Heather and I had the opportunity to work with Studio 158 at San Diego Women's Week in Escondido, shooting the models who walked the runway at the fashion show. Lots of fun, and lots of pretty girls, it was a good day.

One thing I noticed was the youth of most of these girls, they range from 16 to 23, but most of them are still in High School. I guess, if they haven't made it as models by the time they graduate from high school, they go on to something else....

Sometimes, It All Comes Together

I've known both Nikki and Mel for a couple of years, now and I've worked with Mel several times with memorable results. I've been wanting to work with Nikki, but our schedules never seemed to match up, until a couple of weeks ago. I also wanted to do a shoot to submit to a magazine, and both these girls are perfect for the project. So, I got them up to the studio and a fun time was had by all!














We started with some shots around some railroad cars close by, then moved to the outside of a junkyard in the area. The results were just what I wanted, edgy and sexy.
Nikki in those heels, hangin' on!

Got some great backgrounds to these great models!

I love to work with reflections...

Mel just quit smoking, so this one seemed appropriate!

Nikki being a Tough Grrrl!

Then we went back to the studio to work some more. All I can say is "Wow!" The two girls, separately, are great, but together, they really kicked it up a notch. And they pushed each other, and me, to get even better!

Mel lets the camera have it.

Not your usual "headshot," I guess...

Some examples of a new editing technique I've it on, recently. I rather like it...

I think Nikki's a frustrated lead singer! She really liked working with the mike...

Kinda blends into the chair, doesn't she?

A parasol makes such a great accessory!

Mel in Pink, sorta...

It's all in the eyes!

Nikki in Leather

Nikki and Mel, being just a tad sexy!

Jamie and Nick's "Lil Bean!"

I know it's been a long time since I've been active on this blog, but things have been both in a state of tumult and, frankly, not very interesting. But, last night, I had a beautiful session with an old friend and model, who is expecting her first child in March. A shoot like this is something we've always said we'd do, and I think it came out wonderfully.


She's always had her model "chops," and she's still got 'em!

There's a sense of inner peace that she has that's long been pursued, but, until now, always missing.

She's also always had a quirky sense of style that's both endearing and fun!

Expentant moms always have a beautiful shape that I think reflects the time in their lives.

Jamie and her guy have been referring to their incoming little girl as "Lil Bean," so this was a natural!

You can see the love these two have for each other very easily...

And Nick put up with me being the "artistic photographer" with very good grace!

These two, er, um THREE have a happy life ahead of them, and I wish them all the best!

Some Girls, a Slide Show

Just an experiment...

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Just wanted to see how to embed a video on the blog, and this was free, from Animoto.

Reunion...huh???

With all the upset of the last couple of months, I didn't write about one of the oddest events of my current life...my 40th high school reunion. That's an odd concept, a bunch of people who, largely, haven't seen each other since the last reunion, 10 years ago and some not since the one 20 years ago. Now, I'm in a better place than I was 20 years ago, and so's Heather. Although that latter isn't an issue, she didn't go to the same school that I did... But it's still hard for me to get my head around the preposterous idea that I've been out of high school for 4o years! Yeesh!
So, anyway, we show up at the "Pre-Reunion" at Kiminsky's in Poway (http://kaminskisbbq.com/site/) a nice little BBQ spot, the Friday before Labor Day. The place was crowded, already, with a bunch of middle aged folks milling about in a side dining room, one of whom I recognized. That would be Clyde Simpson, former starting defensive tackle for the 1969 Poway Titan football team (3-6 record, if I recall...) Not because I'd seen him since the 20th in 1980, but because he still looks the same! Not something that can be said for the overwhelming majority of the populace. Then, there was Dave Thompson, backup quarterback for the same team, and my favorite warm up partner before games, throwing the ball back and forth on the sidelines. Bill O'Sullivan, who put the festivities together, an outside linebacker like me, was enjoyable to catch up with, as was Dave Winter, the starter at quarterback. Like the saying goes, the older I get, the better I was. Same goes for a lot of the ex-jocks there. Some stories were swapped, lies were told, and memories dug up, turned over and reburied. It was fun, but it was weird, too.
One thing I really noticed is these people are much SHORTER than I remember. Now, I know I've lost an inch or two in vertical measurement over the last 40 years, but I remember some of these people, like Clyde and David, as having a couple of inches on me. Not anymore... And the girls? Wow, yeah, really? 5'1" or so? Really? I remember 5'6" or better... Ah, well, memory is a tricky thing...
I'm pretty happy with our stage in life, our own business, one that's relatively successful, and we're doing what we want to do. Now, Heather figured things would be a pissing contest, my career is better'n' yours, that sort of thing. That turned out to have a twist on it. It became "I'm retired, you aren't!" Wow, again. Well, I'm not retiring anytime soon, so, ya'll have fun in Mexico. Then, with further conversation, some "retirements" turned into unemployment/forced retirement. Yeah, you're living off of your retirement accounts, but you weren't exactly planning on starting drawing down those accounts when you were 58, were you? Well, I guess I can't talk, the tattered remnants of our retirement money went into starting this business, and I wasn't planning on taking this on full time until next year, not two years ago, so Plan A didn't work out for us, either. It's funny, too, how many people are self employed amongst that number, many of them in the same boat that we are. Had a job, started a side business for fun and play money, lost the job, now the fun business has to support the whole enchilada. It's not fun, when it becomes a necessity.
We had to miss the main reunion party/dinner on Saturday night, we had a wedding to shoot, but went to the Sunday picnic to hang out with the old folks some more. A few more people were there than were at Kaminsky's, some I wanted to see, so that worked out. One of the disappointments were the number of people I wanted to see who weren't there, like Rich Plunkett, my best friend in high school, now living in Pennsylvania, a couple of old girlfriends, who are now out of state, too. (divorced, too, and remarried...) But, Jackie Grey was there, and that was nice. Had a crush on her for years, and then we got to be pretty good friends after college. She used to work at North Coast Tarpaulin, where I got all the covers for all of my cars, over the years, until the closed up shop a while back. Now she's doing ceramics and selling them. One more hobby turned day job...
Another sobering thing was the number of people who weren't there because they had died over the last 40 years. Having just lost my oldest best friend, Nick Musulman, in May, that was a bit shaking. His death slapped me with my own mortality, but then the number of my former classmates who were no longer with us kind of had mortality picking up a baseball bat and pummeling me with it. You never think of yourself as vulnerable, although, if confronted, you will acknowledge that you fall somewhat short of immortal. Yeah, you're gonna die, just not in the near future. Don't count on that, buckaroo...make sure that what you're doing is what you want people to remember you doing, and make sure the people you're doing it with are the ones you want to do it with. I've re-established some old friendships that I'd let go fallow, and worked at strengthening the ones I have. I feel that's the best testimonial to those who went before me, and went before their time. I'm also trying to get new ones going with old acquaintances, like Patty Briscoe, who's a photographer, too, and with Clyde. We'll see.
Like Mickey Mantle said, "If I knew I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself," I feel like, I knew I was going to live this long, I just didn't realize how much maintenance I was going to take to get here, much less beyond. One more thing to start working on, seriously.
Ah, well, enough of this, I'm starting to feel old. And, God knows, that's not where I want to go, not now, not ever. I'm no Peter Pan, who never grew up, but I'm no Methuselah, either! G'night, yall!

Weston has passed on...

He was our rock...

He was a hero...

He was a clown...

He was a family man... (Weston and his girl, Tessa)

And Cover Boy.

Our most amazing Dalmatian, Weston, has moved on. He was an anchor for this family. We're pretty devastated. I've taken it far harder than I had any reason to expect.

Weston was a member of our family for 14 years. 14 years that are pretty undescribable. It sounds silly, but Heather and I, and Shadowcatcher Imagery, would not be who we are, had he not chosen us as his people. He was our anger management counselor, dispute arbitor, class clown and photo model. He was Shadowcatcher Imagery's office manager, making sure we took time off, remembered to quit work to eat, sleep, play.

He helped Heather through some of her very toughest times, she literally would not be doing what she does without him showing her how. One time, Heather was taking photos of him in a Dalmatian Halloween mask. She couldn't get the light right to show his eyes through the eye holes of the mask. He huffed, stood up, turned around and pointed his face at the light, in precisely the right place to get the the lighting correct! He knew that it felt like when Heather had it right, and found that place...in the studio and in her heart.

He was an old soul, but pretty new at being a dog. If you threw him a ball, he'd try to catch it with his paws, not his mouth. He'd try to investigate everything. If you were hurt, he'd have to check it out. (Tears are rolling down my face as I write this next part.) He loved food, but he especially loved dairy products. He'd wait, every morning, for me to finish my bowl of cereal, so he could have the left over milk. Sometimes, he'd be upstairs, and not know I'd eaten. When he came down, he looked at the bowl on the floor, like it had appeared by magic. It killed me this morning, when I set the bowl aside but he didn't come in for it... He could hear you peal a banana from the other room, and knew he was going to get that last little bit at the bottom end.

He hated to have anything disturb his wa, a Japanese term for harmony, peace and balance. If I spoke too sharply, even to the football game on TV, he'd jump up in the chair or couch and press the side of his snout against my mouth, as if to say, "SHHHH!" He also disliked profanity, if any one dropped the "F" bomb, he'd jump up on them and try to lick their face, tail wagging furiously. He wanted everybody to be happy and calm.

All of these things started to change a couple of years ago. He had a cancerous tumor removed then, and the lethargy that had resulted from his illness lifted, for a while. But, then he stopped jumping up on the couch, and had to be lifted, at least his back legs. We always took him to McDonalds for an ice cream cone on his birthday, but this year, and the last couple, we had to lift him up into the Durango. This year, he didn't even want to sit up and look out the window as we drove. He was having trouble getting outside to do his business, sometimes waiting until too late and having an accident. Then he started to have trouble just getting up out of his bed in the office, even to come in to get the "magic bowl." When we left the house for hours at a time to work a wedding, we'd worry that he'd not be there when we got home. One night, after a wedding, we came home to find him fallen down and trapped under the dining room table. Who knows how long he'd been stuck there. The last few weeks, we had to lift him out of bed, carry him down the stairs and outside, and he cried, quietly, in pain all the time. We knew, then, it was time to let him go, but we selfishly couldn't bring ourselves to do so, until the last few days. He just laid in his bed in the office, not even wanting to move. It was time...

It's hard to put down here all the things he did that made him such a part of our lives. Things like bumping his head on tables, because the concept of "up" was a tad foreign to him. Hunting for cats out the car window, not out of malice, just purely for fun. How he knew someone was going to Starbucks, even though we were careful not to mention the name, and how irritated he was when that someone returned without any whipped cream for him. How he'd want to be part of any photoshoot that was going on, sometimes just walking in and setting down in front of the camera and the lights. How he wanted to dominate the agility field, and whined every time we passed the site. How he responded to the applause, wherever he went. He loved attention, but was free in giving it out, too.

To say that he'll be missed would be to say he's gone, but he's always going to be in our hearts, forever.

A Friend and her Baby, Alisa and Alex

Wow, how time flies! I shot these more than 5 years ago, and never did anything with them. With starting up our wedding photography business, keeping it going and growing and a plethora of other lame excuses, these just sat on my hard drive, untouched. Alisa contacted me the other day, asking what I ever did with them. She might have been prompted by her daughter, Alex, starting kindergarten… Kindergarten… When I shot these, Alex could barely hold her head up. Now, she’s starting school… To take this long to deliver a project is inexcusable, but there it is. That being said, there are a lot of images that I’m rather proud of, and I’d like to share some of them.



This is the first image we took. Off to a pretty good start. Alisa and I worked together a lot as photographer and model, so she knew from the beginning what to do. Alex...well, Alex is a little cutie, just like her mom, but, after all, this is her first time in front of a camera!

Alisa always had this "look" she'd give me, and the camera, when we worked together. A little dip of the head, a little knowing look in her eyes. It was, and is, very effective.

I feel like this one conveys the feeling of peace and tranquility that Alisa felt as a mom.

And that "look" again, this time with a smile. I hope that Alex continues on to be the strong, centered woman that her mother has become.