have been marked as NSFW (Not Safe for Work), but not deleted because they contribute to the flow of the journal.

I have copied those entries over to a different journal that will be specific to my glamour photography. This will allow me to separate my photographic interests more appropriately and keep the journal very specific to family and family events that are only of interest to my closest friends and family. If you've been following my glamour photography and want to continue to do so, let me know and I'll send you a link (or just check out the link for Through the Lens in the side bar).

We spent Christmas with our grandchildren (as much as we could) this year. Unfortunately, our Christmas with Jocelyn was limited to a video show via the PS3 network, but that was quite delightful. We got to see her open her presents from us and to watch her play in the ball pit that her mom and dad gave to her. She certainly had quite a lot of fun with that. We're hoping that next year we'll be able to actually spend Christmas with her like we did last year.

After the all-too-short video show, we went to our daughter Talitha's house for Christmas brunch with Makayla and Ryker, their mom and Aunt TeeTee, and their Grandma Carol. We managed to get there before the kids had been up very long and they hadn't yet opened their presents from Santa. Makayla was reluctant to go look at the tree full of presents until she was absolutely sure that Santa wasn't still in the room. The kids got to open their Santa presents right away while the adults put the meal together (or at least while Grandma Wanda put the food in the oven to finish cooking)

Brunch was delicious. Wanda made her hashbrown egg casserole as well as homemade biscuits while I made some sausage gravy to go with the meal. While certainly not light in calories or fat, it was good and filling. Afterwards the kids finished opening their presents and the adults got to share theirs too.

Of course, the most fun was watching the little ones play with their toys, or in Ryker's case, with both his toys and his clothes. Makayla also treated the adults as play accessories, especially since she got a medical cart as part of her Christmas. All the adults received medical exams and I received special attention and even a call for mommy's ambulance to take me home due to a "really bad owie."

Okay, now you can see why I'm separating the journals, right? :)

Zoo Lights

2009-12-20T20:33:00.001-08:00

We took the grandkids to see the Zoo Lights at the Portland Zoo last night. It was the first time for even though we've lived here in Portland for nearly 14 years. I guess grandchildren are a great catalyst for doing things you wouldn't normally do because you wouldn't want to deal with the crowds or because it's too cold or too wet or just about any other excuse that you could profess. But with grandchildren, you set all that aside when your grandchildren are part of the equation.

Makayla has been so excited about Christmas this year, and has had a real fascination with Christmas lights. So we all bundled up last night--her mommy, her brother, her auntie and her grandmother and I--and braved the traffic, the drizzle, and the crowds to see the lights at the zoo. And, I'll have to say that it was definitely worth it (though, somehow I wound up paying for the entire family, a patriarch's duty perhaps?).

Mayayla was certainly entranced by the lights. Very few of the animals were to be seen. The penquin house was open, and we did see a few monkey and a sleeping ocelot, but no elephants, bears, giraffes or other animals not depicted in the lights. The light displays more than mode up for the lack of animals though. Many of the displays were animated. There were monkeys swinging from tree to tree, elephants spouting glowing water, butterflies bursting from their cocoons, and an eagle soaring from one perch to another. There was even a river filled with alligators while elephants played in the background.

The kids were delighted, as were the adults. The zoo was quite crowded and it certainly wasn't a dry night. The rain wasn't too bad, though, mainly just mist and fog. The chill temperatures provided the touch of winter without being too cold. Makayla had hoped to see more real animals, but she did enjoy all the lights, and Ryker was really fascinated and wanted to touch all the lights. He did enjoy walking around the place, annoying his sister, and keeping the adults busy trying to keep him from running off in the crowd. He had just as much fun as his older sister, if not more. They both enjoyed the cotton candy that their Auntie TeeTee bought them near the end of our tour.

Jocelyn also got to goto the zoo lights , but she went with her parents to the zoo in Arizona. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of that yet, but perhaps her mom will read this post and SEND SOME TO THE GRANDPARENTS!

Zoo lights also gave me a chance at some difficult lighting conditions. The images you see here were shot with a Canon 40D and a 17-55 f/2.8 EF-S IS lens. The camera was set to manual, and because the displays were most static, I enabled the image stabilization (IS) on the lens. I set the camera ISO to 1250 and the exposure mode to manual. The lights varied greatly in their brilliance, so I was constantly adjusting the shutter speed (within limits) to control the exposure. The biggest issue I had was a smear on the clear filter I had on the lens to protect it from the weather. Once I removed the filter, I was much happier with the image results.

Here are some final images from the night:

Thoughts at the End of the Year

2009-12-09T18:17:00.001-08:00

I think, perhaps, my long running battle with my computers may be over, or at least in a lull. My laptop drive has been restored with only the loss of a list of images that I needed to process. The images are still there, but the list of images the model chose for me to process was lost in the recovery.

The external hard drive that failed when PGE cut the power to my neighborhood has been restored and the thousands of family photos on that drive have been copied over to a new drive, backed up, and re-cataloged. Additionally, the main images will be backed up to a small hard drive and stored in my safety deposit box. I’ve also added to UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) units to my computer network and optimized the system drive on my desktop. Now, at last, I can actually begin processing the images I’ve taken over the last few months. In fact, I did manage to complete processing the Autumn Fairy Reshoot images for the model chosen for that shoot and will deliver them to her this weekend. Now I have to start processing the Sword and Sorcery shots from mid-November.

In the meantime, I have a number of family images to process, including some Christmas portraits of my grandchildren and daughters. Those will need to be completed before I travel to Arizona next week so my daughter-in-law will have them for her scrapbooking. Of course, Wanda has a few thousand photos she wants scanned a retouched too. Maybe I should consider golf as an alternative hobby.

It’s hard to believe that 2009 is almost over and with it the end of the first decade of the 21st century (depending on how you look at it). The 2000’s were sure different from the 90’s, and not all in a good way. We’re still in the midst of two wars, the economy is, at best, staggering along. Unemployment is at an all time high, and more people are homeless this Christmas season than ever. What I can’t understand, is why we can’t as humans, despite our political and ideological differences, pull together as a country to do better and be more kind and humane toward each other.

I feel fortunate I have a wonderful wife, great children and adorable grandchildren, as well as a job, a home and the time and money to spend on a hobby. I know there are many others who are just scraping by these days and would be grateful for a 1/10th of what I have. That makes me appreciate my family and friends all the more—and I’m certainly happy I have the ability to take photos of them, and my other projects, and share them with the world.

The Next Project

2009-11-07T14:14:00.000-08:00

This image is the latest from my Fae in All of Us project, and probably the last image from this project for the year. I still have a few more images to shoot in the series including the Wind, Earth and Winter Fae, but with the exception of the Winter Fae, I'm unlikely to shoot them this year. The Earth and Wind shoots had been planned, but in the case of the former, the model canceled on me and in the latter case, the prospective location wasn't available in time to do the shoot before the weather turned too cool and wet for an outdoor shoot.

It's alright though, the shoots will get done in due course. My extensive portfolio of images from previous shoots in the series has made it much easier to find willing models to participate in the remainder of the series. I may have to push back the publication of my book, but that's okay too. I'd rather take the time to create the right images with the right models than set myself an artificial deadline.

In the meantime, though, I'm starting a new project for the winter months, though in all likelihood I'll continue the project into the warmer months as well. I'm calling the project Swords and Sorcery, though it rightly should be called Swords and Sorceresses, as it features models as both warriors and mistresses of magic.

I've been slowly acquiring the materials to shoot this project over the last couple of years and the project planning is almost complete. I've put out a casting call and I have studio time available, and with any luck the project will start soon.

My goal is to use the art of Michael Whelan, Luis Royo, Julia Bell and and Boris Vallejo as inspiration for a series of photos that put my own twist on the concept of strong women. On the concept page of my website, I describe the project: "I decided to create a series of images featuring various models whose outfits and looks are coordinated with matching sword or enchanted device. The idea is to create a series of images showing women as strong, mystical figures with innate power and beauty"

The artist and designer, Kit Rae, has also inspired a portion of the project with his fantastical sword designs, especially his Swords of the Ancients series which includes the Avoloch Mithrodin sword seen here.

The costume designs for the shoot will include a variety of items but will primarily feature the chain mail jewelry I've been acquiring from artists in Connecticut. I've been using much of their jewelry in my Fae project and it seems quite appropriate to match their unique designs to the models and swords as part of the creative challenge.

The Pumpkin Patch & Post Surgery

2009-10-27T16:42:00.001-07:00

I had arthroscopic surgery on my right knee this morning. All in all, the pain isn't as bad as I thought it would be (knock on wood), but I'm sure that this is due to the strong medications and the "Game Ready" cooling device the physical therapy office provided me. I'm still quite sleepy from the anesthesia, but I feel lucid, if not exactly clear-headed. Getting up at 5 am this morning and going without coffee before the surgery has been the most unpleasant part of the experience so far, though I'm sure that's going to change as the residual anesthesia wears off and the pain meds are used up.

I have most of the rest of the week off from work since I will be on strong narcotics during that time and I will need to keep my leg elevated and continue to use the cooling unit during most of the day. The surgeon wanted me to take a full two weeks off from work, but I cleared it with my manager to simply work from home next week, as I should be off the major meds by then and can keep my leg elevated and cooled from my home office.

The "Game Ready" cooling unit is actually quite an interesting device. It's a portable cooling unit that provides pressure and cooling to my leg to help reduce the swelling and pain. The main unit has a reservoir for ice and water and connects via a snap on hose unit the the large cooling jacket which wraps around my leg. The unit has adjustments for temperature and pressure and I have a protocol sheet which tells what to use and when. It's quite easy to use and seems to be helping quite a lot.

Unfortunately, my son injured his left knee while playing Ultimate Frisbee with the guys at his fire station a couple of weeks ago and it looks likely he'll have to have similar surgery in the near future. He'll probably call me this evening to see what he has to to look forward to when he has his own procedure.

In other news. we had a great time taking Ryker and Makayla to the Pumpkin Patch at Sauvie Island this past Saturday. Their parents came along, as well and their Auntie TT. We had very nice weather for what is becoming an annual family event and the kids were able to pick out some nice pumpkins to carve for Halloween. We sure wish Jocelyn and her parents could have been there too. It would have been a real treat to have all the grandkids together for the event.

Ryker, his sister, and his mom and his auntie stayed here that night, and the girls and I had fun playing Rock Band for the first time in a long time. The girls were out of practice, but we tackled some tough songs anyway, including the new song pack of Queen that I downloaded on Friday

The next day, Wanda and I took Makayla to Disney on Ice to see some of her favorite Disney characters, and we all had a great time. Makayla enjoyed the show immensely, as well as the cotton candy and the other treats, and Wanda and I really enjoyed watching her delight. We hope to more activities like this with all of our grandchildren over the next few years.

Wanda's birthday is this weekend, so we'll be seeing Ryker and Makayla again this week when they come over for their grandmama's birthday dinner and we'll be seeing Jocelyn pretty soon too, since her mommy is brining her up for Thanksgiving.

There aren't any photos with the entry right now, but I'll add some later when I'm off the drugs. :)

Late Nights & Medical Fun

2009-10-06T23:13:00.001-07:00

I have a long night ahead. I've reached that age where torture, disguised as medical procedures, is becoming more frequent. Don't misunderstand, I have a good doctor and he provides me with great care and sound medical advice, but I would just as soon stay young forever and not need preventative tests and intrusive procedures because I've reached a certain age.

In any case, I'm not likely to get much sleep this evening as I'm "studying" for my test scheduled for 6:30 am. Such study involves a clear liquid diet and large quantities of Miralax dissolved in Gatorade. Yum, yum. I get to drink another 32 ounces at 1:30 am. Fortunately, there are not photos to go with this post.

I am, however, wrapping up one photo project and collecting materials to begin another. My Fae in All of Us series will come to a close with three more shoots - Earth Fae, Wind Fae, and Winter Fae. I'm also hoping to reshoot Autumn Fae since that was the very first shoot of the series and I think I can do it much, much better now. I just spoke to a vineyard owner today about using their property for the Wind Fairy shoot, Winter Fairy as a model ready to go and I just need some snow and an open field, but Earth Fairy may be a bit of a problem.

I had a girl scheduled to shoot the Earth Fae, but she canceled on me and now it's getting too cool outside to use the concept I wanted to use, so I may need to change it up a bit. That's a shame, because the initial idea involved the creative use of mud. I'm' sure I'll figure out something, though.

I am continuing my Women in Chains series and starting a new one with a similar theme but focusing more on Sword and Sorcery. These two projects will give me something to work on in the studio over the winter months instead of me spending all of my time simply working on post processing my images from previous months. I enjoy the post processing, but sitting at a computer for both work and pleasure gets a bit old and I need to spend time actually behind the camera shooting new images and creating new scenarios.

But, the holidays are coming up too, and there's always opportunities to shoot photos of my family and especially the grandkids. We'll be going to the pumpkin patch soon, and that's always fun to shoot. Thanksgiving and Christmas always offer good photographic opportunities as well.

Makayla and TeeTee Decorating the Tree

Test of image uploading

2009-10-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

Test of image upload options via MarsEdit.The image to the left was uploaded from Flickr.

And the image below was uploaded directly from my computer.

This is an editing test done a few days later to determine the impact on the original post. If this continues to work well, I'll be utilizing MarsEdit as my primary blogging software. MacJournal is good for "journaling" and by that I mean writing a diary or journal on a home computer or laptop, but it certainly doesn't work well for blogging, especially when the content of the blog includes a large number of images. MacJournal has never worked properly for me to upload images to my server and doesn't seem to offer a decent editing interface for aligning the images either to the left or right of the entry.

MarsEdit overcomes those limits and allows me to upload the images directly from my computer to Picasa where the images are automatically inserted into the blog, or allows me to use my Flickr account to specify what images to include in the post. It also includes a media catalog to track the images used in the blog so far - something that MacJournal doesn't even begin to do.

I also like that the program offers you a preview window that shows you how the blog entry will look on your site with regard to image alignment and image placement. It does slow the program down a tad, but not to a degree that's intolerable.

Finally, the html source code for the images can be directly edited in the text entry window so images sizes and targets can be adjusted to taste and intent.

The software comes with a free 30 day trial, so I'll continue to evaluate it for a few more weeks, but it's looking more and more likely that I'll purchase it and use it on a regular basis.

Portland Pirate Festival 2009

2009-09-23T20:44:00.000-07:00

This year we finally got the majority of the family to the Portland Pirate Festival. The first year of the festival, I attended the festival alone and covered the festival for the St. Johns Sentinel. The next couple of years, Wanda, Amber and Makayla attended with me, and Ryker attended last year even though he was only a couple of weeks old. This year, we went all out and even brought Greg and Nikki (and all of us were in costume, I might add). Unfortunately, Jeremy, Kristin and Jocelyn weren't able to be with us. Had they been, it would have been truly a terrific festival. Wanda and I hope we get to attend the Arizona Ren Faire with them in the spring of next year.

We did get quite elaborate this year. I had the idea to decorate one of the Radio Flyer wagons as a pirate ship and had thought to simply add some cardboard cutouts and a flag to the wagon and that would be it. Once I made the suggestion, though, Wanda, Amber and Greg took off running with it. Amber drew ship outlines onto plywood and Greg cut them out and designed a method to mount them onto the wagons, and added some neat modifications such as cup holders, restraints for the handles, mounts for the pirate flags, and cannons on the port and starboard sides. Amber designed images for the ships and Wanda painted them with bright colors. Amber and I added cannon balls and fake smoke to the cannons. Pretty quickly we had a two ship squadron of pirate vessels. They were certainly a hit at the Pirate Festival. We had to stop every few feet for folks to take photos. It certainly didn't hurt that we had a couple of cute pirates manning the rails.

Wanda made Ryker a cute little pirate's outfit and we bought one for Makayla some weeks before the festival. With all the costume materials at our place, we didn't have any difficulty coming up with appropriate outfits for all the adults. We remembered to bring blankets this year to watch the shows, and we even thought to bring a tarp for the wet ground.

When we arrived the the gypsies were on stage, and while they were quite fun to watch, the kids had little interest in them. So we spent the first hour of the festival checking out the shops, the food vendors, and the children's play area. There were definitely fewer vendors this year, and fewer activities for the children. Many of the same entertainers were there, though, including the Boom Pirates, Captain Bog and Salty, and the belly dancers.

There seemed to be lots more attendees in costume this year, though the Saturday crowd was smaller. I think the smaller crowd was due to the weather. The lack of vendors was probably due to the economic downturn. I suspect many of them went out of business over the last year. Still, there was plenty to see and do. The food was plentiful, there was a beer garden, and the weather turned out to be quite nice for the festival.

Of course, the reason Makayla came to the festival was for Captain Bog and Salty. For the entire week leading up to the festival, she had us playing the Captain Bog CD and specifically Nellie the Elephant and The Pegleg Tango so she and Ryker could dance to the tunes. Ryker especially loves the Nellie the Elephant song. It has a part where the song starts out on a long, low note and then rises to a very bouncy and bright chorus. During that crescendo he just starts giggling and laughing in anticipation and then when the chorus arrives, he bobs and dances his little heart out.

The band got off to a rough start. There was a power failure about 10 minutes into their show (their portable generator died), but they recovered nicely and put on an excellent show for the kids. Ryker and Makayla both had a grand time dancing to the songs, as did all the other kids there, including some "big kids" who looked to be well into their 20's and 30's. They seemed to be pirate groupies.

Rogue Brewery had a tent set up with several varieties of beer and wine and well as some quite delicious pizza. The Pirate Wenches serving there were easy on the eye, and the beer was easy on the throat. There were plenty of other food vendors with delicious treats as well. Chowder bowls made from bread and filled with New England style clam chowder seemed to be quite popular as did the African dishes. As can be expected with any festival there were also sweet treats such as elephant ears and a very interesting rosemary lemonade.

A big part of any festival for me, though, is watching, photographing and interacting with the people who attend and get into the spirit of the event. When you're in costume yourself, the interactions are friendly and fun, and I had a number of short conversations with various groups of people throughout the day. All of them were quite willing to pose for me and happy to have their photo taken.

Here are some of the images taken throughout the day:

Wanda had a lovely costume complete with boots, chains, a hat and a wonderful smile:

A small group of Pirate Wenches looking quite lovely in their festive attire:

Here's the lovely lass who ran the games for the smaller children. She's been a fixture at the festival for at least a couple of years.

The Beer Wench and a lucky customer from the Rogue Brewery Tent:

After we had been at the fair for a couple of hours, we met some of our daughters' high school friends, Holly and Jenny. They're sisters and Jenny spent quite a lot of time at our house when she was high school with our daughters.

Makayla and her grandmother had fun sword fighting. Makayla's favorite phrase was "Give me your treasure." She seem to be able to wrangle a few dollars out of me, so it must have worked.

Nikki enjoyed cuddling her nephew:

Of course, Papa had fun too - even though his earring got ripped off at least a half a dozen times!

THe Portland Pirate Festival is held every September in Cathedral Park underneath the St. Johns bridge. It's a wonderful setting for a fun event and I hope it will continue to be an annual festival for pirates of all ages for years to come.

Ryker Dude is One

2009-09-14T20:43:00.000-07:00

Ryker had his first birthday on the 10th of September. His 1st day party wasn't until the following Sunday, but we just had to go over and see him on his birthday and take him a balloon and give him a few hugs and kisses. We were there for Jocelyn's actual 1st birthday and we didn't want to miss his either. His other grandparents came over too and we all had a good time watching him play with his balloon and open a couple of presents.

Of course, his sister had to help him play with his new toys, but he didn't mind at all. As long as as he was able to drool on the various parts and pieces, he was just fine. In fact, he much preferred the paper and the boxes to the actual toys. Such is the nature of a one-year-old.

Ryker is such a happy baby, and he was certainly thrilled with all the attention he received. He was surrounded by people who loved him - his parents, both sets of grandparents, his sister and his Auntie TT. He knew that no matter to whom he crawled, he was going to be hugged and kissed. And he's definitely a huggable little boy.

By the time Sunday arrived, everyone was ready for a party. We all gathered at his house for pizza, treats, and cake and ice-cream. His Grandma Wanda picked up his cake from Albertson's on the way over to his house, and we were very pleased with the way it was decorated. Ryker's mom is the artist in our family, and she designed a photo of a little turtle with some insect friends for his cake.

Wanda and I have assigned icons to our grandkids, based on their looks and personalities. They may not make a lot of sense to others, but we know the meaning behind them and they fit for us. Ryker is represented by a turtle. I suppose that's mainly because since the day he was born I've always referred to him as "Dude" or "Ryker Dude" and Makayla, who loves the movie Finding Nemo, and calls all the sea turtles in the movie "dude." Combined with his look and crawl, a turtle just seemed to fit. His sister, Makayla, is represented by a butterfly and his cousin, Jocelyn, is a little ladybug.

The party featured lots of yummy treats:

Lots and lots of pizza:

A great play structure that Greg built for the kids:

Which features a nice big slide:

After pizza and playtime, it was time for presents:

And cake:

And we even had a contingent of papparazzi (on in this case "grandmarazzi):

But no party would be complete without the Happy Birthday Serenade!:

August 2009 Roadtrip

2009-09-04T22:23:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Wanda and I decided to take a couple of days for ourselves and do some driving and shooting. We got up very early on Friday morning, 4 am if you can believe it, and drove down to Crater Lake for the day. My goal was to shoot some landscapes in infrared, and Wanda's was simply to get away from the house and spend some time in nature. She finds the lake a very restful and peaceful place, and wanted to get out of town for a a bit as well.

It's quite the drive from Portland to Crater Lake. It typically takes anywhere from 5 - 6 hours depending on the traffic and the road conditions. Because we left so early, there was very little traffic to impede our travel, and we made to the North Entrance of the park around 9 am. We checked the weather the night before, and unfortunately the forecast had changed from earlier in the week from mostly sunny to mostly cloudy with a chance of showers. Since we had made plans for the entire weekend which included some time in Bend shooting the Cascade Lakes and visiting with some friends, the trip was on regardless of the weather.

When we got to the Crater Rim, the water was so still and quiet that the clouds were reflected almost perfectly such that it looked as though you were looking down into the sky. We took the time to hike up to the Watchman's Tower which is where the above shot was taken. The hike took us about and hour, and it was quite windy at the top of crater rim where the tower was located, so we didn't linger too long admiring the view. It was kind of neat to look down into the small crater at the top of Wizard Island though.

After our short hike, we continued around the crater rim to the Rim Village where we had a cup of hot chocolate, purchased some souvenirs as gifts for the grandkids, and walked down to the Crater Lake Lodge. While there, I took the opportunity to take a few infrared landscape shots of the island. That image can be seen above.

From the Rim Village we drove down to the Pinnacles. These are geological formations created when fumeroles were fused, buried by subsequent eruptions and then years later exposed when the surrounding ash and soil were eroded away. They are strange and interesting formations, and Wanda had some fun shooting them with one of my cameras.

The Pinnacles:

As we wrapped up shooting the Pinnacles, it began to drizzle, and though we had planned a picnic lunch, we decided to finish the rim drive, exit the park where we entered, and then head on up to Bend for dinner and a good night's sleep. We had reservations for two nights at a hotel in the Old Mill District, and we knew there was a weekend concert and art show planned during the our stay.

We got into town around 5 pm, checked into our room and decided to check out the art show before dinner. There quite a number of booths set up and an eclectic collection of art on display - sculptures, photographs, quilts, paintings, crystal, glasswork, and much more. We didn't purchase anything, but we had fun walking around and looking at the various displays.

After the short walk through the art show, we stopped for dinner at Greg's Grill. The meal was quite delicious, but the most enjoyable part of the evening, was sitting around the large gas firepit outside the restaurant enjoying the music from the concert and chatting with the locals. While we were there savoring the company, the music and our drinks, the weather began to clear and soon we were able to enjoy a lovely sunset. Unfortunately, with our previous 4 am wakeup call, we had to call it an early night and head to bed.

The next day we met with some friends for coffee, then headed out to shoot the Cascade Lakes for another day of shooting. We managed to get in some photography at Sparks Lake and Devil's Lake, but not much at any of the other lakes because of the sheer number of people out enjoying the day.

On our way back into Bend from our day's outing, we stopped at a meadow by Spark's Lake and had our picnic of hummus, flatbread, fruit and cheese. It was a quiet and peaceful meal and most relaxing for both of us. Afterwards, we did a little more shooting, and Wanda managed to catch me in my classic "shooting a landscape pose." And here's the final shot from that day:

When we got back into town, we stashed our gear in the hotel room, then took a short walk downtown to the Deschutes Brew Pub for a locally brewed beer. Later that evening we met our friends for dinner, had another lovely meal with good conversation, and got a good night's sleep before our trip home the next day. Before we went to sleep, however, Wanda made sure we got the laptop out and planned our next few get-away weekends in advance.

Barefoot Glamour

2009-08-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

I got to shoot with Cathy K. again this week. We tried a couple of different locations this time, but I still put her in the water at both locations. She's a good sport and didn't mind (too much).

Our first shoot location was in the Tillamook Forest at the spot where I shot my Water Fairy last year. The spot features a wide, shallow area of the Lower Nehalem River. Here, in the summer at least, the water is tolerably warm, and if shot at the right time of day, is quite blue. The day we shot, however, the river was a bit too shallow to get the deep blue color that I've managed to see there in the past. We did, however, get quite a few shots in before the sun got too high and we lost all of our open shade.

Once we lost the light there, we decided we would take the ride out to Ecola Point State Park and do some shots there. Cathy was quite eager to do this as she hadn't been to the park before and I had promised her a great view of the Oregon Coast. I also think we was eager to dry off and warm up.

We first went the the viewpoint which juts out from the surrounding cliffs and offers a wonderful view of Cannon Beach to the south, and Indian Beach to the North. It was not a very windy day there for a change, so it was quite comfortable shooting at the point. For this shoot, Cathy wore a black linen beach dress, and we had quite a lot of fun shooting around the various tourists and sightseers.

After about 45 minutes at the viewpoint, we drove down to Indian Beach for some shots on the beach and in the small stream that runs down to the Pacific. Little did Cathy know at this point that I would be putting her in the water again, but I think she might have guessed what was going to happen once she saw the waves and the small stream. Still, she was as game as ever, and even went pretty far out into the Pacific to kick up some sand and water. I dared her to kick water on me, but since I was shooting with a 70-200 f/2.8L IS zoom, there was little risk she could actually reach me. It was a fun shoot and both the photographer and the model had a great fun.

Completed Shoots

2009-08-21T23:08:00.000-07:00

I've completed processing a number of shoots lately, but I"m still working on several more. I have three shoots scheduled for this weekend, and just finished one more yesterday evening. Photographically, I've been quite busy, but I've been having a blast and enjoying stretching my imagination and skills for each of the shoots.

I've been processing images for the models as they've picked them out for their TFP (Time For Print) sessions, but I'll still have plenty of images to processes over the winter, as well as a couple of other shoots that will occur during the cold season when we actually have snow on the ground.

I did a couple of photo sessions featuring three different models using a military theme. The first one, featuring Jennifer and April, was shot at Dragonfly Landing with the assistance of my good friend Mark, who shuddered with dismay each time I set my 5D MKII or my 1DsMKIII on the ground, and his girlfriend, Rainbow. That shoot went quite well, and the models were quite fun to work with, though a bit inexperienced and not used to taking directions or self-directing.

The other military glamour session was with Gabriell as part of her portfolio development, which is mostly complete at this point - at least as a starter portfolio. Shooting with Gabriell was both planned and not planned. Originally my idea was to shoot landscapes in the morning, starting and Ecola Point and Cannon Beach, then meet Gabriell later in the day in Newport and do more of a fashion shoot in Newport or Lincoln city. The day we were supposed to shoot, however, it was quite cloudy and cool; not exactly a day for shooting landscapes, so I just shot on down to Florence and spent the day shooting with Gabriell.

We did several themes that day. We started with the military shoot, then found an abandoned rail car and did a gypsy shoot. Nearby was a old gate where we did a country girl shoot, and then we used the abandoned rail line for a nude shoot. Finally, we finished up the day by shooting Gabriell as a pirate.

Gabby has come along quite well as a model. With a little effort she could do quite well as a glamour model and I think she would do especially well as a promotional event model since she has an outgoing personality and a girl next door look. Here are a few more of her looks from that day's shoot:

This is from our gypsy glamour shoot with the abandoned rail car.

And one from our Pirate shoot:

Tomorrow I have three shoots planned. I'll be shooting the Reaper Fairy with Gabriell's mother, Bridgett, ladies in chains with Wanda and Bridgett as the models, and in the evening the final Fire Fairy, with Melanie. Of course, I have more images to post from some of my other shoots as well, so there will be a number of future journal entries here show-casing those images. Right now, though, it's time to for bed so I can get an early start setting up the studio tomorrow.

Shoots, Post Processing, and Models, Models, Models

2009-08-19T15:40:00.001-07:00

I've been quite busy since my return from vacation. Not only have I had to catch up on my real job (always a task when you take a few days off), but I've been working quite hard on post processing a number of images for the models I shot with during my time off. One very nice benefit of my Fae in All of Us project has been that I very seldom have to search very hard for models. In many cases, they now come to me and want to be part of the project. Additionally, though I'm not charging the models for images right now, I can see that there is certainly some opportunity to do so in the future. The drawback, or rather the reality of the situation, is that once the images are shot, I have to post process a number of them for the models so they can have them for their portfolio, and I do try to turn those around very quickly. That's been my primary task each evening for the last week. That, and I've had to prep the photos from Jocelyn's birthday and get that CD to her mom (who is a scrapbooking fanatic and who has very little tolerance for delay - yes, I mean you, Kristin). Fortunately, she should have her CD by now as it was mailed a few days ago.

We actually had a great party for Jocelyn, made even better for the fact that her daddy was able to get back to Tracy from his ground school in Tuscon, Arizona. He made it back home the evening of her birthday, and was able to be there for the entire birthday party weekend, though a good bit of that time was spent packing up their household for their move to Chandler, Arizona where took a new job. The party was on Saturday, we finished packing on Sunday, and they took off for Arizona on Monday. I headed home with Jocelyn's Auntie TT and cousins Ryker and Makayla on Sunday night, leaving Wanda behind to travel with them to Arizona to help with the baby. The theme of the party was the pool, and Kristin pulled it off quite well with some help from her mother and mother-in-law. The photo above is of Jocelyn and Ryker enjoying the pool with Kristin, Tanith and Jan, Kristin's mom. The pool water was quite warm, but still refreshing in the heat.

What would a pool party be without rubber duckies, and especially and ducky birthday cake? I think there were about 40 or 50 rubber duckies used for the party, but I didn't exactly count them. I know I sure bagged a lot of them up the next day when we were packing out the rest of the house. To go along with the cake, Jeremy grilled some beef, and there were lots of munchies and drinks for everyone to enjoy. If you left that party hungry, it was your own fault because there was plenty to eat.

Jocelyn, of course, got to have some cake. We think she liked it quite well, given how she grabbed a couple of handfuls and stuffed it into her mouth. Her daddy thought it was quite funny, as long as she didn't get any on his shirt (he's a bit anal when it comes to his clothes). She did get it smeared into her hair and all over her face, but that's what babies do. Everyone else enjoyed the cake as well, including Ryker and Makayla, but in general the rest of us were a bit neater than the little girl of the hour.

Later this week, I'll share some of the images I made during the last couple of weeks.

New Models

2009-07-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

I've been interviewing and working with a number of new models lately. As I've built my portfolio with new and various images from my fae project and with other examples of my glamour work, it's been easier to explain my vision to prospective models and engage them in a conversation about potential projects on which we can work together. Last week, I was able to do a test shoot with a young model called Heidi who will be one of two girls posing for my Fire Fairy shoot. We shot under the St. Johns Bridge in North Portland and we were able to get some very nice images along the river and on the steps beneath the bridge.

I did a test shoot with the young lady that cuts my hair yesterday, delivered her some prints today, and I think she is seriously considering shooting with me for the fairy project. At least, she told me she enjoyed our little photo session and wanted to do some more.

This week I'm hoping to do test shoots with two more models who want to be part of my project, and next week with any luck I'll be shooting with 2 more models who want to be fairies as well. This is all good, because I think this project is coming to a temporary close. By this, I mean I hope to have the necessary images completed so that I can begin working on designing the book for which the images are intended. My goal is to pick the final images for processing, layout the book and design the pages, and write the prose to go with each set of images during the winter and early spring. This should allow me to get the book into publication by summer.

Once this is complete, I guess I'll start working on my next project, whatever that might be. I'll need a project, though, because that give purpose to my photography and lets me exercise my creativity in a more purposeful manner.

Post Project Blues

2009-07-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

Wanda is feeling kind of antsy this week. I told her it's because her paver project is complete and she doesn't have as much to work on right. I just hope that doesn't send her looking for another big project to do before we go to California near the end of the month. Still, I'm sure she'll find some smaller projects to work on between now and then.

The paver project actually turned out quite well. It was quite a lot of work for both us and the contractor. In the future, though, I think we'll contract for the entire job and forgo the pain and pleasure of doing the grunt work ourselves. We dug up and moved better than 10 yards of river rock and dirt in order to prep for this project. It supposed saved us some money, but I'm not sure it was worth it. We started with this:

We moved all the river rock to a tarp in the driveway and then put an ad on Craig's List offering free to anyone who was willing to haul it away. The first load looked like this:

The pile got much higher before the first person came to get their share, and we moved about 3 more piles even larger than what you see above. Fortunately, we had enough folks willing to take the river rock that we didn't have to haul any away ourselves. Eventually, with the liberal use of shovels and pickaxes, we got the river rock out and the ground looking like this:

Fortunately, it didn't rain that entire week, otherwise it would have been a huge, muddy mess. Unfortunately, the temperature soared into the 90's that week and the heat made a difficult task even harder. On July 3rd and 4th the materials arrived for the project and we took a day off to enjoy the holiday with our family.

Then the contractors started to work. First the gravel went in:

Then Wanda decided on the pattern and the initial blocks were laid. Of course, I had to go get more gravel, then more pavers, and then more sand.....

And then, at long last, it was all done:

The contractors finished up the job while I was out shooting one of my fairy shoots. I was so glad to return home to find the pavers in place. I still had to move everything back out of the garage as well as dig and lay new sod at either end of the house, but it's done and it looks good.

A Muse

2009-07-08T10:52:00.001-07:00

I believe I need a Muse. I just don't think I'm creative enough when it comes to my photography or to my writing for that matter, and I need someone who can inspire me to stretch beyond the limits of my existing creative process and who can listen to my proposals, my ideas, and my conceptual theories without initial judgement, or negativity and then help me refine them into feasible shoots. That Muse would also help me execute those concepts, either as a model or as an assistant.

If would be great if such a person were also technically adept in photography, but not essential. It's the creativity that's important--the ability to help me sort the kernels of great ideas from the mundane chaff of mediocrity. More importantly, a Muse would propose her own ideas with a unique perspective and a feminine touch and allow me to mold them into derivative concepts to execute. This would help me to get out of this creative rut that I feel that I've been in for the last year or so, and would perhaps help me to find my own intrinsic vision while infusing me with new enthusiasm.

For many years, Wanda was my Muse. For the last 33 years, she has been my model and my inspiration for many ideas. She has borne my experiments with good grace and cheer, and has often put herself in precarious situations so I could achieve a particular shot. She has climbed trees and rocks, stood in ice-cold rushing water, stood nude in snow banks and blizzards, walked on ice, and generally has done whatever I've asked of her for my shoots.

Unfortunately, as my passion for photography, and my technical skills have grown, Wanda's interest in my work has waned. I can hardly fault her for that. Over the years, I've taken literally tens of thousands of photos of her, and today she is far more interested in her own hobbies and interests, and the extent of her interest in my photography is the images I make of our grandchildren and of family events so she can create her wonderful scrapbooks. She still supports my photographic projects, but she has no enthusiasm for them, and I can understand that.

It's unlikely I'll find a new Muse. While it's not difficult to find models, a Muse is a more personal relationship, and platonic though it may be, there does have to be some emotional and creative connection in place. There has to be friendship as well as a working relationship. It sure would be nice though.

I Lost My Arbor

2009-07-01T09:39:00.001-07:00

Wanda has yet another project going on this year. Now that the living room is completely refurnished, she wants all the river rock dug out from the side of the house and pavers put in place and a walkway added to the deck. Okay, I want to get rid of the river rock myself. The previous owners had put it in because they used that side of the house as a run for their dog, but we don't have a dog and the rock is a real pain in the rear when I'm trying to get the lawn mower from the front yard to the back and vice versa. Besides that, any attempt to walk on that surface without sturdy shoes is a exercise in masochism resulting in bruised soles and stubbed toes.

Once again, Wanda has done weeks of research, picked out the paver colors and patterns, and has dragged me to several landscaping suppliers to look at the difference between Appian, Boston, Camino, Roca, Arena, Octo, Holland and many, many other styles of stone. I've also had to look at Basketweave, Herringbone, Linen, Muster K, Step Running Bond, and Running Bond patterns using the various types of stones. This is not a simple project.

We looked at doing the job ourselves, but we simply don't have the expertise (or the backs) for that kind of labor, so she's had 4 or 5 contractors come out to bid on the job, and on Saturday she chose the guy who spent the most time explaining to her what the job entailed and how the various patterns would look - in other words, he spent more than 20 minutes measuring the area and simply providing her with a quote.

As part of the contract, we agreed that we would take out the existing river rock and provide him with a clean dirt area to level and fill before setting the gravel, sand and pavers. We thought, "Hey, a little manual labor will be good for us." Five yards of loose gravel and strained muscles later we're thinking, "Hey, we aren't as young as we once were!" The loose gravel came out, if not easily, at least without heroic effort. There is, however, the matter of the gravel that has been packed down into the dirt for the last 18 years. It's kicking our ass!

So, given that we want the project to start Monday after the 4th of July weekend, as well as realizing that if we want to keep our bodies relatively whole and not sore during the holiday weekend, we've hired some young labor to help remove the remainder of the gravel. I think at $10/hr it's a relative bargain, though I suspect it will take most of two 8 hour days to get the job done. Sometime, near the end of next week though, the side yard will have had a very large face-lift and will be suitable for the grandkids as a play area.

Unfortunately, as part of the project, I lost my vine covered arbor that divided the side yard from the backyard and which provided me with a lovely photographic prop. I put the arbor in over 11 years ago and had been carefully training the ivy to grow up one side, across the top, then down the other side. It was really looking good too.

I had thought we could simply lift it out of the ground with the vine still attached and move it to the side and out of the way during the construction process, since the lead runner was so thick and long. Alas, the posts of the arbor had dry rotted and all four broke off when we attempted to move it. Also, during the process of attempting to untangle the vine from the lattice work, the main runner broke (Wanda did it - not me!).

Removing the arbor does make the area look more open, but darn I'm going to miss it. It make a great background for photos. Just take a look for yourself:

Christine as a schoolgirl:

Holly from behind:

I'm really, really going to miss that vine covered piece of painted wood.

Woodland Pixie

2009-06-29T09:17:00.001-07:00

I finished another photo shoot in my Fae in All of Us project this past Friday. Once again, I shot the images in the wooded area at Dragonfly Landing, the property that belongs to my good friends, Mark and Gabi.

It was a wonderfully warm and sunny day for the shoot, which lasted about 2 hours. I had the model in makeup and costume by 4:15 and we wrapped up shooting by about 6 pm when the we lost the nice bright patches of sunlight that manage to pierce the thickly canopied wooded area. By the time we were finished shooting, though, the poor model was shivering, despite the warm wraps provided for her between poses.

Amy, the model, was genuinely sorry she was so cold, and kept expressing concern that her shivering would show up in the shots. She wanted to help me get some great images and she gamely pushed through the entire shoot without a single complaint. She was quite fun to work with and came up with some great ideas that contributed to the shoot.

A very slender and young model with golden brown dreadlocks and a natural look, Amy matched my mind's image of a Woodland Pixie, and when I saw her portfolio I felt she would be a great choice for this shoot. Based on a quick scan of the images from the shoot, I feel certain I was right in choosing her for this project.

Next up - Bambi as my Flower Fairy.

Thirty Years

2009-06-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

I've been messing around with cameras and making photos for over thirty years now. I purchased my first "professional" camera thirty years ago this month (I just came across the receipt). In the intervening years, I've taken tens of thousands of photos (or more), and lately I've been going back through the older ones, scanning them, and putting them in an archive. I've also been sharing some of them on MySpace and Facebook for smiles and grins. The older images have garnered some responses from some of my old high school friends, as well as some of my relatives and new friends.

In 1981, I moved to Upstate New York on an assignment as an instructor at the Navy Nuclear Power Training Unit in Balston Spa, New York. While I was there, I took a course in photography from the New York Institute of Photography, and then I began working with models and shooting weddings. I was all of 21 years old at the time, and photography was simply a way for me to express myself outside of work.

I think I've become a much better photographer since then, but I did want to share a few images from those first years and that first camera. Remember, these were scanned from prints that were quite old, so don't laugh too hard. :)

Toni was one of my first models. She contacted me through an ad that I placed in a local newspaper. I think I might have paid her something like $5 an hour to pose for me. She was a very sweet girl, but had an abusive boyfriend. She enjoyed modeling and could produce some very sultry expressions. She and her boyfriend lived in and managed a hotel on Saratoga Lake, but by the time I left New York, they were living in a small travel trailer somewhere off the beaten path. When she got pregnant with her first child, she inherited a lot of our baby clothes and toys that we no longer needed. I still wonder what happened to her. I hope she did well in life and went on to have a happy and successful career and family. I'll probably never know though.

Here are a couple more images of Toni which were shot in my attic studio:

Susan was another model of mine, but I only worked with her a couple of times. Not long after we started working together, she moved away to college. She was pretty, funny and smart. I'm sure she's doing well.

As you can see, I was still very much in a learning phase with my photography. While I knew the basics of exposure and composition, I hadn't had a great deal of practice yet.

Sue Gleason was my 3rd model in New York. I worked with her serveral times. We did at least three or four field excursions to shoot, including one up to Lake George where she startled me by stripping down and jumping into a cascading (and freezing) stream.

Sue was a hippie. I don't think I ever saw her in a bra - she preferred body suits and skirts, always kept one strand of her hair braided, and was wont to take off hitchhiking on a whim. I think she was the first model that ever tried to seduce me. No, it didn't work, but it wasn't for lack of her trying. :)

Here is Sue at a place called Rock City Falls, which was one of my favorite places to shoot:

Here is Sue, upstream from the falls posing on the log that you see Susan walking along in teh above photos:

And finally, here's Sue standing in the same stream. I can tell you that this girl loved being in the water....well, except for that one time she got into a pool of water at the base of a cliff, waded out about 20 feet until the water was up to her waist then realized, after the silt settled, that she had gotten into a pond of huge tadpoles. I never believed in "walking on water" until I saw her leave that pond. :)

So, there are a few memories and photos from the past. I'm sure I'll be posting more in due time.

Father's Day Shoot

2009-06-22T09:36:00.000-07:00

For Father's Day, instead of relaxing and watching movies, playing games, or just having some downtime, I spent the day prepping and shooting a set of portraits of my grandson (and his dad). First, I had to clean out the garage from all the yard items that were moved there the day before for my granddaughter's 3rd birthday party. Then I had to set up the backdrop, the fog machine and a set of gelled lights (one softbox with a flag, one gelled light on a boom with a 40 degree grid, another gelled light on a floor stand with a 30 degree grid, and the final gelled light on a floor stand with barndoors). Finally, I had to test and adjust the lighting.

The setup had to be right from the start, since I didn't want to unnecessarily subject my grandson to the fog, so I had my wife and daughter help me with the adjustments. Wanda was the stand in model, and my daughter operated the fog machine. I set the main exposure (the softbox) with a Sekonic L-508 light meter, then adjusted the gelled lights (height, direction and intensity) by monitoring the preview image on my digital camera (a Canon 1Ds Mark III with a 24-70 f/2.8L lens). The softbox strobe was an AB 800, the boom light was also and AB800, while the two floor lights wereWL 1600's. The softbox was triggered by a PW transceiver and the other lights triggered off optical slaves from the key light.

Here are the images with that setup:

For the remainder of the images, the gels and fog were removed, the black velvet backdrop was draped on a table, and the fire fighting gear was set up per Ryker's dad's specifications. I then added a large Photoflex reflector on the right side of the image to provide for more even lighting across the portrait. Ryker was getting a bit fussy by this point, but we cajoled him into some nice expressions:

For the final image, I pinned an American Flag to the background and lit it with a non-gelled AB800 with a 40 degree grid.

The lighting in the first two shots will be similar to what I will use for my Fire Fairy shoot.

The Fairy of Photos?

2009-06-11T07:55:00.001-07:00

One of the concepts I forgot to mention in my last post was that of the Photo Fairy. The concept statement for this series of images goes something like this: "The photo fairy is one of the fae muses. She inspires creativity and new perspectives, and oddly enough, she likes to get into lots of contorted positions while using her cameras." Keeping that concept in mind, and knowing the long lives of the fae, I extended to concept to conclude that this fairy would have quite a variety of cameras with which she could shoot. Fortunately, I have quite a number of camera bodies and lenses, some of them quite old, which can be used a props to support that particular theory. Above, you can see a photo of one a Polaroid Land Camera 100 - one of the first cameras with an electronic shutter and the first Polaroid utilizes pack-film. It was produced and sold in the early 1960's.

The camera you see to the right is a folding Medium Format Camera from Kodak. Based on my research, I believe it's a Kodak Vigilant Six-20 made in the years 1939-49. The Vigilant Six-20 has a folding frame finder incorporated into its top housing, and another optical finder near the shutter.

I've had both these cameras for over twenty years, as they were a gift from my mother-in-law. They've been part of the decor in my office for as long as I had an area to call my own. It's nice to be able to put them to use in one of my photographic endeavors. I'll need to clean them up a bit before the shoot, but both of them are in pretty good shape for their age.

Of course, I'll be using some more modern cameras as props in the shoot, but on Tuesday I found a camera that was quite affordable and was perfect for the shoot. It's a Kodak SpeedGraphic 4x5 view camera and it's in working condition. There's a small chip broken off the ground glass focusing plate, but the bellows is tight and the controls work quite well. The shutter works and though it took me a minute to figure out how to set the shutter speed and aperture.I think it's the perfect prop for the shoot.

The model wants the final images to be B&W and infrared, which I think is an excellent idea, though I'm thinking of editing the images to make them appear consistent with the images that would have been taken with the type of camera she would be using for the shoot. So, if we start with the older cameras and move to the more modern ones, the images would be come cleaner, clearer, and the final images would be in color.

The model for this shoot? Well, I think I've talked my lovely wife into participating with this one. She used to be my primary model for all my shoots, but since she's become a grandmother, she's much less inclined to model for me. But, this image was taken just a couple of years ago, and I still think she's good model material. :)

Summer Shoots (NSFW)

2009-06-05T16:56:00.001-07:00

I'm currently scheduling my summer photo shoots. The current of shoots include:

1. Woodland Pixie (tentatively scheduled for June 26th with Amy M. of Model Mayhem).
2. Dark Fae (tentatively scheduled for July 11th with Sarah T. of Model Mayhem)
3. The Reaper Fairy, tentatively scheduled for sometime in July with my good friend, Bridgett (note to self - get Bridge on the hook for a specific date - she gets too busy otherwise.)
4. Fire Fairy - I have to get this shot this summer. The model I want to use is currently not available but has told me she'll be able to shoot sometime in June. I have two models I want to use for this, but since it's a very complicated lighting setup, I'll need to schedule the two models on consecutive days.
5. The Forge Fairy (and his assistants) - which will get shot as soon as my friend, Mark, can spare the time.
6. Fashion Shoot - with Gabriell for her portfolio (to be determined).
7. Special Forces Fairy - with camo wings, a carbine, and an attitude!
8. Plus some barefoot glamour, fashion and other shoots as I can fit them in.

It's going to be a busy summer. Here's an image from my 1st shoot last summer.

Memories

2009-05-20T21:31:00.001-07:00

I was chatting online the other day with my friend, Bridgett, who mentioned she was restoring an old Camaro she got from her mom. That reminded me of the Camaro that I owned when I was younger. It was a '77 model with a 4 on the floor, and I honestly can't remember the size of the engine except that it was quite powerful and got lousy gas mileage. Of course, gas was about 50 cents a gallon back then so it wasn't too bad.

It was my first new car and I bought it while I stationed in Nuclear Power School in Orlando, Florida. Wanda really liked the Camaro body style, so that was one of the reasons I decided to go with the model. Mine didn't have a lot of features, but as a young E-4 in the Navy, it was about as much as I could afford. It took me back and forth between Orlando and Atlanta almost every weekend for 6 months, and then took me from Orlando to Idaho Falls, Idaho for Nuclear Power Training Unit (NPTU) instruction. Wanda and I then drove the car from Idaho to Connecticut shortly after we got married and kept the car until our first child was born. I then sold it to one of my younger brothers who kept it for many years after that.

In the photo above, Wanda, all of 17 years old, is sitting on the car during a stop in the middle of Wyoming. She was a bit car sick and quite warm. We were traveling during the summer and the Camaro had no air conditioning - which didn't matter too much once we got to Connecticut.

One nice thing about being a prolific photographer is the images that you can pull out of your archives to help you remember so many different things. If Bridgett hadn't mentioned her Camaro, though, I probably wouldn't have remembered this image for quite a while. Thanks, Bridge.

Swirls of Change

2009-05-14T15:43:00.001-07:00

So much has been changing recently that it's hard for me to keep up. Even the changes keep changing, or at least I don't know what the final change will be. My son and his family (and more specifically my granddaughter) may be moving back to Oregon. That will be wonderful for Wanda and me, and good for them in some ways since they will be closer to family and old friends, but not so great for them in other ways. For Wanda and I, it means a chance to spoil our granddaughter and do more with her with the her cousins.

There are other changes as well - with work, with life, with children and grandchildren. But life is all about change. It's never static and always challenging. Some things we have control over, but others are totally out of our control, if not out of our sphere of influence. So, changes are normal and we have to expect them, and learn to deal with them as best we can. But change is inevitable.

Wanda is on her way HOME!

2009-05-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

The text came this morning - "on my way." That meant that Wanda as able to catch the 8 am direct flight out of Atlanta to Portland and she'll be home in a couple more hours. With any luck, she will have gotten some sleep, because two of the grandkids are here, and she's going to have her hands full with a little girl who has been missing her for the past three weeks.

When her mother took so ill three weeks ago, we weren't sure if Wanda was going to help her get better or to attend a funeral. Thankfully, it was the former rather than the latter, and Wanda was able to devote the time after her mother got out of the hospital to getting her mom on a good treatment regime, working with her to stay compliant on her medications, and helping both her parents to get their affairs in order so that should anything happen the preparations are in place.

It's good that she went to Georgia to take care of those things, but she certainly has been missed around here. This big house, and that big bed, seem so empty and quiet without her. Of course, Makayla can fill the house up with energy despite her small size, but Makayla isn't here all the time. I know the girls have missed their mom as well - otherwise they both wouldn't be here right now waiting for her return.

So, she was missed and we're damn glad she's coming home. Me especially.

Some Days!

2009-04-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

Life sometimes just doesn't go as planned. Last night, I set up all my cameras, prepped my strobes, gathered all the costume materials, printed the model release and shoot sequence, and did a final run through in my head of how the House Fairy shoot would go. The idea was to have everything totally prepared to get through the shoot quickly as soon as my real job permitted. I think that's the way it would have worked too, except the model never showed up.

Once I realized the model was a no show, I posted a quick casting call on my local modeling site and got a fairly quick response from a different model who was very interested in shooting the concept, but who, after agreeing to the shoot, called back within 15 minutes to cancel on me. Hopes raised, then hopes dashed! That's the quickest cancellation I've ever received from a model.

The original model eventually contacted me, apologized profusely, and stated that she lost track of the day of the week and offered to do the shoot for me when she returned from a trip to back East. It may well be that we'll shoot another project together, but I'll have to use another model for for the House Fairy. Fortunately, I have one already scheduled for Friday and I've reconfirmed with her. So, with any luck, I'll actually get to shoot the theme.

Of course, if that were the only thing that happened today, it wouldn't be so bad, but this morning when I went to update my business financial records and found 2 years worth of data was missing. YIKES! So I went to my backup files, and the same thing. I still have no clue what happened. My computer has been running a file recovery program all day, and I suspect it will be running all night and most of tomorrow as well, and I can only hope I can find a slightly old file to recover. If not, I'll have to reconstruct the data from my paper records, which will be an extremely tedious effort at best.

Of course, my woes are very, very minor compared to those of so many other people in the world, and certainly minor to those I experienced even just a few years ago. So life goes on, and when it's all put into perspective, I really have nothing at all to complain about and much to be thankful for in my life.

And tomorrow is always a better day. Right?

Shoot Plans for the remainder of the week and month (NSFW)

2009-04-28T21:32:00.000-07:00

Well, so far, due to my forced bachelorhood, I've managed to:

Rake the yards, trim the bushes, clean up and rearrange the garage, edge the lawn, mow the grass, fertilize the shrubs and plants, fertilize the lawn and apply Scott's feed and moss killer. I also made two trips to Good Will, vacuum and shampooed all the carpets, cleaned up the three bathrooms, repaired the lower dish washer sprayer, wash all the linens, as well as all the laundry, filed the taxes, reorganized our filing system, cleaned out the refrigerator, cleaned the oven, completed one landscape field trip down the coast to Florence, as well as a 1 1/2 day photo shoot with a remarkable young model.

I've also worked full time at my day job, taken care of my grand kids 8 out of the last 12 days, as well as taken my youngest daughter and her children out for lunch on her birthday, So, I'm ready to do just a little more stuff for myself. So, I have three shoots planned for the rest of the week.

Tomorrow, I'm shooting with Ashley with the theme of the House Fairy, that magical creature who, with the properly incentives, will come to your house and clean up all the mess from the big party. Every home wants one, but not every home can get one. It takes strong belief and a welcoming attitude (as well as an open bar since House Fairies are notoriously thirsty). Still, they'll do any task that needs to be done, so they're great to have around. Fairies like Ashley are very easy on the eyes as well.

On Thursday night, I'm shooting with Krisa. Our intent is to add a variety of shots to her portfolio. Krisa is so much fun to shoot with, it's hardly work at all. She's very photogenic and full of energy. I have a broad plan for the shoot, but we're going to keep it pretty flexible to accommodate shots she wants to add to her portfolio.

Finally, on Friday, I'm shooting with a differnt Ashley, the young lady who was the first model of my fairy series. My intent to is do see if I can get more enthusiastic poses and expression from her in an outdoor glamour setting.It's a challenge to me to see what I can do to work the model as to achieve her very best.

Then, at long last, Wanda will be home and I will pleading with her to start posing for me again. She's my best model and the one I love to shoot the most. It's fun to work with new models and capture new looks on film, but no one can ever replace her in front of my lens.

Shooting as Fun and Therapy

2009-04-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

Wanda is away for a couple of weeks. Her mother took a severe turn for the worse and she made snap decision to make the trip back to Georgia. It was certainly the right decision, given the circumstances, as her mother almost died before the doctors got her stabilized. She's out of the hospital now, but Wanda needs to remain with her parents for a while longer to assist with setting up her mom's home therapy and to help get both her parent's affairs in order.

Her mothers sudden turn was precipitated by a fire that destroyed both their outbuildings, included her father's woodworking shop and resulted in the lost of several thousands dollars worth of equipment, as well as many precious family heirlooms. The stress of the event (which has been determined to be arson), was just too much for her mom who has been chronically ill for several years now.

I have, of course, had more time on my hands with Wanda gone. We talk every morning, and I'm doing a lot of on-line research and paperwork for her parents, but given the three hour time difference, my evenings are mostly free except when the grand kids are here (a couple of nights each week so far). To get my mind off things and to give me something to work on while she is gone, since I've cleaned the house, the yards and the garage already, I took a road trip on Sunday and then shot with a young model I'm helping to get into the business on Monday and Tuesday.

The road trip was quite relaxing. I took Hwy 26 and Hwy 6 to the coast and it was a gorgeous spring day for the trip. From Tillamook, I took the Three Capes Scenic Route and did some photography out at Cape Mears and the lighthouse, then drove down the coast to Florence to meet my model and spend some time with her parents.

The model, Gabriell, is a lovely and talkative young lady, had expressed an interest in modeling part-time to earn extra cash. She is quite photogenic. I've known her for several years and Wanda and I are great friends with her parents. I photographed her for her senior portraits last year, and she was the Sand Fairy for my ongoing project. I definitely wanted to have a discussion with her parents before the shoot to keep them in the loop and to explain what we would be shooting, especially since I expected that Gabriell would be interested in the more lucrative areas of modeling (glamour and artistic nudes), based on her previous history. Of course, it was just fun spending the time with two good friends and chatting about life and family as well.

On Monday we got an early start shooting per our shoot plan, and headed out to Collins Beach, on Sauvie Island. As you can see from the image to left, Collin's Beach is a Clothing Optional area. The look on Gabriell's face was something to see when she saw the people on the beach, but she was quite game to get started and we got some great shots. The day was beautiful with a clear sky and wonderfully, warm weather and we had great views of Mount St. Helens and other peaks in the background. We spent about 3 hours shooting there in various outfits, and I think we got a number of great images for Gabriell's portfolio.

Here are just a couple of shots from that session:

Over the remainder of the day and the following morning, we got quite a number of additional images, but I haven't had the opportunity to process any more of those (the grandchildren have been staying with me since Tuesday), but I certainly think that this young lady has potential and with some hard work, she could make some real money as a glamour model for local artists and photographers.

Shooting as Therapy

2009-04-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

A Finished Project

2009-03-17T16:25:00.000-07:00

The living sofa arrived this weekend, just in time for Nikki's birthday party. It certainly makes the room more cozy and useful than the previous decor. The only thing left is the drop leaf table that will go behind the piano which we'll pull out for games or other entertainment purposes.

The new TV and sound systems are working out quite well, though Makayla seems to think this entertainment system was installed specifically for her. Maybe she's right.

Looking in from the foyer.

Details from what was previously the dining room. This is the bar area and where we'll play board games with family and friends in the future.

Looking into the room from the entertainment area:

An overall view showing the entertainment center, piano, etc:

Wanda used rich browns and greens for her palette with cream accents colors. The wood tones and the whimsical touches she added to the room make it far more inviting than the previous decor which was very formal and made guests less likely to utilize the room. There's a sleeper hidden in the sectional which should make having the whole family here over the holidays easier to acomodate and most of us can fit on the sofa for movie nights or just to talk and listen to music.

My Most Recent Shoot

2009-02-19T14:30:00.000-08:00

Just a couple of images from a recent shoot with Krisa:

Frustration

2009-02-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

We're adding a new entertainment center to our living room. The intent is to have a large screen LCD HD TV and a Blue Ray/DVD player/amplifier with Surround Sound. When we were looking for the system, I decided on a Bravia XBR6 52" LCD and the Sony BDV-IS1000 BD/DVD Home Theatre System. I chose this particular home theater system due to the small size of the speakers, their good sound, and the fact that the rear speaker can connect wirelessly to the main unit of the system so that I wouldn't have to run speaker wire underneath the house.

So far this has been a fiasco. The orders were placed and the TV and theater system arrived promptly. But, before we could put everything together, we needed a new entertainment center to support the equipment. We wanted and Sanus three shelf unit like we have in our family room, but the unit we wanted was discontinued. So, we went to the local Best Buy, found a unit we liked in their Magnolia display room, and the sales clerk there told us it was only available online. He pulled it up on the in-store kiosk, selected it for us, and told us we could put in our information to order it. No problem, right? Wrong!

It arrived about a week later, and as I was putting it together it seemed quite different from the one in the store. In fact, it was very different and wasn't even made by the same manufacturer. So back we went to Best Buy to return it. I'll have to admit they took it back with no problem, but the unit we wanted wasn't even available from them. After a futile search online, we finally picked up a Bello center from Video Only. It looks great and fits perfectly in the corner, but it's only two shelves high, which is lower than we wanted, but we figured we could make it work with what we wanted to use in the room. In fact, when the TV was set on the center, we found the height was just fine. However, we noticed the TV had been damaged during shipment.

The right corner of the TV was damaged (the plastic corner had broken off and the speaker grid support had broken off) and this damage was hidden by the styrofoam packing material. So now, that had to be returned. Again, we were quite fortunate in that the company where we purchased the unit was very nice about the return and arranged for the delivery of a new set to coincide with the pickup of the damaged one. That straightened out and the new unit ordered, we turned our efforts to installing the Home Theater System. Since the damage to the TV was only cosmetic, we figured it would be pretty easy to set up the system and have everything prepared for the delivery of the remaining furniture and the replacement TV.

The system was very well packed and the speakers were much smaller than I expected. The wires were all color coded so everything was easy to assemble. The wireless rear amplifier meant I didn't need to crawl under the house and pull wires, and could simply route the speakers wires around the window frames hidden beneath the curtains. That would have been great, except that after two days of going back and forth with Sony tech support, I still couldn't get the rear amplifier unit paired with the main unit. Sony finally gave up after I tried everything they suggested (including turning off everything wireless in the house), and told me to send it back. Once again, the company we ordered it from was very nice about the return and fedex picked it up yesterday.

So, after over a week of work, right now I have a mostly empty living room, a beautiful TV stand and a damaged TV, and no home entertainment system. I'm going to re-order a system on Monday, but I'm going to get a discreet setup (separate receiver and Blue Ray Player) with wired speakers. It's going to cost me about double the other system, but I just don't think wireless technology is quite where it needs to be yet.

Fortunately, I had a great birthday today with two of my grandkids and my two daughters, a relaxing 90 minute massage purchased for me by my loving wife, and a great lunch at one of my favorite restaurants. And tomorrow, I have a shoot with a fun model. Life could be much, much worse.

Redesign

2009-01-17T22:16:00.000-08:00

Our living room and dining room are the least used spaces in our home. Together they encompass about 1/3 of the living space in our home and yet they hardly get used at all. They are decorated in a formal style which looks very nice, but they're hardly inviting for conversation or entertainment since there is very little seating space. So we are redesigning.

The goal is to make the entire long, narrow room with it's vaulted ceiling, warmer and more inviting. We're going to replace our settee and coffee table with a sectional sofa and ottoman. Our rolltop desk will be replaced with a corner entertainment center which will include a 52" LCD TV, integrated Blue Ray/amplifier and speaker system, and an Apple TV for music. In the dining room, the china cabinet will be replaced with a lighted presentation case to show off some of our collectible artwork, and our hand carved oak dining room set will be replaced with a drop leaf table which will be used for a game table when we entertain. Much of our older furniture will be given to our children or sold.

The drapes will be replaced by warmer earth tones that will match the sectional sofa, and 5.1 wireless surround sound speakers will be mounted to the walls. We'll also be replacing most of the artwork in the room to match the new feel of the space.

Redecorating is, of course, Wanda's forté, so she is in her glory. She is happy, so I guess I am too.

2009 Planning (NSFW)

2009-01-07T18:21:00.000-08:00

Detailed planning contributes to great shoots. I learned that lesson in 2008 and I hope to build on it in 2009.

I'm planning all my 2009 photo shoots. 2008 was a most productive year for me photographically, both in my personal projects as well as my family projects. By my rough count I worked with 16 models for about 20 separate shoots over the course of the year. This isn't including all the family photo shoots I conducted. Indeed, one of my projects which I hope will lead to a book publication within the next 1 - 2 years, is going quite well. I have been working with some very nice, lovely and stable models lately. Some of my other models are a little less stable and seem unwilling to take directions well, but I love the images just as much from them as I do from my more mature and professional models.

You can read about my 2008 year in photography here in the post below.

The two little problem models are Jocelyn and Ryker who are cousins and born just a little more than a month apart. They're my latest granddaughter and my first grandson. So 2009 will keep my camera busy, no matter what other projects I'm able to start and finish. And they can always provide a bit of stress relief. If some of my other shoots go poorly, I can at least count on these two to give me a big old slobberly smile which can immediately light up my heart, just like hugs from their bigger sibling and cousin.

Anyway, I'm working on my 2009 project plans. I have several shoots I intend to complete this year. There are at least three or four to be done in January and February, two that I'm planning toward the middle to end of March, and another 6 over the course of the summer, and an additional 4 in the fall. This is, of course, if all goes well and I get enough models willing to work within my budget.

So, what are these projects? Well you can read about them all here:

Mark's Current Projects

If there are any of you that want to help with the project - photo assistant, 2nd camera, Makeup Artist or Stylist, model or csotume designer, let me know and make me a pitch. Any of these could be a fun project and I'm looking for some creative minds to work with during the year. Let's all create some art together.

2008 in Review

2008-12-31T15:39:00.000-08:00

Please be patient as the images load - there are a lot of photos in this entry.

The year sure went fast, didn't it? It was a tumultuous year to say the least, not only economically and politically, but personally as well. As I've done for the past couple of years, I'd like to capture the year in sort of a photographic review. This year, however, because so much has happened with my family, I'm including more family images to help capture the flavor of the year.

January was mostly a bust, photographically. I didn't do much photography at all. That's not unusual for that time of year as it's usually quite wet and cool here in Oregon. I hope to change that in 2009 and actually get more photography done by working on some experimental projects using a table top studio setup.

I did get to spend quite a bit of time with my granddaughter in January though. She thought it was quite amusing to steal my glasses from me and pretend to be near-sighted like her "Papa." I sure spent a lot of time cleaning my glasses this year.

In February, I made an effort and got out of the house to scout some locations for future photo shoots, but the big event of February was a total lunar eclipse which I photographed from my bedroom window. It was actually, quite a bit tougher than I thought it would be, even with my Canon 40D which has a Live View mode. Even with a remote release, mirror lock-up, and a heavy tripod and ball head, I still had some trouble getting sharp images. It was fun to shoot, though.

I guess the other big event in February was my 50th birthday and the surprise party my family threw for me. While I was out shopping with Wanda, the kids came over and really went to town. They filled my office with black balloons, replaced my desk chair with a wheelchair, hung black streamers from the ceilings and had a walker waiting at the door for me when I arrived. There were all kinds of decorations on the walls - mostly telling me how my life was now on the downhill slide. They really had fun setting everything up and the party was quite fun - mostly at my expense. We had lots of friends and family over, so it was all good.

Unfortunately, a week later my Aunt Joyce passed away. She was like a second mother to me. She took ill quite suddenly and just never made it out of the hospital. My mom had lived with her for the past 20 years or so, and when my mother passed in August of 2007, I knew Aunt Joyce wouldn't last too many years longer, but it was a bit of a shock for her to go so quickly.

March was a happier month. Wanda and I went down to Florence on the Oregon Coast to visit Mark and Bridgett for a weekend.

Those two always cheer us up, and I did a little landscape photography while we were there. A couple of small storms passed through while we were there that gave me some dramatic lighting, and we had a good just hanging out with them and their kids.

We stayed in a little hotel right on the Suislaw River. There was a great little coffee shop right next door, and the harbor and the historic district shops were within easy walking distance.

Later in March I got to work with three lovely models for some glamour photography. First there was Lisa:

Then I got to shoot with Sierra again (a lovely model I had first worked with the previous August):

And then I finished up the week working with Ashley, a young lady I've worked with a couple of times in the past:

As the weather warmed, I took my granddaughter to the park and for walks around our little community. She was delighted when the daffodils began to bloom.

April was much warmer and the clouds began to slowly clear. The sunlit days came more frequently and the ground began to dry between the rainstorms.

Dandelions began to shed their puffy seeds:

We decided to get rid of our satellite system and get fiber optic internet and television (highly recommended if your neighborhood has that capability). Wanda "volunteered" to climb up on the roof and disassemble the parts from the dish that needed to be returned to the satellite company. She wasn't at all nervous.

As the days got warmer and longer, we were able to wear shorts and to play in the backyard:

And to spend even more time at the park:

By the end of the month, the trees and flowers were in full bloom.

May was even more productive from a photographic sense. I began the month shooting some portraits of the ladies in my family (though Kristin wasn't here to join us). Here are 3 generations of my girls:

Later that month we sent to the zoo with some friends. This lovely fellow posed almost perfectly for me:

Unlike Stephanie who was constantly trying to avoid my lens:

Though she has subsequently agreed to model for me (later this year she will be my Dawn or Mist Fairy).

Warm days at the zoo call for a snow cone (and a messy shirt):

Later in the month, Michelle (a very close friend of my youngest daughter) and her husband, David, came up for a visit and I did a few portraits for them.

I also shot some Senior Portraits for Gabriell:

As well as a few fashion/outdoor glamour shots:

I would shoot with Gabby again later in the year when she became my Sand Fairy, and I will be shooting with her several times this year, I hope, as well as I'm trying to help her get started in commercial modeling.

Since her mom always teased her by calling her a spoiled princess, we decided to add that to our images:

And toward the end of May, I met the first of the young ladies who would help me with my fairy project. This is Lilly who became my Woodland Fairy:

June was a lot of fun photographically. That's the month that I started the first of my Fairy shoots. The first of the 2008 series was shot with London Andrews, a young lady who was traveling the country modeling for various projects. I used her for my Garden Fairy, and she was a lot of fun to shoot. She is very professional and experienced and need very little direction.

Then later in the month, Lilly and I went out to a lovely piece of property owned by a friend and shot our Woodland Fairy series:

On the family front we had a shower for our son and daughter-in-law:

And I took the opportunity to get both my mothers-to-be together for a shot together. This is Kristin (daughter-in-law) and Amber (youngest daughter):

I also wanted to do a family portrait for my daughter, and I thought this came our rather well:

And then toward the end of the month, our granddaughter had her 2nd birthday (my gosh, has it been that long?).

July was a very prolific month for me. As usual we held on annual 4th of July cookout and had a great time with our friends. We had lots of food, plenty of guests, and a great game of Frisbee after we ate.

Shortly after the 4th, Wanda went back to Georgia to visit with her mom (and dad) who hasn't been in the best of health in recent years. She had a good time and got her mom out of the house and helped with some needed repairs around their home. She even took her mom and niece to an outdoor museum.

While Wanda was gone, I was able to complete several more shoots in my Fairy Project. First I met with Holly for a test shoot. It went quite well, and she later posed for my Waterfall Nymph. Here's an excerpt from Holly's test:

Shortly thereafter, a young lady named Ashley contacted me and wanted to be my Summer Fairy. My friend, Mark M., agreed to let me use his property for the shoot and also provided me with some great assisting and I was able to create a lovely set of images for that series. Here's Ashley in her guise as the Summer Fairy:

Then it was time for a road trip to Southern Oregon and another set of shoots. First I stopped in Cottage Grove for a shoot with Heather and Morgan. Heather posed for my Bubble Fairy and as my Spirit Fairy.

A couple of days before the shoot with Ashley, I received my Canon 20D back from being modified by Lifepixel for infrared photography, so the shoots with Ashley and Heather were my first opportunities to try infrared portraiture.

I also shot with Morgan who primarily acted as my assistant during the shoot with Heather, but the photos I took, just didn't' do her justice, so I'm planning a reshoot of that fairy (the Spring Fairy) this year. Still, I had several more shoots ahead of me, so the next morning I left Cottage Grove bright and early and headed down to Florence for a photo shoot with Gabriell. I had shot her Senior Portraits at no cost to her in exchange for a few of photo shoots later in the year. This shoot was to be first (and unfortunately, the only) of those bartered shoots.

The plan was to shoot a Sand Fairy in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. Gabriell's mother, who is a good friend of mine and a sometimes model as well, had scouted the location for me earlier in the month. I had purchased costume jewelry, costume material and wings to use in the shoot before Wanda left for Georgia. Wanda then took the wings and gave them a sandy texture with various paints and materials. I think the wings turned out quite well.

Bridgett had picked and excellent location. It was a bit tough to get too, especially since I had a bum knee that week, but we managed it. Bridgett acted as my assistant and help me with the cameras, reflectors and other materials. What we hadn't expected were the 30 mph hour winds that were buffeting that area of the coast on the day we shot, nor the much cooler temperatures that were expected that day. Gabriell was a real trouper, though, and we shot for at least an hour. Bridgett spent much of her time chasing down flying wings, reflectors and protecting my cameras from the blowing sand. She was a real help, and I couldn't have done the shoot without her help.

Despite all the travails, I think we got some really great shots and the blowing wind added to the effect of the images. Later that evening, after we got all cleaned up from all the sand, Bridgett and I did a glamour shoot.

After the shoot, Bridgett went home to study for a test, and I packed away me gear and finished planning for the next day's shoot - the Water Fairy. I was to pick up the model in Salem on my way back home. I was really looking forward to this particular shoot as Jen, the model whom I would be shooting, had some great ideas and an exotic look that I thought would go particularly well with my concept.

I got up very early the next morning and on my way east from Florence along the Suislaw River, I just had to stop for a few photographs. The mist was rising off the river and the dawn light was skimming across the top of the mist and along the tops of the mountains that flank the river. I think the images I took were my best landscapes of 2008:

Jen was right on time and waiting for me when I arrived at her apartment. We went back to my home where she got into makeup and we headed west toward the Oregon Coast and to this secluded but lovely stream where I had shot in the past. We spent nearly 3 hours playing in the water and on the shores of the stream and had a great time with the shoot. We were both very pleased with the images we got that day.

Jen and I plan to shoot together a few more times this year as well.

I was able to get in at least two more Fairy shoots done before the month's end. Holly and I went out to a little waterfall I know about just off the highway to Tillamook and I shot her as a waterfall nymph. The images taken in infrared were particular good in my opinion.

Ashley came over to the house and I was able to do a couple of variations with her. First we did Art Fairy:

And then I wanted to try a different version of the Bubble Fairy:

Wanda came home before the end of the month, and it was a good thing because not only was I missing her intensely, but so was Makayla, who definitely monopolized her grandmama's time when she returned from her trip.

I did get to shoot one event in July. Mark (he of the lovely property where I often shoot fairies), invited me to an SPCA event where I managed to capture some melee images as well as to purchase a couple of lovely statuettes for Wanda.

The end of July brought a truly special gift. On July 31st our 2nd granddaughter, Jocelyn Serenity, was born.

That pretty much ended the photography for July. It was a busy, busy month.

August wasn't quite so busy, though there were some photographic opportunities. We did go to a local festival and listened to a pretty good band:

And I met up with a bunch of fellow photographers from Photography-on-the-Net (POTN):

for a shoot in the Columbia River Gorge:

We had a great time shooting the waterfalls and streams of the Gorge, but the temperatures hit over a hundred degrees that day. Fortunately, the mists from the falls kept us all pretty cool and it was fun to get together with other photographers for a shoot. We had lunch in Cascade Locks and called it a day, or at least most of us did. Others went on to shoot windsailors and boats along the river.

In August, Jocelyn came for her first visit to Oregon to see her grandparents and aunts:

So August was over and we were moving quickly toward Fall. I wasn't sure how many additional photo shoots I would get in for my fairy project, but I did know that September was going to be a busy month. First of all, the roof on our house absolutely had to be replaced before the winter rains set in, so that project had to start in early September.

Also, our first grandson was due before the middle of the month, and he came right on time - just a day before his due date. Ryker was born on September 10th (right in the middle of the roofing project).

but that didn't stop us. We managed to see him the very same day--in fact, Wanda was there at the hospital the whole time my daughter was in labor. I left the roof to its own devices and got over to see my grandson when I was allowed to show up.

Eventually, the roof did get finished, and it looked pretty damn good.

A little later that month, we managed to get to the Portland Pirate Festival, which was the only festival I managed to shoot in 2008.

Toward the middle of the month, Krisa and I worked on the Danse Fairy, and Mark was gracious enough to let me use his property yet again, and even mowed a fairy circle for me in his field.

Krisa was a great model and tried just about anything I suggested. I was totally amazed when, on our return trip from the shoot, she told me that this had been her first nude shoot. In the case of Krisa's shoot, I had both a male and female assistant as it was a rather complicated set up. I don't know if that helped her be less nervous, or contributed to some jitters. But, frankly, if she was nervous, I didn't see it. In any case, we had a great shoot and Krisa was a pleased with the images as I was.

Later in the month, Jeremy and Kristin brought Jocelyn back for visit and for the first time we had all three of our grandchilren together. As you can see, Wanda was totally delighted, as was I.

That just about wrapped it up for September except that toward the end of the month, I managed to touch base with Sierra who was quite eager to join my project and to acquire some new images for her portfolio as well. So, on the 29th we went out to the Tillamook waterfall for a glamour shoot.

Then the next day we went to Sauvie Island to shoot the River Fairy:

As well as a new version of the Sand Fairy (which in the photo below is unedited for the most part).

October, November and December weren't really photographically productive for me with regard to my personal projects. The weather was too bad for outdoor photography, and though I had had some hopes to do some pinup photography with a couple of the models I had worked with earlier in the year, there simply wasn't the time or opportunity to take advantage of it. Wanda and I spent most of our time with our new grandkids, and in fact, at the end of October, we took a little trip down to California to spend some time with Jocelyn. Before we left, though, we took time to visit the pumpkin patch:

And to take some baby pictures:

To carve some pumpkins:

And to go to the Fall Festival at the community college near our house:

When we got to California, we spent most of our time with little Jocelyn:

And we carved some pumpkins with her too:

And made Grandmama a birthday cake:

Took a trip to the Academy of Sciences;

On Halloween we handed out candy and watched for ghosts:

We had to head home at the beginning of November, and it was sure hard to say goodbye to little Jocelyen:

Once we got home, though, we got busy again. We had to bake:

Play games:

Watch basketball:

And cook Thanksgiving dinner:

In the meantime, in sunny California, Jocelyn was taking mommy to the park:

After Thanksgiving, we put up the Christmas tree and hung our lights:

When December arrived, so did the snow. Someone just had to have a snowman:

And the snow just kept coming:

Jocelyn made it to Oregon okay, as did her parents, and Grandmama had cookies all baked and ready for her:

And she was all ready for Christmas:

As was Makayla and the rest of the family:

And Grandmama and Papa were just happy to cuddle the babies:

Winter Play

2008-12-23T10:18:00.000-08:00

Winter has definitely arrived here in Portland. We've had the biggest storm in nearly 40 years, from what I understand from the news. Many major highways were shutdown over the past few days due to falling trees, white out conditions, jack-knifed tractor-trailor trucks, and just generally bad weather. My son and daughter-in-law, and more importantly, my granddaughter are on their way here from the coast were they were visiting her parents, but they've got to take a detour to get around an area of Highway 26 where the road is closed due to fallen trees.

There are people stuck all over. In Portland, only the main roads get any service during a storm. The residential sideroads are left alone and it's up to the ingenuity of the residents to determine how to cope with the conditions. Lots of people, like me, choose to walk to get anywhere. Others have chains, 4 wheel drives, studded snow tires, etc. and manage to get around reasonably well. Others just get stuck (like my granddaughter, Makayla).

The children were certainly having fun. My oldest daughter, Nikki, decided she had to have a snowman. So she badgered her mom until she got her to go out into the backyard and build a guardian snowperson to patrol the area:

Yes, that's one of my good hats, but I let them use it in hopes that it will survive a few days in the cold. As soon as it starts to thaw, though, my hat comes in to dry!

The kids next door had a sled, and as we live on a fairly steep hill, the big kids here managed to borrow the sled for a while (payment was a plate of home made cookies and chocolate covered pretzels).

That's Nikki above, and Wanda below:

Of course, it's a pretty good walk back up the hill:

But it's certainly lovely:

And it's certainly cute when little girls play in the snow:

And the littlest ones can only dream about playing outside:

Winter Weather Blues

2008-12-20T17:16:00.000-08:00

We've been snowed in for the past week. We live on a hill and with the exception of Friday, the snow and ice have been bad enough that we didn't want to risk driving in it. We did manage to get out yesterday and over to the other side of Portland to pick up one daughter whoe was somewhat stranded there and to visit with two of our grandchildren and our other daughter. Also, our son, daughter-in-law and newest granddaughter flew in and met us there before heading to the coast to visit with the in-laws. For a brief period of about 20 minutes, we had all three of our grandchildren in the same room. It was delightful.

Unfortunately, we had to forgo dinner plans with some very good friends of ours whom we haven't seen in several weeks, but we're going to make every effort to see them in the next couple of weeks. We didn't get home until later in the evening, and slept in this morning. By the time we got up for the day, it was already snowing again and there was about 3 inches of snow on the ground here at the valley floor. Three inches isn't much really, especially since we lived in New England for several years before we moved to Oregon, but the snow removal capabilities of the county and cities in the area don't compare at all to those of the Northeast so the roads are quite treacherous. I did buy chains for the truck, but unless I have a real need to leave the house, I just can't see driving in this mess.

We had hoped it would warm up and all this would be gone by Christmas so we could have all our grandchildren and children here on Christmas Day, but it's looking iffy right now according to the latest weather forecast (which haven't been terribly accurate). We're keeping our fingers crossed, though.

One advantage of this nasty weather has been that it's given me some extra time to work on post-processing the images I've taken this past year. I usually shoot quite a lot during the warm months then work on the images over the winter months - and not being able to get out of the house has given me some extra incentive to work on the images. The two sets I've worked on most recently have been the River Fairy and the Sand Fairy. If the weather keeps up like it has been, I'm sure I'll get on to the Water Fall Fairy and the Spring Fairy as well.
Here's the Sand Fairy:

With any luck, I'll be able to shoot the Winter Fairy too. Wish me luck.

Current Work

2008-11-17T14:25:00.000-08:00

Finished working on Danse Fae:

Started working on Bubble Fairy 2:

Vote 2008

2008-10-26T09:39:00.001-07:00

I don't normally write about politics. My blog is primarily reserved for my photography projects and family events. This year, however, I feel that the state of our country requires me to speak out. Since my blog is where I share my opinions and comments, it seems most appropriate that I speak here.

Let me preface the remainder of my post by stating that I would never presume to tell anyone how to vote. That's an individual and very personal decision and depends greatly on your world view, your perception of what is needed to make your life, and the lives of those your care about, better. But, I will tell you what it is that has lead me to my vote in hope that it might persuade others to rethink their positions or at least to consider the options.

I'm sure that because of the banner above, you already know how I plan to vote, and many of you have immediately labeled me as a liberal. You may be correct from your perspective, but from my point of view, I'm both moderate and independent. And before you assign to me any particular stereotype, consider my background and my beliefs.

I retired from the US Navy after over 20 years of active duty service in the Submarine Force. I was trained as a Nuclear Reactor Operator and worked my way to the rank of Senior Chief Petty Officer before I retired. My military background has reinforced my belief in a strong national defense, but certainly within limits, and I know the pain of long separation from my family on the orders of others. I understand the dedication of our nation's service men and women, but I also know the arrogance of many of our nation's leaders when it comes to using these men and women for their own agenda.

My years in nuclear engineering have shown me that nuclear power can be a safe and clean energy source, but it has also taught me how important it is to have strong regulations and control of the industry and the disposal of the hazardous waste.

I was born and raised in the rural south and began attending school before they were desegregated in my county. My family was not well off. Neither of my parents ever finished elementary school, much less high school, and they struggled to get ahead. Both of my parents worked, and my dad took on extra jobs during the holidays to provide for us. Eventually, life did get better, but only through my parent's hard work.

My father is a devout minister and my family is by and large devout Christians. So, I have seen first hand how faith can help people get through hard times. I've also seen the ugly side of religion when people start to believe they are better than those around them because they believe their particular dogma is superior to all others.

I have a strong belief in family, and I have been married to the same woman for over 30 years. We raised three children and now have three grandchildren who we adore. Family is important, but the "family values" espoused by the religious right have less to do with family and everything to do with political power and imposing their beliefs on others.

I'm an Independent. I've voted for both Democrats and Republicans in the past, choosing to cast my vote for the person and not for the party. I still feel that way, but the modern Republican Party and its current affiliation with religious fundamentalists, xenophobes, and run by a small coterie of NeoCons frightens and disgusts me.

This is a party who policies of unilateral nationalism and corporate cronyism and enfranchisment have lead to:

1. A military stretched thin by two wars, repeated and extended deployments, and inadequate care for our veterans. The slogan "Support the Troops" meant nothing when it came time to vote for veterans health care, educational benefits, and body armor.

2. A squandered budget surplus and trillions of dollars in national debt. Corporations and CEO's have been enriched, while banks and stock markets have careened out of control with little or no oversight and predatory lenders have convince millions of otherwise smart people that they could afford more for less with "creative" financing schemes that have turned out to be deceptive and ruinous.

3. The Bush tax cuts that the Republicans want to make permanent have help to create the greatest gap between the rich and the poor in this country in history. The theory that tax cuts are a panacea for all our ills has been proven to be false and the concept of "trickle down economics" is simply silly.

4. An erosion of civil liberties and personal freedoms that should scare every American citizen to their core. American citizens have been arrested (on American soil) and imprisoned by the military with no access to a lawyer and no charges lodged against them on the mere assertion of the president that they were "unlawful combatants." The government, under the leadership of this Republican president, has tried to destroy the concept of habeas corpus, posse comitatus (through the 2007 Defense Authorization Act and via a signing statement on the 2008 Defense Authorization Act), and has authorized wiretaps on American citizens without warrant. Additionally, the integrity and moral authority of the Justice Department has been undermined by the appointment of Attorney Generals like Alberto Gonzales and the influence of polital appointees who have intervened in and circumvented the recommendation of non-politcal career lawyers. These troubling activities continue today under the tenure of the current AG who has done little to restore the independence and integrity of the Justice Department.

I could go on about other issues such as the erosion of the principle of Church/State separation, the underfunding of educational mandates such as the No Child Left Behind Act, the use of torture and disdain of the Geneva Conventions, as well as the lack of a coherent and realistic foreign policy and the loss of America's respect among its allies and friends around the world.

What bothers me most, though, is the extreme partisanship, dirty tricks, dishonesty and arrogance of this current administration, and I just don't see that changing under a new president whose voting record supports that of the current president in all things that matter.

I believe in the Constitution of the United States of America. I swore an oath in 1975 to protect and defend this instrument of our freedom against all enemies foreign and domestic, and I renewed that oath several times during my subsequent 21 years in the military. This means I believe in the freedom of expression (not in free speech zones), the freedom of (and from) religion and the separation of Church and State. The right to privacy and the rule of law, and the right to be secure in my person and in home (not in warrantless searches wiretaps, searches, and seizures or in indefinite imprisonment without charge or a trial by a jury of my peers) are paramount liberties in my book.

It also means that I believe in the principle of checks and balances designed with great forethought by our Founding Fathers who personally experienced the capriciousness and arrogance of a "unitary executive" known as the King of England. Our Constitution was designed specifically to limit and balance the power of the executive branch with strong judiciary and legislative branches of government. The concept that a president, of any political stripe, could unilaterally declare war, imprison citizens, and override legislative acts through executive signing statements would be an anathema to the patriots that envisioned our democratic process.

For these reasons, and many more, I am voting for Senator Obama. I believe he will restore dignity and honor to the presidency by restoring the rule of law and the principles upon which this country was founded. And yes, my vote for Senator Obama is as much against the Republican Party as it is for him personally, but John McCain has shown by his voting record and by his choice of the divisive, and unqualified Sarah Palin (fundamentalist and supporter of the Alaskan Indendence Party), that he can't be trusted to right the American Ship of State. His erratic actions during the current financial crisis, his continued support for the war in Iraq, the Bush tax cuts, and his abrogation of previously stated principles to gain support of the fundamentalist base of the Republican Party give me no confidence in his ability govern or to bridge the partisan divide that currently strangles our country.

So vote how you will, but remember, one definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and yet expect different results.

Moving into Fall

2008-10-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

It's getting cooler, wetter, and the leaves are slowly turning into the muted yellows and reds that herald the fall season in the Northwest. The Willamette Valley stays fairly green throughout the fall and winter. With so many evergreens in Oregon, that's not surprising. But the grass also stays pretty green, as do the ferns and many other plant species.

Usually this means it's time to move my photography indoors. This year, I'm going to try to do more outside shooting, including a great idea for glamour in the fog that a good friend of mine gave to me. I'm also hoping for a good snowfall in the valley this year, as I have a couple of ideas I'd like to try in the snow as well.

With the arrival of fall, and definitely with the arrival of grandchildren, we've enjoyed going out to Sauvie Island to visit the Pumpkin Patch to choose our pumpkins for carving to let our granddaughter play in fields and on the hay pyramid. This year, we got to take our grandson as well. The only thing that would have made it more fun, would have been to be able to take our other granddaughter along as well. Her mom and dad took her to a pumpkin patch in California where they live, though, and I'm sure they had fun too.

We're going to visit that granddaughter next week. Our son and daughter-in-law think we're coming to see the whole family, but Wanda assures me that we're going there to see the baby. We haven't seen her in about a month (except for on video sharing), and Wanda is getting itchy to hold her again. The period between this visit and Christmas is going to be very difficult for her. It's a good thing Ryker, (our 6 week old grandson) is around for her to cuddle. Of course, it's fun for me too...

Being a grandfather is great fun, and I really enjoy holding and playing with my grandkids. My maternal grandfather died before my mother was born, and my paternal grandfather had very little to do with me, so I've had to wing it. I'm going to try to be as much a part of my grandchildren's lives as they and their parents will allow. Fortunately, they've all been great.

Something to Consider

2008-10-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

What is normal?

Last Shoot of the Summer

2008-09-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

I have time for one more shoot before the weather turns gray here in the Pacific Northwest. I've been trying to find a model to shoot with me tomorrow. I thought I had a couple of prospects, but they have failed to follow up with me, so I don't know if I'll be able to pull off another outdoor shoot this week or not.

"My concept for this shoot would be to achieve a series of glamour and outdoor nude shots in a wooded and rural setting. The idea would be to compare and contrast the beauty of the nude female form with the beauty of nature for the nude images. For the outdoor glamour, I would want to shoot some images that used the smooth female skin juxtaposed with rougher materials such as weathered wood or stone."

These were the words in my last casting call posted a few hours ago. I wonder if I'll actually get anyone to join me for a shoot. As of late last night, I had no responses, and I also contacted a couple of models I have used in the past to see if they were interested, but got no responses. I do know the middle of the week is a hard time to schedule shoots, especially at the last minute, but I figured it was worth a shot.

The Tillamook Waterfall

2008-09-29T21:02:00.000-07:00

Just off OR Hwy 6, about 22 miles southwest of the junction of Hwy 6 and 26, on the south side of the highway there is a little waterfall and a pool set back into the high hills along the highway. A large fallen log crosses the pool, and two large stumps stand on either side of the pool. It is not easily seen from the road, and therefore it's usually quite private and available for glamour photography.

I found these falls about 10 years ago, when my wife and I were regularly traveling to Tillamook for personal reasons. One day, on a trip back from the coast, we just happened to pull over into the large flat area along the highway and wandered back to find the falls. Since that day, I've used these falls to shoot various glamour and fantasy scenarios.

It's a dark, cool place, so you I have to shoot there during the middle of the day, when enough sunlight streams through the surrounding forest to light the area such that reasonable ISO settings can be used. And, because it's cool, it's best to shoot there during the warmest summer days, as the models can get cold quite quickly given the temperature of the water and the way the mist from the waterfall is trapped by the surrounding trees. Still, it is a beautiful place to shoot and one of my favorite locations.

I suspect I'll be shooting there for many more years to come, and if anyone else would like to use it, I'm sure you can find it from the directions I've provided about. So far, my models have loved shooting there, and it's always a fun place to shoot with lots of opportunities to experiment with light, water, and mist.

Shooting with Sierra

2008-09-26T14:08:00.000-07:00

I'll be shooting with Sierra again next week. We're doing a glamour shoot in the Columbia River Gorge at some of the waterfalls. They will be mostly bikini and perhaps some wet t-shirt shots, as well as some simple barefoot glamour images.

The weather is looking pretty good for the shoot, and if it holds, we maybe shooting on Sauvie Island on Tuesday as well.

It should be a lot of fun.

2008 Portland Pirate Festival

2008-09-21T08:44:00.001-07:00

The 3rd Annual Portland Pirate Festival started yesterday. I've been attending the festival since its inception (I covered it for the St. Johns Sentinel newspaper the first year), and have enjoyed attending ever since.

The event is very kid friendly. There are many booths and games set up to amuse the children (of all ages) and several of the bands that perform there play music that is specifically geared to the little ones. My granddaughter has attended with me for the last couple of years, and she loves the bands and the atmosphere of the event. She always has a great time.

The event is essentially a big costume party for Portland with a pirate theme. Many, if not most, of the attendees come in costume or at least in outfits that with some sort of pirate paraphernalia. Quite a few of the costumes are not only quite elaborate, but are historically accurate.

If you're so inclined, you can easily buy a pirate costume on site as many of the vendors that set up shop during the event sell all sorts of pirate wear. It's really a photographer's paradise with all of the elaborate costumes and events.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to stay for very long this year. My youngest daughter came along with our new grandson, Ryker, who is only 10 days old, and she was tired and he couldn't sleep with all the noise. So we made an early day of it. We plan to spend quite a bit more time there next year, though, as we're going to get the whole family to dress up and attend in mass.

If you haven't had a chance to visit, you should do so. The festival continues today, and is held every September in Cathedral Park beneath the St. Johns Bridge in North Portland. If you decide to go, I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun.

He's Here!

2008-09-10T08:56:00.000-07:00

Ryker was born this morning after his mom was in 25 hours of labor. This is my first grandson and my 2nd grandchild this summer. Details will follow later after I have a chance to go to the hospital for a visit with my new boy!

Okay, more info:

He was 6 lbs, 15 ounces and was 19 inches long, and looks healthy and strong. He didn't breath right away when he was delivered, but the good doctor's and nurses took care of that and by the time I got to hold him in my arms yesterday, he was fine, if a bit hungry. His full name is Ryker Scott, but I already have a nickname for him.

His mom is doing fine as well. She didn't have to have a c-section this time, so she's very grateful for that. He and his mom should be leaving for home tomorrow and his big sister will get to spend some quality time with him. That should be interesting as she has been an only child and grandchild for most of her past 2 years.

Dancing in the Field

2008-09-08T19:30:00.001-07:00

I had the distinct pleasure of shooting with K this past weekend. We had met several times planning this shoot, but it got delayed twice. First by her trip overseas, and then by a business trip of my own. But we finally pulled it altogether this weekend and completed the shoot.

K was a natural in front of the lens, and was a willing trooper throughout the shoot. She danced barefoot in a mown circle of thick grass and scotch thistle with a smile on her face and with commendable grace. She also climbed onto a makeshift platform designed to raise her into the air without complaint and still managed to balance carefully on the two planks while striking a graceful pose.

I was quite surprised to learn on the drive back to her apartment that this particular shoot was actually her first nude or semi-nude shoot. Given her composure and willingness to comply with my directions, I would never have believed it until she told me so.

I do hope to be able to shoot with her again in the near future, especially when I begin my pin-up project anew this fall. I think she would make a lovely pin-up model in the 1940's & 1950's pin-up style.

I have another shoot with a different model on Saturday, and I do hope the next model works out as well as K did in her shoot. On that note, here's another image to share:

Technological Frustration

2008-09-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

My LG phone died yesterday. It had been having some trouble for a while. It all started when it took a bath with my granddaughter. I thought it was going to last until my next upgrade cycle, but it didn't make it. I had insurance on it, and it would have been covered for the loss, but I decided I wanted to upgrade to a phone that would be not only useful for calls, but that would be able to synch with my computer and help me manage my calendar and contact data.

My son and daughter-in-law have both been using Blackberry Pearls and loved them, so I decided I would try a Blackberry device. I chose the Blackberry Curve 8330 as my upgrade choice and paid all the additional fees and signed all the additional contracts needed to get the upgrade (what a racket the cell phone companies have going here). The Blackberry was able to take my current mini-SD card so all my images were moved, and my contact data was quickly transferred and I was on my way with a new phone and a simpler and more versatile way of contacting people....or so I thought.

Don't get me wrong. The Blackberry is a fine phone. It is not, however, an intuitive device when it comes to settings and the user interface. You would think that Blackberry would provide a comprehensive user guide with the phone so make up for this shortcoming, but all that comes in the box is a Tips, hints and shortcuts booklet (very lame) and a couple of CD's, neither of which contain a pdf file of the users guide.

I'm pretty technologically savvy though. I operated and maintained nuclear reactors for the Navy for 20 years, before retiring and starting work for a computer chip company. I've also owned all sorts of complicated electronic devices and had a home computer many, many years before they were popular. I was fairly certain I could figure things out.

My first stop was the Blackberry website where I downloaded a pdf file of the user manual. That was simple enough. The problem is that the manual doesn't match up with anything on the phone. For example, I wanted to set speed dials for each of my contacts. The manual told me to press the menu button, choose the speed dial list, and add the contact to the list. Guess what? You can't choose the speed dial list from the main menu, and lets not even get into the instructions for adding a custom rings tone (so I know which if my family members is calling when I choose to ignore them).

I did manage to get the damn thing to synch with my computer calendar and contacts - once! Since then, none of the updates I've made have synched at all. I've tried two different programs in an attempt to make it work and one of them cost an additional $40. At one point, I got so frustrated, I packed the phone and accessories up and went back to the store to exchange it for a different device. Once there though, one of the techs showed me how to access the correct menus for what I wanted to do, so I decided to keep it for a while longer to see if I can get it to work for me.

I still haven't figured out call waiting or call forwarding though, and I'll probably spend most of my evening trying to figure out how to get the damn thing to sych with my computer again. I think I'd rather be starting up a reactor.

Life Goes On

2008-08-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

I got to finally meet my new granddaughter this past weekend. Jocelyn is a little cutie as you can see. She's quite small too, at only a little over 5 pounds in this image. My son and daughter-in-law live in California and weren't scheduled to visit until the end of September, but we couldn't take that, so I bought them tickets to come up for a visit as soon as the baby was okay to travel. It was money well spent.

Now that Makayla is two years old, I realize that I had forgotten how small newborns actually are. You can see how well Jocelyn fits into the crook of her Papa's arm. I had a lot of fun shooting with her and I consider her my latest female model.

Unfortunately, she left yesterday and it will be the end of September before I see her again. It will be interesting to see how much she grows in that short interval of time. Fortunately, we have a web cam set up on the PS3 so we can "see" her occasionally between visits.

We won't get too lonely for little babies, though. We have a grandson due in the next couple of weeks - and it could be any day now. His mom and dad still haven't named him though, so I'm calling him Rumplestiltskin (Rumpie for short) until they do in an effort to get them to make up their minds. It's not working, and I think the nickname, Rumpie, is going to stick.

Makayla did quite well with her little cousin, though she did want her own attention as well. I think she'll be fine with her new little brother as well when he finally arrives, though it's quite possible there will be some jealousy at first.

My son is quite the doting father and both he and his wife are going through that giddiness of being first time parents. It certainly screws a bit with their perspective, but that's true of all new parents.

I do now realize how hard it must have been for the grandparents of my children. When our children were born, we lived more than 1200 miles away from them and during most of their lives, we never lived any closer than 500 miles away (Charleston, SC to Atlanta, GA). We tried to visit often, but it's not the same thing as having your grandchildren close by so you can see them often.

Of course, technology shrinks the world a bit for us - we can see her on the webcam, call just about anytime we want, and we can hope on a flight down to Oakland whenever it gets just too unbearable for us. Still, it would be nice if all our grandchildren were close by home.

In Memorium

2008-08-20T09:05:00.001-07:00

Granny, as my mother was called for the last 28 years of her life, passed away a year ago today. I miss her as much now as I did on the day of her funeral. I used to call her every Sunday morning and while I had my coffee, we would chat for at least an hour about the family, our lives, politics and a myriad of other subjects. She loved jokes and always had a new one to tell me every week.

Granny was frank to a fault, but loved with all her heart. She was definitely not a perfect person, but she loved her kids and her grandkids and would have done anything to make us happy. She used to spend hours and hours down in the floor playing with my kids, and they always loved it when she came to visit us, even after we moved to Oregon and they grew up.

She gave me my love of books and classic movies. When I was young, I can remember sitting in her lap and watching old movies on a small B&W TV while she explained the plot to me.

I was standing beside her as she was ironing clothes on the day that JFK was shot, and I remember asking her why she was crying...and she told me someone was trying to kill hope.

She was the artistic person in our family. She could sew, paint, and she loved to handcraft decorations for all her children's homes. Once she got onto a kick of making stuffed rabbits in cute outfits and sent so many to my house that I swore the things were breeding when I wasn't looking. She painted a mural on the whole side of my aunt's shed and though she didn't start painting until very late in her too short life, she had a great flair for color and a wonderful sense of perspective.

The last time I saw her, she called me her angel and told me she would meet in the next life. She was my mother, my friend, and I miss her.

Writing and Blogging

2008-08-19T08:28:00.000-07:00

I enjoy writing articles about photography and events. I've written several lens reviews, a series of articles on composition, and some reviews of various events around Oregon and Washington. I've been so busy this summer, though, that I've fallen behind on the list of articles I've been meaning to write, but I'm sure as soon as the winter rains set in, I'll be able to catch up pretty quickly.

I have review articles on the EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS, the EF 16-35 f/2.8L and the 24-70 f/2.8L lenses pending, as well as a review of the Canon 40D and the Canon 1DsMK III camera bodies in the works. As I've never reviewed a camera before, that should be a fun challenge.

I'm also planning to write an article about Crater Lake (if I can ever get back down there to shoot), an article on Barefoot Glamour, and maybe a basic studio lighting primer.

Other plans for the year are a potential Glamour Workshop, some pin-up shoots in the fall and winter, and at least one fair or festival. I might also hook up with my friend, Jim, and see if I can do some band venue shooting. That's quite challenging and he's been practicing for a few years now and seems to have it down to an art. I want to learn some new tricks from him.

I'm also open to suggestions about new writings. If any of my readers (all 3 of you) have any ideas of what you'd like to see me write about, please, by all mean, let me know. I'm always looking for new ideas and concepts.

A Little Break

2008-08-17T13:16:00.001-07:00

I've been taking a bit of a break from my photography projects. I shot quite a lot in March, June and again in July completing several shoots in those months. But I had so many images I needed to process, that I decided it would be best if I worked on those instead of shooting new material.

My plans were to begin shooting again this weekend, but I was unable to schedule a shoot with one model and I had to cancel a shoot with another as I had an unexpected business trip out of town that left me with no opportunity to adequately plan the shoot. It was probably fortunately that I rescheduled as the weather this weekend has been quite hot and humid and I'm sure the model would have wilted during a two hour shoot. She was very gracious about rescheduling and aware that I only did it to make sure we would get the best images possible from our shoot.

I did manage to make it to the POTN (Photography-on-the-Net) shoot in the Columbia River Gorge yesterday. It had been planned for several weeks and it was quite fun to meet some of the people with whom I've been chatting with online for so many years. There was 8 of us total from across the Northwest and we met at 7 am at the Vista House at Crown Point State Park. From there we had a wonderful view of the Columbia River Gorge. Our next stop was Latrourell Falls and then we made our way down the Gorge to Sheppard's Dell, Bridal Veil and Wahkeena Falls before heading out to Hood River for lunch and what we hoped would be some kiteboard shooting. In the image above you can see all of us (well, except me) shooting at Latourell Falls. I also got to experience the thilling adventures of the "Boring Boys" and their no holds barred approach to photography. I think they managed to dunk a good bit of themselves and their accessories (though not their cameras or lenses by sheer luck) before the shooting day ended.

The image to the left gives a bit of insight into the Boring Boys' approach to waterfall photography (wetter is better).

Lunch was good, but alas, there was no wind so our time together ended after lunch and we went our separate ways. although it seems I've been asked to host a glamour and nude workshop for some of the guys sometime this September. That should be fun to plan and execute.

In the meantime, I'm trying to schedule at least three more shoots before the end of the year for this year's projects while at the same time, planning lots of time to spend with my current and future grandchildren! Wish me luck.

Past Glamour

2008-08-05T17:36:00.000-07:00

I've been seriously shooting for about 30 years now. I bought my first SLR camera, a Canon AT-1, in late 1978. I have always been interested in photography, though. I can remember running around my neighborhood as a kid and shooting images with a small camera given to me for a birthday. Of course, back then it was all black and white and I doubt any of the images have survived the intervening years. In the late 70's, before the birth of my first child, I got very serious with my photography.

I can't say I was any good back then, but I sure enjoyed it. I bought all the books I could find that explained the basics of photography. I took courses from the New York Institute of Photography, and though I had a young family to support, I managed to acquire a decent set of lenses and a 2nd body.

Even back then I primarily enjoyed shooting outdoor glamour and nudes, and I worked with quite few models over the years. I got my first break with models when I moved to Upstate New York and I was able to work with several young ladies from the local area. I was able to get a few of those images published, though the tear sheets are long gone from my portfolio.

I did have one advantage that helped me improve my photography. I had, and still have, a lovely wife who was alway willing to pose for me. In fact, the image you see here is from 1986 (well after our third child) and taken along a rural river in Georgia. She was 26 at the time and this was taken at about 7 am in the early morning light. Back then she didn't mind getting up very early and jumping in a river for me. She's not so keen on it these days, though if I beg enough she'll do it.

In any event, I still love shooting outdoor glamour and nudes, and I still love shooting with my wife. And here she is 20 years later:

Continuing the Project

2008-08-03T21:49:00.000-07:00

The Fae project is continuing, although at a slower pace. I was supposed to meet with the next model yesterday, but had to cancel at the last minute due to a family emergency (all is under control, so no worries there). The next shoot should be quite fun as the model is both lovely and enthusiastic and the Dance Fairy is the concept we're planning to shoot.

I have two other models who have expressed interest in the project, but neither one have been available for setting up the final logistics, so I'm unsure with those images will be shot, but I'm hoping to get at least 3-6 more concepts shot before the end of summer, including a reshoot of the Spring Fairy.

The image to the left is from my Art Fairy shoot. I have quite a few more images to process from that series, but I'm quite pleased with the ones that I've processed so far. I've made several prints from that shoot for my portfolio and they work quite well as part of the series.

I think for the future images, I'll cast and interview for a specific concept, meet with the model at least twice before the shoot, and have a more detailed script and at least one assistant for the shoot. That will go a long way toward making the shoots more productive and easier to post process the images.

I'm a Grandpa (Again)!

2008-07-31T21:10:00.001-07:00

My son, Jeremy, and his wife, Kristin, had their first child this afternoon. Jocelyn Serenity weighed in at 5 pounds, 3 ounces and is 17 inches long. She looks a lot like her daddy when he was her age, but only time will tell if she keeps the resemblance.

Her mommy went into labor early this morning, but managed to deliver after only 11 hours. Our youngest daughter, who spent 29 hours in labor with her first one, was quite envious, and she's quite proud to finally be an auntie.
She's due with our first grandson in a few weeks, so maybe she'll have a faster and easier labor this time. For her sake, we certainly hope she follows her sister-in-law's fine example.

Mother and daughter are doing fine, and there's a proud new daddy in our family. Of course, Papa and Grandmama are pretty delighted too and quite anxious to get our hands on the little one. That will have to wait a bit though as she is several hundred miles away in California.

They're all planning a visit to Oregon at the end of September, but we just might not be able to wait that long. I think there might just be a road trip in our near future.

War

2008-07-27T12:12:00.001-07:00

I finally got back out of the house to shoot this weekend. I drove up to an SCA event just north of here to visit with some friends and do some photography. It was a rather small event, but fun to shoot.

Several friends of mine are members of the SCA and they invited us up to camp with them, but unfortunately Wanda wasn't feeling too well, so we had to decline. We did make the attempt to go together on Saturday, but she couldn't stand the twisty ride to the site, so I wound up going alone.

The event was held at a park where the old Trojan Nuclear Power Plant used to be. It's a very lovely park right on the Columbia River and several nice ponds and fields on the grounds. It was a very good site for the event. The only drawbacks were the mosquitoes, which weren't too bad while I was there during the day, but I imagine they were much worse at night, and the continuously flying fluff from the cottonwood trees that surrounded the site. The fluff as so bad that at times it almost looked like it was snowing in July. If you look carefully at the photo to the left, you'll see some of it in the air around the fighters.

The event centered mainly on combat between armored groups, though there were a number of other smaller activities on the schedule. I hung out for the afternoon, watched some of the events, visited with some friends, and then called it a day. It was nice to get out of the house, but I sure wish I had been able to take Wanda with me.

The Art Fairy (and Bubble Fairy 2)

2008-07-19T10:09:00.001-07:00

I had the opportunity to work with another lovely model this week. Ashley helped me with my latest shoot, the Art Fairy. Our initial plans were to shoot River Fairy on Sauvie Island, but I opted for this more logistically simple shoot due to time constraints and since I had already shot two water based themes recently. This shot is one of the infrared images we did during the session. The full color images were quite lovely too.

I reshot the Bubble Fairy as well, since I wanted a 2nd version with a different look and a different model. While the images with the original model were quite good, they weren't quite in line with the rest of the images in the series.

Ashley was quite fun to work with and very professional. She's been modeling for over 4 years and brought the look I wanted to the session. Her long, curly hair gave me a different look to work with, though I had to remind her a few times to uncover one of her ears so I could give it a fairy point in post -processing. Toward the end of the shoot we were joking about "give me some ear."

I have no other shoots scheduled for the rest of July. That's not to say that if the opportunity arises I won't shoot, but rather that I need to catalog, back-up and begin post-processing the images taken so far. I do plan to do several more session in August, and I'm especially looking forward to shooting Dance Fairy with Krisa and another concept with Megan K.

The Early Bird Get the Light

2008-07-16T15:05:00.001-07:00

Sometimes you just have to get up early to get the right light. These images were taken at 5.03 am last Friday morning as I was traveling east along the Suislaw River leaving the coastal city of Florence and driving inland. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Nymph in the Waterfall (NSFW)

2008-07-13T20:36:00.001-07:00

I was driving out toward Tillmook today and I decided to stop and do some photography at a little waterfall I know of that sits quite a bit off the highway. It's easy to get too and is quite beautiful. As I started to shoot, I noticed this lovely creature just in the edge of my vision. If I tried to look at her directly, I simply couldn't see her, but fortunately I had my infrared camera with me and a round of wide exposures caught this image.

Of course, this is the lovely model Holly posing for my Waterfall Fairy. We had quite the fun shoot today at this little secluded waterfall, and Holly was quite brave, even to the point of braving the very cold pool of water at the base of the waterfall and getting quite soaked in the process.

We got a lot of great photos and I look forward to processing them when I get home from a short business trip. In the meantime, I'll just have to settle for downloading them and viewing the thumbnails. The image above is a very quick edit. The final image will look much better.

Rest and Relaxation (NSFW)

2008-07-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

I've needed to take some time today to rest my knee and recuperate from 5 straight days of

shooting. I also get to spend the evening keeping my granddaughter and so I had to move a project interview to accommodate that as well. I'll have to say the model was very nice about it. I try very hard not to reschedules shoots or interviews unless I absolutely have to do so, and this was simply a day that it was required.

I had a great shoot on Thursday with Adonna. We went out the the Oregon Coast Dunes Overlook in Florence. Her mom acted as my assistant and we managed to shoot for about and hour despite the 30 mph winds and the subsequently blowing and abrasive sands. Adonna was a very game model, despite the cold wind and the harsh environment. We tried every pose I asked her to shoot, and although I didn't get as many shots in the session as I normally do, I think I got more than enough to choose a great Sand Fairy shot (and create and gallery of excellent images). I'll also be managing Adonna on OneModelPlace and I hope I will be able to help her establish herself and a model in Southern Oregon.

On Friday I got to work with one of the best models on Model Mayhem (well, that's at least my opinion). Wolfpup modeled for my Water Fairy. We had a great time shooting in the shallow waters of Spruce Run Creek and she was absolutely accommodating and easy to work with throughout the shoot. She contributed her own ideas to the shoot and moved easily from pose to pose to pose.

Although it was quite the drive from her location to where we got her into makeup and another significant drive to our shoot location, she kept up her end of the conversation along the way and make sure I was comfortable shooting with her. I certainly hope and expect to use her again for another Fae aspect and for my pin-up projects that will start in the winter as well.

Today I found my Autumn Fairy for the re-shoot. Autumn Fairy was the first of the sets that I shot back in 2006. At that point, I had not completely determined all the unifying elements used in the photo sets, therefore I intend to reshoot that particular session using a different model and bringing in the new elements (tule material, body jewelry, and artistic nudity). I've also found a better pair of wings and garland to use for the images.

Tomorrow I shoot Waterfall Nymph (Fairy) with Holly Johnson (who did just a fantastic job with her test shoot), and on Thursday I'm have a shoot planned with Ashley Haven from Model Mayhem. We were originally scheduled to shoot River Fairy, but I may have changed up my plans somewhat - we'll see. River Fairy seems like a very attractive shoot to me, but that will be my 3rd water related shoot in a week, so I'm might want to try something different. Ashley seems to very laid back and willing to shoot whatever I like. In any event, her portfolio has some very professional images and I'm sure we'll have a great shoot.

Of Bubble Fairies, Spring Fairies and Teenage Girls

2008-07-09T22:19:00.000-07:00

I shot today with a couple of young ladies in Culp Creek Oregon. Heather contacted me via a castings call on Model Mayhem and wanted work with me - she especially wanted to be part of my Fae Project. I was hesitant at first because she is only 17, but she assured me that her mother was all right with the nature of the shoot and would be there during the shoot itself. Her enthusiasm for the shoot got her the gig and I agreed to travel down to her area to shoot as it was on my way to Florence where I would be shooting tomorrow anyway.

Last night, Heather contacted me and asked if I could find a spot in the shoot for her friend Morgan. Although it was a very last minute shoot and I had almost no time to arrange a costume and define the poses for the shoot, I agreed and told her we would meet in her area for lunch today and I would brief her, her mom and Morgan (who is 18) on the project and the concept as a whole.

During my talk the girls listened and I thought they understood what was involved with the project as a whole and the elements that interlink each of the photo sessions to the project as a whole. These are the materials used for the costumes (tule is used as fairy garb), jewels on the face and sometimes the body, and some degree of tasteful nudity in that the Fae are not clothes conscious and where whatever comes to hand. Heather's mom certainly understood and it seems she was reasonably impressed with my portfolio.

I'll give the girls credit. They did a great job in applying their makeup to my specifications, including the jewelry, the art crayon on the eyes, and the false eyelashes. I carefully went through the materials that would be used for the shoot and how they would be draped on the body. This is the part where it appears they stopped listening and came up with selective hearing because when we actually started shooting they balked a several of the costume changes I requested and for which I had pre-briefed them ahead of time. It seems they had their concept of the shoot and it almost but didn't quite mesh with mine.

We continued to shoot, nonetheless, and I worked hard to make sure we got some wonderful image. The shoot didn't start well either and the girls had planned to shoot down on the river which would have required a hike down a steep bank with all my gear, nevermind me being able to get down the bank and back up with my bad knee. So after driving about 15 miles to their shoot site, I had to call a nix on that and we had to drive 15 mile back to where we started (about 3 minutes from the hotel) to Morgan's parent's property where we ultimately conducted the shoot.

I had Heather run through several variations of the bubble fairy. It didn't quite work the way I planned because neither of the bubble machines I brought with me was able to work in the wind that was blowing. Morgan had to ultimately blow bubbles with a wand while trying to judge how the wind was blowing so as to get the bubbles to float toward Heather. It wasn't an easy job at all, but she doggedly kept at it and I'm pretty sure we got some good shots.

I then had Heather do a version of Spirit Fairy with elemental jewels. I'm sure I got a number of good shots from that set of photos. Heather changed wings a few times and I even got to do a couple of costume changes.

Then it was Morgan's turn. She got to wear the most elaborate wings for her Spring Fairy outfit and I worked to get several good backlit images for her. Heather's mom spent most of her time helping me with the reflectors and watching the girls costumes and wings while I concentrated on the composition and lighting. There was some pretty good teamwork in place for the entire shoot.
Of course, the girls at first told me there was no time restraints on our shoot, but then told me they needed to be somewhere a 8 pm, and then it was no, we need to be finished by 7:30 so we can get dressed, and somehow that turned into we really need to be finished by 7 pm so we'll have time to get back, dress and put our make-up on. I raised a couple of daughters myself, so I can't say I was surprised. I do hope they had fun with the shoot though. I'll have to say, I probably won't do a two model shoot in the future unless I'm working with older, more experienced models. This isn't to say the two girls weren't good models, but rather it's much more logistically challenging and time consuming to work with multiple models, especially when they have only just started modeling and haven't learned the ropes and unstated rules of professional shooting.

The images posted above are just quick grabs from the shoot. I picked them at random just to show some of the looks we were able to capture. With proper post processing on the skin, wings, faces and background, there will be some great images out of this set.

Tomorrow I have an afternoon fashion shoot and then a Sand Fairy shoot in the evening. Wish me luck.

Summer Fairy

2008-07-08T23:29:00.001-07:00

The Summer Fairy shoot went quite well. Ashley made a superb fairy and was quite comfortable in the costume. She's a little body shy, but was able to overcome her reservations with some exposure. No doubt that she will be an excellent figure model in the near future.

It was a great shoot. Not only did my friends Mark and Gabi generously allow me to use their property, the came down during the shoot to offer us cold water and assistance. Ashley's friend, Anessa, did a great job with the make-up and the reflectors, then Mark took over as my "Camera Bitch" making sure I had the right body and lens close to hand during the shoot.

Afterwards, Mark, Gabi and I discussed the shoots that they would be participating with - Mark as the Forge Fairy and Gabi as the Combat Fairy. We also discussed my concept of Wanda as the Earth Fairy rising from an earthen pit. Without a doubt, they are some of the best and coolest friends we have ever had.

I'm off tomorrow for some shoot in Southern Oregon. So it's best that I'm off to bed for now. I need to get an early start tomorrow as I'm expecting to get two shoots in during the day.

Busy, Busy, Busy - Photographically and Otherwise

2008-07-08T12:51:00.000-07:00

After not shooting for my fairy project for over a year, it seems things are picking up. So far this year I've shot Garden Fairy and Woodland Fairy, and I'm scheduled to shoot Summer Fairy, Bubble Fairy, Sand Fairy, Water Fairy, and Waterfall Nymph this week, as well as River Fairy next week. Additionally, I have models lined up to shoot Dream Fairy, Dance Fairy, Earth Fairy, Forge Fairy, Rock Fairy, Combat Fairy and Spring Fairy in August. After that, I'll probably need to take a break for a while to process the images and decide which ones should be included in the book and the calendar. In the meantime, I'm definitely staying busy with the shoots.

I did a test shoot with Holly yesterday afternoon. She is going to be my Waterfall Nymph (Fairy) which is planned to shoot on Sunday. I also interviewed Jane, who has some great ideas and the look for the Rock (Music) Fairy, and with Krisa, who had some great concepts for her Dance Fairy. I actually had a beer and was able to have a long and entertaining conversation with Krisa whose enthusiasm was quite contagious.

The photos you see here are some infrared shots from my test shoot with Holly. I'll be incorporating infrared into the future fairy shoots for an alternative look to give a more ethereal feel to some of the images. I'll be trying that out this afternoon when I shoot Summer Fairy with Ashley (a new model). Ashley is actually in the downstairs bath with her friend putting on the makeup for the Summer Fairy shoot as I edit this entry.

So, I have a very busy week ahead and with any luck I'll be getting some great images for the project and will have a lot of fun with some great models as we work together to create some exciting and fun photos.

Unfortunately, my right knee is still giving me significant issues (severe pain and muscle spasms which are exacerbated by walking), but I'm trying to bull through the pain and the limp with my trusty cane until I can get back to see my doctor on the 18th. Unfortunately for me, I'm one of those photographers that just loves to kneel or squat to shoot low angles of their subjects and my knee just doesn't work that way right now. Nevertheless, the shoots must go on.

Infrared Photography

2008-06-30T19:49:00.000-07:00

I've long been interested in infrared photography, but it's always seemed such as hassle to me. Back in the film days you had to buy special film, then load it in basically darkroom conditions. On top of that, certain cameras couldn't use the film because they used infrared beams in the body to count the frame advances. Finally, to shoot with infrared you had to use a special R72 filter to let only infrared light into the camera, which meant you had to pre-focus before you put the filter on and that your exposure would be extremely long compared to
a normal exposure.

In most cases, the advent of digital cameras didn't change things much really. While the digital sensor is, in fact, sensitive to both visible and infrared light, camera manufacturers place a filter over the sensor that among other things, removes the infrared light. So, while you didn't need to load the film in the dark, you still had to use an R72 filter to remove the visible light and exposures were still lengthy. Some cameras were much better than others at capturing infrared. The Olympus C2020Z, which I owned for a while, had a good reputation for IR photography, though I never actually used it for infrared.

What did change, however, was that the IR filter in a digital camera body could be removed and replaced with a sensor cover that did allow the infrared (actually Near Infrared) light to pass and all0ws for infrared photography without the use of an R72 filter and with normal exposure times. The image above is a test shot from my Canon 20D DSLR which has had this conversion completed. It was just returned from Lifepixel today (after about three weeks away) and this was taken in my back yard with a Canon EF 50 f/1.4 lens and converted to B&W. The image below was left in color and the red and blue channels reversed to make the sky blue vs. red.

This is going to make photography a bit more fun this summer, and I plan to use the converted camera extensively, but not exclusively, as part of my fairy project. It will also be fun to use it for some landscape photography along the Oregon Coast and for my planned trip to Crater Lake National Park.

Bad Knees and Photography

2008-06-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

Bad knees and photography don't go well together. I spent 21 years in the US Navy, much of that on sea duty aboard submarines. Those years of climbing vertical ladders and standing for hours on end on steel decks left my knees in less than ideal condition. Of course, packing on the pounds after I retired hasn't helped much either. But, other than stiffness and the occasional arthritic flare up, I've been able to enjoy walking, hiking and photography with no issues.

For the last couple of weeks, however, my right knee has really limited my mobility. I didn't injure it, but suddenly it began hurting intensely - to the point where it was affecting my ability to sleep and inducing muscle spasms in my leg. Kneeling was virtually impossible, and I had to resort to using a cane to walk any significant distance.

Fortunately, I was able to get in to see my doctor the day I finally decided that it wasn't going to get better on its own. His diagnosis was gout! Gout? Holy Cow. My aunt and mother had gout and always talked about how painful it was. I know understand their pain. I'm currently on very strong anti-inflammatory meds and painkillers, but honestly, they don't help much. I just hope I can get this under control soon because we have our annual 4th of July cookout/party this Friday and I have several photo shoots I want to do over the next couple of weeks, and for anyone that has ever shot with me, you know how much I love to kneel and get low on the ground for a photo shoot.

Lately, it's been tough to even play with my granddaughter, and chasing her has been nearly impossible. Still, I can pick her up, hold her and hobble slowly over to the tree to let her climb. I better get this under control before the next two come along at the end of the summer, or I'll be in real trouble.

Busy Week

2008-06-22T07:56:00.001-07:00

It's been a very busy week. I owe several long e-mails to some friends, my to-do list seems to be getting longer instead of shorter, and it would be nice to get more than 6 hours of sleep in a night.

The week started out with a sick daughter and keeping the grandbaby all weekend and though Monday. I didn't mind that at all, but when they're two years old, it's all about them. You don't get very much accomplished beyond playing with the two-year-old. Actually, I love it and I'm not complaining. That was the best part of my week.

On Tuesday, though, I had to go on a three day business trip to California. I had several meetings during my stay there, but I managed to spend the first evening at my son's house. Since I wanted to spend some time with him, I really didn't do much work after the normal workday ended. I played Rock Band with him, then we went out to dinner with some friends of his, and then we came back and watched a Meg Ryan movie I've never seen before.

Although it only took me 45 minutes to drive up to his house from the San Jose Jet Center, it was a 2 hour commute back to San Jose the next morning for my meeting. The traffice was absolutely atrocious, and I had been warned that it would be. What I can't understand is how people put up with that. After my 8 years of a 4 mile commute to work and back, I certainly couldn't handle it.

My Wednesday meetings went well, but I still had much to do. I spent most of the evening working from the hotel. The internet connection there was terrible, though, and I had a heck of time getting much done. I didn't even try to work on any personal stuff. Finally I had to call it a wash and get some sleep.

Thursday meant travel back to Portland, and although the flight isn't that long, dealing with traffic getting back from the airport can be a real chore. Add to that, the cramped seating space aggravated my right knee and the arthritis in it flared up and I was barely able to walk. The rest of the afternoon was packed with meetings and phone calls as I tried to follow up on some time sensitive information that I required.

On my return Thursday, I discovered Wanda had a new "project" in mind which included me completely reworking one of the upstairs bedroom. She wanted to convert her craft room into a combination hobby room and kid's bedroom so we could have small guests over for the weekend without them having to sleep in the floor or on the couch. In fact, even as I write this, Ben's kids are sleeping on the floor and the couch in my family room after a long night of pizza, chips and Rock Bank.

Ben is, of course, my oldest daughter's boyfriend. The two of them had a work party to attend last night, so we agreed to watch Stephanie (13) and Trevor (11) both of whom are great kids. We also had our grandbaby again, so we had a full evening. My son had got me playing Rock Band, a music game for PlayStation 3, while I was visting his house, and I thought it would make great entertainment for when we have both kids and adults over for parties or just an evening with friends. It's quite fun and Stephanie, Trevor and I had a blast pretending to be a Rock Band. Makayla, the two-year-old, loves music and she was dancing all over the place. At some point during our play, Wanda got out the video camera and was recording us all. I'm sure that blackmail video will show up somewhere on the internet.

But I digress. Friday evening and Saturday morning was spent working on Wanda's projects. We finished cleaning out the garage, and then we went a picked up a set of bunkbeds for the room (which took a couple of hours due to evening traffic). On our return home, I spent much of the evening trying to copy all her files from her desktop over to her laptop, since part of the plan was to retire her desktop computer so she could use her small desk as a craft table in the closet of the bedroom. I also managed to find time to put together Makayla's new tricycle for her birthday today, as well as a Radio Flyer Wagon for her to use here at the house (and to carry my photo gear when I'm shooting out in the field - it's dual purpose toy).

Most of the day yesterday was spent putting an overhead light into the closet space so she would have light in her craft area. I'm wiring a combination switch and outlet so she has both light and power where she needs it. The problem is deciding how to route the wiring so that it remains primarily within the walls as it's an add on and I really don't want to crawl around in the attic insulation to make it happen.

Still, I did manage to spend quite a bit of time with Makayla yesterday. She led me on a merry chase through Home Depot when I went back to get some fasteners, and together we planted 25 Nasturtium seeds in peat pots so she can watch them grow over the summer.

And today is her birthday. We'll be going to a party later this afternoon and we have lots of presents to open, a Nemo birthday cake to eat, and games to play and pictures to take. It will be fun, but I don't know when I'm going to get to finish wiring that light!

Woodland Fairy Shoot

2008-06-15T21:15:00.001-07:00

After nearly a year and a half of not being able to shoot anything on my Fae Project, I have been lucky enough to shoot two sets of photos this week. I've already written about shooting Garden Fairy with London Andrews, and then on Friday evening I got to shoot Woodland Fairy with Lilly.

I did a test shoot with Lilly at the beginning of the month. I showed her the wings, the costume design and the shoot materials during our test shoot and we agreed that we would shoot during the next good weather day. That day took nearly two weeks to arrive.

Lilly had never modeled before, but was excited to experience her first shoot. We did the make-up (ferns stenciled on the legs and body jewelry around the eyes) at my home before we headed out to the rural location where we were planning to shoot.

We had wonderful weather and the drive out to the shoot location was through a wonderfully scenic part of rural Oregon. Lilly and I chatted on the way out and I learned she was planning to run a half-marathon the next day. As you can see from the image, she's a fit and lovely model and a great choice for a woodland fairy. Her dark hair, eyes and golden skin gave her a look that was both exotic and a natural fit for the forested environs where we were shooting.

Though it was her first shoot as a model, she did quite well. We kept the costume changes and adjustments to a minimum and concentrated on integrating the poses and facial expression with the scenery on the hillside where we were shooting. Lilly was game to try most poses and was willing to pose among the ferns, tree stumps and various other vegetation. She did get cold toward the end of the shoot when the sun got lower and the breeze picked up a bit, but we shot just about everything I had planned and I was very pleased with our first shoot together. I have lots of images to work with and the one you see above was a very rough and quick edit of a random shot.

Garden Fairy

2008-06-12T00:16:00.000-07:00

I got to shoot with the most amazing model yesterday. London Andrews was everything I had hoped for and more. She was extremely professional. She could self-pose with exceptional proficiency. She even did her own makeup and hair. And to top it all off, she was intelligent, fun to talk to, and a lady in all respects.
I wished she lived in Portland so I could use her as a model more often.

She was orignially scheduled to be my Summer Fairy and I was going to shoot her out in the woods in Gaston. But the weather was just too chancey, so we wound up shooting in my backyard, which is small but quite photogenic.

We went through several costume changes (and three sets of wings), and she was game for just about anything I asked of her. She's definitely a lady in all regards, and I'd recommend her to any photographer who wants a classy model for a photo shoot. Even the test shots for exposure came out great (see the image above and to the right).

I'm more than willing to shoot with her again, bu alas, she tells me that she's retiring form modeling at the end of this year. What a loss for us those of us with an interest in glamour photography!

Test Shoot with Lilly

2008-06-02T07:55:00.000-07:00

I did a test shoot with a new model on Friday. Lilly is a lovely, slender girl with long dark hair and beautiful brown eyes. She has agreed to be one of the models for my fairy project and I think she's going to make the perfect woodland fairy.

We did our test shoot in Cathedral Park under the St. John's bridge. It's one of my favorite places to shoot, and I've shot several models there including Sierra, Autumn and Gabriell. If offers a great variety of settings which include a small beach along the river, several wooded areas, park benches, a dock, willow trees, an open fields, a concrete pavilion, and the bridge struts itself.

Since Lilly was test shooting for a woodland fairy, we stuck to the wooded areas and primarily concentrated on how she self-posed, how well she took directions, and how her skin and hair tones stood up against the wooded background. I have to say that everything was excellent. She also got into character and worked at showing me some fairy moods (curious, reflective, frightened, etc.). Her skin and hair tones stood out quite well against the green backdrops and complemented the dark brown of the tree trunks and limbs. She has a natural ability to pose, and can get into character quite easily provide a variety of expressions. She also has the ability to express emotions with her body language, which will help a great deal as we get into the actual shoot.

I brought all the costume materials to show to her, explained how we would proceed through the project, i.e. how the materials would be used, what kind of makeup would be involved, how we would progress from the fully covered shots to the final artistic nudes and got her opinions on the make-up and costume materials. She told me that after seeing the materials I had accumulated for the project, she was quite excited about moving forward with the shoot. Now it's just a matter of location, weather and timing.

My daughter's boyfriend has offered the use of his mom's property for my projects. His mom, a very lovely and nice lady name Shannon, has a lovely home on property out in Gaston. On the hill behind her home is a trail that leads through a heavily wooded areal with old trees, stumps, ferns and everything else one would need for such a shoot. Additionally, she has a large cleared area on her property that would work well for some other projects I have in mind.

There are other options too. There is a large wooded plot of land across from my house that might work well too, though not was well I think as the property in Gaston. Additionally, I have a friend, Mark, who lives up on Bald Peak, and I have permission from him to use his property for several shoots as well. In fact, the first fairy shoot (Autumn Fairy) was shot on his property. Another friend of mine, Dave, has offered me the use of his land as well, and I'm sure there are a couple more friends who would be willing to allow me the use of their property for a photo shoot. So, I'm lucky in that regard.

My only problem right now is a location for my water fairy shoot. I need a shallow steam of water that's fairly isolated. I have a spot in mind, but it's a distance away and is near a state campground, so it's not as isolated as I would like, though I have shot there in the past. You can see an example image from that location directly above. During the shoot where this shot was taken, the model and I were undisturbed and the closest people were three fly fishermen several hundred yards downstream. They didn't notice us at all during the shoot, or if they did, they sure didn't seem to mind. So, I'll probably go for a drive, despite the high gas prices, and make sure the area is still suitable before actually shooting there, but it would still be nice to find someplace closer, if possible.