last week was a continuation of the feature hunt theme...which turned out to be good, because i think i have found a story - of the long-term variety, which i desperately need and have been waiting to come across - you know how it is, you can look and look, but the best pictures, the best stories usually find you, and usually when you're not expecting them...

last tuesday, my one assignment got canned due to the weather - or rather, the presumption of weather, which turned out to be not only a non-issue, but a really nice night - i did what any good little worker would do - after giving Mr. Bosch a tour of my little garden endeavor, i got in the car and set out on the old nomadic quest for a feature - i swung through the east side, not seeing a whole lot, but i spotted a little girl sitting on her porch stirring something in a big bowl - i thought maybe she was shelling peas or making dinner, so i pulled over - she was just mixing up her ramen, but i stuck around, feeling like i could make something from this - the feel of it just struck me as cool and promising....more and more kids continued to spill from the house, and soon they were all playing, jumping off the porch, joking, or just hanging out - they were all related and all lived there - after a few minutes, their grandmother pulled up - this was her and her husband's home, they have been in it for multiple generations since the mid-1940's, and all the grandchildren now live here and she and her husband are raising them - 7 or 8 in all, ranging in age from 8 to 19.....although the whole g'parents raising g'kids has been done, it seems to be a family scenario that i run into even more nowadays, and this isn't just a couple grandkids, this is A LOT of kids - i suggested the idea that there is a bigger story here, though i just stopped for a little feature picture, and would she/they be receptive to me doing a bigger story - she said yes, and as she was needing to go and make her dinner (we'd been talking for a while - she's one of those pretty philosophical women who's lived enough to have some real pearls of wisdom stored away and to be shared), i said i'd come back and we could talk more about what i'd like to do - i'm pretty excited - this is my favorite kind of documentary story-telling - people out there in the community dealing with what life has presented - nothing flashy, just real, every day life; and given where they live, and what goes on a little more openly on their street - she said the drug dealers there come out like they're on shifts - early morning, mid-day and night - they have the whole kids and drugs and violence issue a little more in their face as they raise the next generations.

anyway, didn't get any spectacular images, but i'll post them up just the same, and look forward to getting going on what i hope will a very rewarding, enriching, and telling story to come!

one of the neighbors pulled up on his bike - i want to be in the paper - so i held up my camera to take his picture, and the family kids chimed in with their own framing of his portrait

---on a totally unrelated note, as i post---

just heard this on NPR - 

on the fourth of july, Americans will, on average, consume 150 million hot dogs, which, if strung together, would stretch from DC to LA 5 times over!!! wow - now that's some impressive linkage! i wonder if tofu dogs figure in that equation?