Me when I was still a dancer. See the perfect pointe? David Wray used to visit me on my break in ballet class, while I ate MnM's the other girls smoked. Healthy. Anyway, once he told me that he noticed we all were constantly pointing our toes, without even paying attention. I still haven't lost that habit. I miss those days....sigh... 

Judy and Steph playing on the beach 

Stephen flying closer to Big Sur 

Judy and Buddha in Japanese Tea Gardens, San Francisco 

Judy and Stephen on same CA beach. 

Beach just south of Golden Gate bridge.  

Of course it's the Golden Gate Bridge. 

After the Oakland firestorm... 

Ahhhhh...look at those colors.... 

Paris from Beauborg 

Louvre IM Pei pyramids 

Going to post some photos of Paris :) My fav city :) 

And finally, Bobby "Freight Train" Parker, on the bass.  

Getting that surprise shot :) lol 

On the way to Jim Morrison's grave in Paris.  

Now some old black and whites. Here's Rascal and Boo Boo, going out for a walk....they were such nice dog and kitty...sigh... 

Justin in the leaves when he was just a little boo :) 

Neen and Justin dancing :) 

More of those two :) 

Posting some of my favorite people shots tonight. Here's Dad and Neen. 

Here's a start...I took this shot of some mimes in Montmartre in Paris, just after they had finished their sidewalk gig.  

Faces

One of the things I love about photography, is capturing the essence of someone's personality in a photo. I love sharp, crisp images that preserve an exact expression. I have a photo weblog (fotolog) (which you can find here) and I have posted a number of my photos there already. One thing I don't do too much, is post my photos of people. But some are there.

Anyway, I love to browse the other fotologs there, and could spend hours doing it. It is quite humbling, and some of them are absolutely wonderful. So much talent. One of my favorite fellow fotologgers is this guy. He does a spectacular job of capturing people (as well as very nice landscape photos). I love his people shots. That link is just one example.

Anyway, he inspires me to dig out some of my old photos of my niece and nephew, to post here. Check back soon :)

Bathing Beauties (novel fragment)

Asthma preventing me from sleeping...so I'll be creative instead...

Throughout my novel Vacancies, I flash forward to the future through descriptions of photographs in an exhibition, described for the exhibition catalog. The photographs are the protagonist's, and in each description, the curator (?) discusses them, then there is a snippet of the artist's (protagonist's) thoughts on each photo. These are my favorite parts of my novel. Here's one below:

Bathing Beauties
1992
Black and White Gelatin

There is a photo of the artist’s parents at a carnival or some sort of amusement park. The edges of the original photo have been creased, perhaps by folding it to fit in a wallet. Christian’s strong chin is perched on the curved edge of a flat board, in the space carved there for a face. Beneath him is the painting of a muscled man with a small straight waist and bulging biceps. Next to him is Ivy, the artist’s mother. She is smiling while resting her face in the cutout next to him. A bikini-clad hourglass woman is the painting below her face.

The image superimposed on this one is that former boyfriend Jack. His back, buttocks and thighs are the only images we can see. Ivy’s face is in one buttock and Christian’s in the other. This makes for a comical juxtaposition. The two faces of bathing beauty hopefuls, smiling on the buttocks of the real body builder. There is joy here and yet the photo evokes a wistful sadness with these two seemingly opposite views of the body. Is it the caricatures or the highly defined discipline of the younger man’s body that make us sad?

The artist writes about this photo in her journal:

Momma and Daddy look silly in this photo. I wanted to contrast their laughing and clutching of one another’s hands behind the placard, their absolute innocence of childless, first love, with the serious image of the adult body. The superimposed shot was a body that I had loved too, but in a way that didn’t seem carefree like my parents. There was joy and lightness in their faces, not the intensity I had felt in love. They were unmarred, undamaged by any sort of death or destruction. This was before my grandparents were killed; before me. The other photo is of Jack, his body sculpted in a way that almost seems unnatural. While he isn’t posing, his form alone implies discipline, work, time. I was interested in these two images and the differences between not only them, but the figures they leave in our memory.

I wonder if Momma knew she would always be that perfect? That her body was ready for new life, but hadn’t yet conceived it. She was not wrinkled, worn, or wise. She did not even know as much life when she died as I know now, writing this. I am older than she’d ever be yet this seems impossible. I am older now than my mother ever was.

Eclipse

The world itself is wide open
like the arms of light
peering through the trees
onto her upturned face

tipped back to watch the moon
become eclipsed in that wide
open space that is the world
too big for any one of us

to encompass with our arms
small enough for hope
to flounder in the mind
meanwhile that full moon

glowing with hope slowly
succumbs to the red hue
of solid, real earth blocking
its sun, she stands staring

knowing, feeling this erasure
was coming so she pushed
hard to give birth to the truth
as painful as a baby sometimes

words of ending eclipse
all sweet endearments
she stands with the world arcing wide
around her, watching as arms
of light disappear, hope extinguished.

We cannot know the cycle of why
things come and go, are light then dark,
joy then sorrow, feeling to indifference.
Now light moves away, brightening

the sky in some other part
of the world, some other face
while she stands alone, her spirit
not enough to touch his world anymore.

What is real? Earth or light?
Both, though light always succumbs
to the rich blackness of earth
tilting on its axis, beckoning.

Quiet First

she said

the barefoot bed
of peaches
is dreaming

he whispers cooly
   --their juice is true rain
and we are love, love.

Impending storm in Letchworth 

I love this one. A total accident. I never saw it in the camera, until I downloaded it later on. A miracle :) 

More of the world of nature that catches my eye 

just posting to link to...