I saw news on Facebook last night that Corinna Dodge was killed in a car accident Monday morning.   I’m shaken by this and saddened.  I can’t imagine the grief of her parents and loved ones.  I took Corinna’s senior pictures two years ago and set the slideshow to a song she chose.   I went back, added in more images from her session and am posting it here.  I’ve been trying to get a version of this on FB, so it can be more readily shared with her friends, but I’m not having much luck with all of that yet.

Slideshow link here

And a larger, downloadable, executable file of the slideshow for her friends to keep.  Link here.

February walks with Ada and Zoe.

Last week I had the opportunity to shoot fashion in Chicago at a Shoot Fashion with Carlos Baez workshop.  We had four models, a makeup artist, Rachel Frank Design along with her wicked outfits and styling and a beautiful natural light studio to work in.  I loved it!  I always love to see how other people shoot especially when they are some of the very best in the industry, as is Carlos.  On this particular exercise I certainly felt the pressure of seeing eight photographers approach the same subject and setup, and trying to think if there was anything I had to say about the subject that was slightly different.

Here are a few images from the first setup.  The shooting space was so lovely it made me feel lightheaded.  And the model in these photos is a high school senior, Kaylee, so I was particularly delighted.   What an incredible experience she had!  I was so happy for her and impressed by how she did.  As for my pictures, well I’ll like these images right up until I see something someone else or several someone else’s (lol) shot that blow my little pictures right out of the water.  That’s why I figure I better post them now, before that happens.

I’ll post some from the other models a bit later.  I’m still trying to choose which ones.  We shot such a wide range of styles and setups, that I’m still a bit overwhelmed trying to figure out which ones I like best and why and what I could have done better.

The images in the first pair were shot with a tilt shift lens, which I’ve been experimenting with a lot lately, throwing parts of the frame out of focus to alter how it reads/feels.  Fun stuff.

And a through the window shot, where Brittney reminds me of a an exotic mannequin butterfly.

And the smoky beauty Oleksandra.

Dad called me last week to tell me they were taking the old Spencer place down and asked me to come take a picture before they burned it.  The Spencer house was one of the oldest houses around where I grew up, we think as early as Civil War time.  Then it sat empty for a good sixty years in the field adjoining ours, so it was the main site of my first trespassing.  I wasn’t a bad trespasser.  I never wrote on the walls or damaged the place or left any indication I had been there.   Mostly, I ratted around in the attic looking for interesting fragments from old Saturday Evening Post’s and wandered around looking out the windows like a ghost.  It always felt, stepping into the house, that you might have just missed someone else stepping out.

I was glad to get to take Ada for a visit and to watch how she was just as enthralled with the place as I had been.  Old houses like that have a kind of magic in them.  When I think about all the abandoned houses I’ve known that are gone now, I wish I had photographs of them.  I may have to take this on as a personal project, because as land prices rise, local farmers push to put every acre they have into production.   As much as it bothers me, and it does, nostalgia doesn’t pay the property tax bill.  Corn does.

Ada turned six this week, which was very exciting.    Here’s one for now with her birthday balloons.  I’ll add a couple more later.

And the below picture is of Ada and her beloved babysitter, Shelby, who came down to get photos taken before prom. Ada had been playing in a creek earlier and running around barefoot, but when she saw Shelby in her dress, she wanted to go get her pink dress “Just Like Shelby’s.” Ada plays dress up in it. We didn’t have time to brush her hair much, but here you have it, a good look at ten years’ difference.  They grow up fast.  I don’t think I take enough pictures to make up for all that is disappearing.   I think I just have to try that much harder to get down in pictures what it was like for her to be six.

Last night, my daughter and I played “jewel swap.”  Jewel swap is a game where we put a bunch of crystals, rings, and pendants in a pile then take turns choosing.   We have our favorites.  She always goes for the giant ruby, which is a fist-sized red glass crystal.  I always go for the prism crystal which used to make rainbows on the wall before it broke.

After we’ve taken all of our turns choosing, we try to make trades.  I’ll give you two “rubies” for the big pink “diamond.”  That kind of thing.  There are some pieces of jewelry that always get traded,  like the turquoise inlayed horse pendant, though it might be the only “real” stone out there.  And some things are our favorites, and never get traded, no matter what.  We like to test the limits, though.

“I’ll give you everything I have — EVERYTHING — for the giant red ruby.”

Even at the ripe old age of 5, she knows the sweet and satisfying thrill of turning someone down cold.  “Nope.”  she wriggles, beaming from ear to ear.

I shrug my shoulders, the picture of disappointment, happy to please her, “Well, I tried.”

It’s a lopsided relationship, hers and mine, and she knows it.  She can pretty much trade me for anything I have, except the broken crystal.  That’s mine.

So, anyway, last night, she said, “Let’s pretend that I am a jewel,” and put herself in the middle of the pile, with all of the other “rubies” and “diamonds.”

“Of course,” I said, struck by the beauty of it, of her, of all of us, really.

A few pics from last weekend down at the pond.

And one from yesterday.  Snow in the morning turning to mud by the afternoon.

Monday night I went to the dance at St. Marie.  Wow, was that ever wonderful!  I have more images to post of people, but for now here is a picture of a place.

Meanwhile, in the background, behind working up prints for clients, I’m thinking hard about all of the wonderful women I met in Dallas last week.  The Sunstone Yoga teacher training program was my photojournalism assignment at the Foundation Workshop, and let’s just say I fell hard for all of the participants and their program.  I can’t bear to call them subjects, because I learned so much from being around them, and experiencing, in a small way, what they are going through.   I admire them so much!  I’m a fan!  If I were there, I would be there now!

I am going to try TRY to choose a few favorite images to post from that and to try to explain what it was like.   I’m nowhere close yet, but I’m trying.

We have a kite that is shaped like a fish, and we fly this kite on a fishing pole.  It all works out wonderfully, somehow.  Yesterday was a great kite-flying day.  Here are two pics for now.

It’s such a treat to have some snow on the ground.  Many winters, we get only one token snow, maybe a couple of inches.  This year, we have a “real” snow.  I went out and took some pictures of our house to celebrate.  I feel like I need to go out again this evening and try to take some really INTERESTING pictures of the place, but well, here you have it.

I realized, looking through the lens of the camera, that I let the wisteria go totally wild and unruly this year on the pergola.  I need to give it a haircut.  The sticks poking up in the foreground are some tree limbs in the firepit.  And the peacock is in his favorite spot just in front of the windows.  He likes it because it is warm, and he can study his reflection in the glass.

And this is our house and the main studio/painting studio/garage, etc. from the road. The natural light studio is in a separate building behind the big studio.