Six Ladies VI
Okay, this is really cool, and I’ve seen it before but this is the first time I’ve had it explained and gotten it. This is big sphere swinging back and forth is proof the Earth rotates. If I remember correctly it takes this one about 42 hours to do a full rotation. You can learn a touch more here and a lot more about Foucault pendulums here. It’s cool.
This was also where I got to hear an 85-year-old grandmother ask her granddaughter, Erin, “Is he always such a sadist?” It was a good day.
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Six Ladies IV
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Seedlings
Saturday September 26th was National Public Lands Day. Nevada is something like 90% public lands, we figured we’d do something with the day.
Actually we found out about something to do on that day and then found out that it was National Public Lands Day.
I received an email talking about a wildlife restoration project an hour and a half north of Vegas near Amargosa at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. We would be planting native grasses.
See, this valley has a lot of natural springs in it, apparently about 10,000 gallons a minute pour out of the earth after having worked it’s way to this traveling underground from Utah. Upon discovering this, some wise man many a year ago decided that this would be a great place to farm cotton and cattle. Cotton…in Nevada…Really?
I never doubt the dumbness of humanity. Anyway, this person failed. Excellent. In the process though he totally wrecked the natural landscape and oasis. Hence, we planted.
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Odd Man Out
So the reason I was actually in LA was that some of Erin’s family, her grandma and aunt, were flying in for the weekend. As it was going to be Erin, her grandma, aunt, and 3 female cousins, I tried to set it up so that once Erin was with them I could run away and do something else. Me and six chics? Yeah, that’s a run scenario.
I failed. I did get recruited/drafted (happily) to take photos of the day. That was fun and made it less awkward for me. The conversation was overall very good, and it was a very good day. We all got to talk about some of the hard things we’ve all been through lately.
So the family images you are going to see over the next week or so are from that day.
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Ecovillage Tour
The following are a series of panoramics talking about my buddy Damien’s ecovillage, life in it, permaculture, sustainability, and how to make a kickin’ bathroom.
(There are some small issues, tiling to speed load times and low res previews while full res load and that kind of stuff. Just give it a minute to load and look around while you listen to Damien describe his ecovillage.)
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Little Dead Riding Hood
More images from Little Dead Riding Hood, the current show by my much beloved Chicago Tap Theatre. If you’ve got free time over the next two weekends it’s a good way to spend an evening or Sunday afternoon. Trust me here.
My favorite part is of course when Little Red dies. Some people think I’m a little whacky/disturbed. (Can you believe they’re going to let me raise a kid? Ever watch Dexter?)
Find out more and get tickets here.
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Little Dead Riding Hood
So, I’m in Chicago for a quick spell. I’m here for one of my favorite performances of the year, actually, probably my favorite performance of the year, the annual Chicago Tap Theatre story show. This year is Little Dead Riding Hood. A story about what happens when fairytale characters are set free to be whomever they want to be (seriously, at one of the meetings about small changes to make, held at a bar after a preview show, hence why I was there, they actually were talking a little bit about changes and what that says about fate. I had a vodka lemonade. Priorities.)
It is, as always, an excellent show, very kid friendly (especially if you go by the German Grimm’s Tales standard) the whole store is told through dance, music, and acting, no words at all. I’d suggest making to a performance, but that’s just me. Personally I’ll be at all the opening weekend shows but I’ll be cheering, for villainy, at the Saturday night show. I’d suggest making the show at some point, but Saturday night I’ll be there causing a ruckus.
Get tickets here.
There will be more photos of the show over the next few days.
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Because I Can LXXV
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Olivia
Olivia is very proud of and loves her baby chicken very much. She made sure to show it to, and pass it around to all of us, us being Erin, Damien (in the background) and myself.
The three of us had gone to this location to see the landscaping, done in a style known as permaculture. The idea behind it is to capture the water, hold the water and use the water that comes onto the landscape and not to shuffle it off to a gutter as quickly as possible. The water is used to grow all kinds of plants, lots of them being fruit bearing and the like so that fresh food is available in the backyard.
The underlying idea is to create a connection to your immediate environment well also making it more sustainable. The other sneaky part of this was how it creates community. See, we weren’t there to visit Olivia’s backyard, we were there to visit a neighbor and family friend’s backyard, but the families had torn down the fence between their yards. It was one giant garden, one giant green space, one giant communal area. So while we talked to Erik, his neighbor’s daughter Olivia started to talking to us, and we got to know more of the community than just Erik. All in a backyard.
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Catching up, Winning Awards
In the mix of moving across the country, I’ve fallen behind on some stuff…one of those items is that at the Illinois Press Photographers Association (IPPA) Best of Photography competition I took awards for 1st place in Portrait, HM in Portrait, and 2nd place in Enterprise Picture Story. Also at the Southern Short Course I took 2nd place in Daily Life and 3rd place in Daily Life Story. All and all not to bad. Not great, I’d like to have done better, but on the other hand that’s always true.
The winning entries are related to my story on Michele. Michele is a breast cancer fighter/survivor. I documented you her battle throughout 2008 and into 2009. I hope to continue to document her in the future, even with the flights involved. By the way, if you ever get a chance to meet her, she’s a great human being.
The image below is after her 2nd chemo round, during which she stopped breathing from anaphalatic shock, this is during the elevator right down to the car. This is the image that took first in Portrait.
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Hearing the Heartbeat
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What’s Up?
So…some of you may be wondering, what’s up? It’s a somewhat short, but fairly intense story, it also goes better after a drink or two or forty-eight.
About 2 weeks was my last day at the company I had been at for the past 7 years. I was laid-off. Don’t feel bad, it’s a good thing. As several people have already noted to me, I had been sounding done with that place for over a year. I was. Time to move on.
The timing actually worked out fairly well. (If you haven’t started drinking here, and don’t know what I’m about to say, start drinking, it helps, trust me.) I’ve upped and moved to Vegas to live with my 4 month pregnant gal. Yep, I live in the Southwest now and have a kid on the way. Life is…interesting.
I’m still figuring out many things, like what my job is going to be as my industry is in the toliet. I don’t know a lot of things which are coming to me and my life. I do know I’m excited to for my future, far more excited than I have been in a long time. There are a lot of challenges ahead, no doubt, but I think they can all be solved, I just don’t know how yet.
As for my photography…I don’t know if I’ll be working in the photojournalism field anymore. I may be, I may not. Ultimately I want to be sure my bills are paid and my family is taken care of first. I couldn’t even take care of myself by the end of that old job. I will be taking photos, I don’t know of what, I don’t know when, I don’t know how, I just know I will. It’s my nature. I do know that by the end of my old job the images I was making weren’t the images I wanted to be making, the images that I wanted to be making were all being done on the side for me. With that in mind, I’m going to be able to keep making those images I want to make because I’ll make that happen.
So, a few photos, one of what I saw on December 27th, along with the confirmation tests.
A picture of where I live, I promise it’s in there and it’s taken from the mountain in the backyard.
And part of my new family, Esther (Erin’s mom’s dog), Motley and Stella. And the last photo is Roxy. They all like to sleep in my office while I work.
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Photo Booth 2
If you were at the party and haven’t gotten a link to the photos yet let me know and I’ll send it to you. And most people haven’t seen it because I’ve been bad about sending it out.
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Because I Can, LX
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Because I Can, LIX
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I Hate Shooting Santa
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Because I Can, LVI
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Because I Can, XLVII
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Because I Can, XLVI
This town does love Obama.
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Because I Can, XLV
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