time to get back in the game

it has been so so so so long

poor neglected blog
maybe no one noticed but me....and i guess that doesn't matter so much
but pulling out photos to post and then being too lazy, or maybe not interested enough in myself and what i'm doing, or maybe feeling not so happy with the work i have been doing, that i just don't make it to the point of posting leaves a big pool of guilt at my feet
and i haven't splashed through it, or lept over it...i simply stayed still , trying not to look down and see just how deep it's gotten

trying to catch up now would be pretty stupid, so i'm just gonna pick up and move forward and hope that i can give myself a good swift kick if i notice my feet getting wet once again

okay, well, maybe a little catch-up, but only 'cos i kinda like this one - went to a church give-away for area needy...been to a million of these, and they're usually tough to make something decent, like a moment, etc....usually the people picking up don't want to be photographed, and generally they're just coming in, picking up a couple bags or a box, then leaving....and the workers are engaged in this crazy assembly-line whirl of filling said bags and boxes....

this one was even a bit tougher in that it was run like a drive-through - the church people were in the basement filling bags, people would pull in, mark off what they needed, then pull around to the side door where another worker would hand them their items...so i stuck downstairs with the workers, hoping amid their flurry of work there might be some cool interaction/moment....rough going, then this little boy decided he wanted to help out - he stood at the shaving cream section, only people apparently don't use the stuff much, so the bag filler kept passing him by....finally, one of the workers called out "shaving cream" and the boy exploded in celebration at finally getting to participate! phew!

then, onto the usual....sports

students touring the wildlands at the coal plant in search of eagles - thankfully this one was postponed from its original time, when it was about 20 below and i was looking forward to going about as much as i would like forward to having a root canal sans novacaine!

on the drive out, saw tons of deer - i just thought this one was especially cute

then had a silent auction fundraiser, which included appearances by 2 former Lions and football hall o famers - they were both really fun to hang out with actually and they were passing out these bits of life advice that was pretty intense to little kids along with their autographs...just kind of liked this moment

softball clinic for little girls-teens led by a member of the gold medal winning olympics softball team - can't remember her name, but this thing turned out to be huge - people came from literally hundreds of miles away for it

just like the body language of this little girl - i'm sure she's just stretching, but i get a sense of strength, at least symbolically....

which dovetails nicely with a different image of girls - the whole pageant performance thing

also liked this frame from backstage - a group performing traditional Mexican dances waiting to go on - these 2 girls cracking one another up while practicing their onstage smiles

skyscape - when we are on the flight path to Detroit Metro

went to Joe Louis Arena a couple weeks ago for a "student media day" - high school kids interested in journalism got to do press conferences with the Red Wings, which was preceded by watching their morning practice....was gonna try to work something with the reflection in the plexiglass and then i see our reporter walking into the frame - shot this one for him

out of nowhere, a couple of warm days - i mean really warm - not like "ooh, 30 degrees feels so good after single digits for weeks" warm, but actual t-shirt warm! so, went to find a feature - not technically the best, but i kind of like the feel of it

last weekend, speaking of divergent images of girls/women, my day started with a promotional stop by JWOWW from "Jersey Shores" at a local tanning salon

then ended with the home debut of our local roller derby team

that was actually really fun to shoot and watch...now, the morning....mmmm...not so much

this week, last of the winter sports with our boys losing in the state quarterfinals

and yesterday a portrait of a couple whose son has been missing for nearly 15 years

i was pretty happy with how this came out - shot several frames, then i sat down and just started talking to them, which is when i made this frame and things just seemed to come together better - the angle was better for the composition, and they were more reflective as we were talking, so i left feeling like i had made the kind of picture i could feel good about ...and it always baffles me, cos you'd think that this would be tougher than the picture of the swimmer of the year, but i really struggle with those, and with things like the parent portrait, i somehow manage to create an image that i feel captures them/the spirit or feel of their struggle, which i feel tremendously more pressure to do, because it's a very somber reality, and i really want to do it and them proper justice

anyway, that's all for now

if you haven't given up on me and my spotty blogging, thanx for looking....more to come (i sincerely vow!)

more fall

walk in the woods - beautiful, fall day, full of color - what more can you say?

as i got back to my car, i discovered this baby praying mantis on my car window

a leaf i found - it's so detailed, almost like a mosaic

more autumn outdoorsiness from time off last weekend - walking around at an area orchard

where i also got a pumpkin - one of the few remaining - which i carved with my dandy carving kit


good thing i got a picture of it, because it caved in somehow the next day - boo!

as the wind kicked up, i tried to capture all the blowing leaves with the lensBABY - no easy task! didn't really make anything i like too much - but i kind of like this one

falling for fall

autumn - my favorite time of year - color, cool, crisp air, exploring flowers and leaves as they make their way into decline

oh yeah, and i brought along the lensBABY for the journey



just a few that i liked from last week

happy fall!

the reality of fantasy...and other things

i sometimes suspect the titles of my posts are promising a little more than they deliver...not sure why i feel the need to try and be clever or something....almost like when i was a teenager and made my own mixed tapes - i had to give them some cool sounding title that conjures up an evocative image or a feeling that sums up the essence of the whole - i suppose it might just be the part of me that loves reading, writing and art - why not get creative, play with language and form and imagery whenever you can...just for the joy of it, just because you can

maybe also because i felt like, despite feeling kind of frustrated/disillusioned/dis-spirited about work, i made some pictures this week that i was okay with and that had something to them that made me want to keep looking, that gave me a feeling more than just showing something

like, tuesday, before soccer, i had to go feature hunting for a weather picture - it got summery warm earlier this week, but that wasn't the impetus behind this one - it was the accompaniment to an end of summer recap on how the summer weather rated this year

found a couple little boys outside playing football in their neighborhood - hadn't been finding much, but i thought this had kind of the nice mix of warm outdoor activity and the fall sports thing all working together, so i was kind of happy to stumble upon them - not to mention, the clock til soccer time was winding down and i'd found nothing yet

as i hung out more, i made a couple frames that go back to that "feel" i like and that i really need to be making as often as possible - when i go for a while without it, it's almost like getting dehydrated - i feel like i'm so incredibly lacking and wanting, and everytime i shoot and come up short in that regard, it's like going to the well and getting handed a big glass of buttermilk

so, here are the two pix i liked - nothing stellar, not anything i feel completely geeked about, but not buttermilk for me, either

but, there's always the day to day, and you take what you get and do what you can with it...

soldier visits elementary school class that is adopting him and will correspond throughout the year - at least he sat down with all the kids seated around him, as opposed to the usual standing at the front of the classroom scenario

later, went to shoot a meeting between staff of the community college and visiting staff from a school in China - they hope to develop an exchange program and talked about their various programs, followed by a campus tour, which is what we wanted to shoot - their talk went really long, so the tour got cut short, but i tried to find a moment in there somewhere

then it was back to be assistant for a portrait Bryan was doing on some guys who are part of a Star Wars character group - since i was the one holding the key light, we came up with a new nickname for me - "K-boom!"

next day was grandparents day at a school - got there and it was pretty hectic - donuts, cocoa and coffee after morning mass, kids and grandparents everywhere in the gym - tried scoping out a family that was interactive, but everyone was just so all over the place, it was kind of tough, but i came upon this grandpa giving his grandson a goodbye hug, so, whew! that worked

then i was off to do a portrait of 3 people who went on a mission trip to Egypt last summer - they were meeting with the reporter for an interview, and we scheduled me to come after an hour to shoot, and i had a half hour til the one lady had to get back to class to teach...so, i get there and they're still talking - no big deal, i probably don't need a whole half hour for this, but i'm wondering where in the world we will go to do this, cos' they're meeting in an office in the parish hall - i.e., officey-looking room with a large table with a bowl of plastic fruit on it, and i'm looking around as they continue to talk, and then it's like, well, we should probably do this foto, cos' i gotta go in 10 minutes....whaaaaat? 10 minutes? holy crap - and of course, they all look at me and say - where do you want to do this?

well, in an ideal world, we'd be doing this in that garbage dump slum neighborhood in cairo, but as we're in a school office in monroe, michigan, gee, let me look around...

so i go out in the hallway,

and i see a paper jesus surrounded by paper cut-out children taped to the wall and the words "will you follow me"

and so i did,

and in my remaining 5 minutes to set up lights and shoot, here ya go

the weekend started with sports, and then i went off to shoot something called "flyball," which i'd never even heard of before - basically, it's dog team relay races - dogs race down a lane, jumping over small hurdles, grab a tennis ball and race back, trying to beat the other team

so, the challenge here is, they do this inside, and the event is essentially radically back-lit by the large open wall at one end of the building, and inside, where it's significantly darker, these dogs are probably running about 50 mph - no kidding, maybe not exactly that fast, but these dogs were FAST! so, exposure-wise, this is a complete nightmare...

and they're all so geeked up to run like a bat out of hell, that the whole building is an echoing cavern of constant barking....

so i walk in, watch it, and i'm just like what the hell?????!!!

how do i shoot this?!

i fact, i had to stop to text Bryan - "i'm at flyball, all i can say is WTF?!"

how do i shoot this?!

well, not very well, as you can see by the results

but, it is what it is, to re-use that over-used phrase

and there you have it, the yin to my yang of the week's worth of shooting

for the birds

after shooting cross country in the a.m., i headed over to another of the area metroparks to shoot a feature on the hawkfest - such cool birds - i love when i see them on the side of the road, especially if i'm heading out on any road trip - i feel like it's a good omen - i just have a thing about hawks - it's kind of a long story...

so, i didn't get any great people/moment features out of it

but i really liked being able to shoot these incredible animals so close up and without fencing in the way

this owl was pretty cool - though obviously not a hawk, it is used for hunting and is part of the falconry club of hunters, so it earned its spot...it's native to europe and asia and is the biggest owl in the world - can't tell from this pic, but it is very big - maybe about the size of a smallish medium dog - and it made the perfect "hoo" sound

so, all in all, not such a bad day i s'pose

night before shot the annual pow-mia memorial event - this year it seemed like there was even less visually to work with than in years past - mostly it's a person speaking at a podium anyway, but there just seemed to be things i shot before that weren't there, so it was a little rough, and i didn't get anything too great

my friend Val shot this before, but she did a way cooler job of it than i

shot some detailish pix of old vets hands that i kind of liked (which i guess i forgot to copy for this post), then thought i'd stumbled upon an angle that could make for a pretty cool image..if..only..this...guy...would....turn....around...........

and he never did - what are ya gonna do

and, a bit earlier in the week, an outtake from a play rehearsal for rocky horror - this woman was practicing blowing kisses in a backstage mirror

ta-ta

with age comes beauty

sitting on my porch the other night, i notice the last of the day's light as it hits one of the big drooping sunflower heads, how it catches just at the rim of its hanging, curling petals

i love these sunflowers - they remind me of sad, tired rag doll heads - i don't know, they're just very endearing, kind of like the velveteen rabbit of flowers

so of course, i had to run in and grab my camera and slap on the lensBABY and try to get in something before the light was gone

and of course, as these fall into decline, others continue to bloom or just bloom

and then i noticed the coneflowers - so many of the stems and blooms are dying, drying - the purple on their petals being overtaken with an ashy grey-black, and in their own decline, they are just as beautiful, now simply in a different way

takes me back to the whole wabi sabi principle of finding beauty and grace and value in things as they decay

some things just strike a chord