Inessential Stuff

I had warned Taryn (mostly jokingly) that the location I had in mind–an abandoned house–might be a skunk house.

But when we arrived, the house had been boarded up.  We quickly came up with an alternative industrial site near downtown, and we did some dying light shots, then some off-camera stuff.

During a little break, we took stock of our shoot.  We were standing in a little hallway that had a door at either end.  We were pleased with the location and ready to shoot some more.

Then Taryn said she saw a skunk.  We stood there, quiet, not sure about our next move.  The skunk made it for us. He entered the hallway, not 15 feet away from us and sat down.  I honestly thought about waiting to see if he would walk up the hallway, and then get a shot of him with the off-camera lights.  But I thought the better of it–seemed the lights might be startling.

Taryn and I managed to escape un-sprayed, though I never before have taken down my lights and gathered up my gear in such a delicate and rapid manner.

We plan to shoot again soon.  No skunks allowed.  Anyway, here are the results of the Industrial Skunk Shoot.

In what is now a tradition, I oversaw a massive race of all my Hot Wheels cars this last summer.  I did this while Marcus was overseas, which gives me full-run of the house, and more importantly, the track.  Setting up the track always requires careful calibration (I spent about 11 hours initially making the track–then many more hours making repairs).  I had over 550 cars race (cars on Real Rider tires didn’t compete).  The racing was fast; the picture below of a wicked corner was taken at 1/320th of a second.

I know. The suspense is killing you: What kind of car won? A Track Star? A car on FTE’s? A 1980’s Ultra Hot? An Ace Racer?

Wonder no more. Here are the champions: 1st: the 2005 Phastasm on FTE wheels. 2nd: 2006 Pocket Bikester on FTE’s. 3rd: 2006 Carbide, special Holiday Hotrod.

It used to be, at family gatherings, no one spoke more than Grandpa. He told endless stories—stories of how books, and minerals, and southwestern paintings had come into his possession. He got a good deal on each one of them, and one day they would make him a lot of money, and each one had a story. He would punctuate his stories with demands of Grandma.

She was always obliging, getting his sweater for him, or a new fork, or the wallet from his jacket, while always the hostess to everyone around her: offering large portions of mashed potatoes and peanut butter loaf, offering seconds, even thirds, and moving around the room making sure everyone had been handed a plate of pie with whipped cream.

Things are different now. Now, at family gatherings, Grandma and Grandpa are set up in chairs with blankets, and rarely move.

Grandpa is blind and his heart is failing and now he rarely speaks. He just listens to the sounds in the room: his son telling his daughter a story; the sound of dirty dishes being placed in the sink, the TV babbling in the background, and his grandchildren making jokes, and his great-grandchildren playing, especially them.

Grandma has slipped into dementia. She has forgotten how to cook, forgets to eat, forgets to take her medicine. No longer required to do Grandpa’s errands, and not quite sure of where she is, she just sits and watches all the people in the room. But she is ever the hostess, ever gracious, making sure the people in front of her have eaten, even if she can’t serve them or recognize who they are.

And now Grandma and Grandpa do something that they never did before. Amid the babies crying, the competing conversations, the children yelling and chasing each other around the sofa—amid all this noise and confusion, they turn their faces toward each other—him with no vision, her with no clarity—and they hold each other’s hand.

(Please click on the image for full-screen)

Last Saturday, I shot two very disparate events:  the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation’s conference, and a fashion runway show, The Runway Renegades.

The show featured a number of different designers (more information is available at www.runwayrenegades.com), but was the brainchild of Ronnie of Glamarita, with whom I had done several shoots before (here and here).  You may recognize some of the same models, as well, from those previous shoots.

Here is a gallery of the garments (and models) on the runway Saturday night.

This last Saturday, I had the honor of providing photographic coverage of a conference in Spokane put on by the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation and the Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation. The conference was called “Surgical Advances in Parkinson’s Disease” and featured presentations by four experts in the field, as well as a question and answer panel.

Above, from left to right, are Sierra Farris, MPAS, Monique Giroux, MD, both from the Booth Gardner Parkinson’s Care Center, and Jaimie Henderson, MD, from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

A video of the symposium will be available online at the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation website.  As a non-profit, the organization is always appreciative of contributions. The promising research towards making life with Parkinson’s more symptom-free is certainly worth it.

I did some senior pictures with Travis.  He wanted something low-key.  Not really big into glossy, staged shots.  He plays guitar, so he brought it along.  We found a good location.  And then he just played.

Sometimes all the elements come together and something magical happens.  Here, it was the red shirt and how perfect it seemed against the blue doorway.  And how desolate the street was, and how the sky darkened as the sun set, with blues and grays and pale reds.

And the music.  That was really majgical.  Travis played this great guitar, with a technique that reminded me some of the guitar players I heard in Spain.

A great shoot.  Here are some pictures.

I did my third shoot with Elly.  This one was calmer than our other two, one of which had been a last minute dash on a rainy day onto a bus with dying light, and the other of which was a shoot in the freezing cold in the middle of no where, surrounded by strange sounds–owls and cowbirds, mostly–(again, against the dying light).  But this time, no rush.

It was relaxed, calm, warm.  Just like a cafe should be.  We shot at the Rockwood Bakery, trying to get some moody, coffee, European-ish shots.  This is what we got.