** photo idea completely pilfered off Pinterest by my wife… but i’m not sure the original photographer… so i would give credit where it’s due… but i haven’t found where to direct said credit to yet… **

2012 is going to be a huge year… for now more than one reason. happy new year everyone!

there was just no way for me to narrow down shoots to “just one favorite” from them… so sit back and enjoy this. and this is set to complete random mode for your further enjoyment and to keep your eyes on their toes. or your toes on their eyes. or something…

i went into 2011 completely unsure of what was to come. i come out of it completely surprised. i go into 2012 with a couple of new tricks up my sleeve, a couple of definite goals and open arms for even more of what 2011 brought.

here’s to a fantastic year for all of you, whatever it may bring… may it be good! happy new year, and thanks for everything y’all have done for me.

**  Take 30 minutes out of every single day to correspond with loved ones. Call an old friend for a half hour. Send out 30 texts; can’t take more than a minute to do, right? And for those of you who are really busy in your day and afraid of how this might lead to more conversation in a day than you have time for, just tell someone “I miss you”, “thanks for being my friend… talk to you next week?” or something that doesn’t have to start with “how are you doing this week?” if you just don’t feel you have the time for it right then. I know what the busy-ness of life is like, and I don’t want you other busy-bodies to put this off right off the bat just because you’re afraid of what this task might lead to, as wrong as that may sound.

**  Hand-write a letter to someone and mail it two times this month, once during the first 15 days and once during the last 15 days. When was the last time you got an envelope in the mail that had your name and address hand-written on it? Okay, we all get birthday cards and stuff like that… so what about that envelope with a letter that is hand-written inside? The letter can be as short or as long as you like it to be… just get one in the mail to someone you choose. Get creative if you like. Have kids? Make a little card that just says “we love you, grandma / grandpa” to their grandparents and put a little note in there from yourself as well. Have a spouse or a significant other? Even if they live under your same roof, the mail does come to your place too. Send them a letter. Why not?

**  Have a meal with a friend at least one time this month. Just you and them. Dinner, lunch… whatever. Maybe even someone you haven’t seen in a little while. Sit down and get to know how their month is going. How their life has been since you last spoke. Our time with other people is what helped make us who we’ve grown up to be. The people in our classes, in our neighborhood, in our own homes. They shaped our decisions whether we know it or not. Even if it was the decision to not be like some other people. It is important for us to spend face-to-face time with other people. Not just phone to phone, text to text, email to email. But to get to see their face when they talk and hear the inflection in their voice. And then to shake their hand before and after or even, hey…. give them a hug.

**  Save a dollar each day for your kids. Don’t have kids? Well you can put this into your OWN savings then. Or an account you create for your loved ones. Don’t have any kind of account like that? Maybe it’s time to make one. You’ll want to some day… maybe now is the time to get that going. And hey, if you extend this past November, maybe spend less on Christmas presents and put a little more into that account for Christmas. Whether you tell them you did it or not, that will be a great “gift” for them when the account matures. Whether we like it or think about it or not, life ends. Death is a part of our lives. And caring for our loved ones is a large part of loving them. As much as I hate money and what it means and how it can shackle us in our lives, we do need it… and your loved ones will too… your kids will too… so prepare for them. Look down the road. It doesn’t make you a Debbie Downer or a Negative Nancy to think about that (where are the man names for people like that?)… it just means you are planning for something that is inevitable, at some point down the road.

**  Spend an entire day “unplugged”. No social networking. No texting with everyone. No internetting. No gaming. Maybe even no TV / DVR. Shocking, right? Go retro maybe once a week or once every other week. I mean, really retro. Read a book. Read an actual newspaper. Get out and walk around with someone or some people. Are there any “nature spots” near you? Go to the beach, then. Go to the woods a bit down the road. Step back a little bit from all of our devices and allow yourself to breathe in a little bit of what’s outside. Not only can this allow you to re-fuel a little bit, but can also open up your world to some great possibilities for ways of interacting and spending time with people who matter to you.

**  Start something new with your family or your friends on Thanksgiving. Something that will perpetuate more interaction with one another. Start a monthly poker game with your buddies. Or a book club. Or a running coffee morning on every third Friday of the month. Just instigate some kind of pattern of being with your loved ones, and put it forth to at least one of them on Thanksgiving Day.

**  Save 50 cents each day. Fifty cents. I am not gonna get all Sally Struthers on you, but half of a dollar can mean so little to so many of us, but can make a huge difference when it’s put together with a large pocketful of its compatriots. That is the goal. Save two quarters each day, put it somewhere and at the end of the month give those 15 dollars to a charity. Any charity.

**  Start the chain of giving. One day in the month, be the one to start the chain, any place you choose. Your local coffee spot. Your Saturday morning bagel store. The pay parking garage you have to go through every day at the office. The toll booth. Somewhere, one day, pay for the person behind you. One time. It shouldn’t cost you more than 5 bucks. And you may never know if they actually pass it on and it becomes an actual chain of giving or not. If it does, that’s great and kudos to the people who kept it going. If not, you did something kind that will affect that person behind you in at least one way: they got something free from a stranger. But who knows what’s going on in their life. Who knows what their day has been like. This one “random act of kindness” could pull them out of a funk they’re in. It could even re-start someone’s belief in human kindness in general.

**  Make something for your significant other. Don’t have a significant other? Choose someone else that you love. The point is creating something on your own for someone that you love. Remember when we were kids, it didn’t matter how great your drawing was of something, or if you kept all the glued on macaroni’s inside the crayon lines… it was that you made it for your parents. That was what made it “fridge worthy”. So whether you write a 20 line poem that starts with “roses are red” or you go (yes, even as an adult) to a color-me-mine store and make your spouse a new coffee mug that says “I love you today more than yesterday” on it… make something for someone. Your level of work and time on it is all up to you.

**  Every Monday, take 10 minutes to sit and breathe. At any time of the day. A new week is upon you, and we all love Mondays, right? So what better day to just take 10 short minutes to allow the silence to blanket us and regenerate us. Are you a stay-at-home-mom? After you drop your kid(s) off at school, take your 10. have a ton of housework waiting for you right when you get home from their school? Then pull over somewhere and take your 10 in your car. Kids not in school yet? Take your 10 when they go down for their nap. Working types: take your 10 during lunch. Don’t want to “waste” your precious lunch hour on this? Then take one of your 15 minute breaks you never take and do it then. Do it at the end of your day, before you head home. 10 minutes. It isn’t a long time in the scheme of things, but it can be so healing for us. And how does this fit in with “giving love” if it is spent on your own? We cannot be our best for others, if we are not at our best with ourselves. We all need to recharge our batteries. You’ll remember when you’re on a plane, they always tell you to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you help someone with their’s. So take 10 to recharge and get into another week of giving love to others.

This is your launching pad. Add some of your own ideas. Change some of mine. It’s not going to hurt my feelings if you do… I just want you to give it a shot. Print out a calendar or get out your iPad or iPhone’s iCal and put something down for every day of November. 30 days of giving love. And don’t forget to take your 10 for you every Monday, too. Some of you will wave your hand at this, some of you didn’t even get to read this far. But if 10 people do this, even for the first 2 weeks of the month, that has the possibility of at least 140 lives being affected by one of your acts of kindness. That’s not too shabby, right? I hope to positively affect the lives of 30 people in November. Bare minimum. Where that number may go from there, only God knows. But that is what I intend for my direct impact to be. And there are two people that I will work the most on this with in November… the people that are right under my roof with me, my wife and my daughter. I don’t dance around the subject: my little girl is why I am here on Earth. Period. I have been sure of it from the moment my wife showed me those two little lines on the “stick”. For those of you parents out there, I assume (and hope) you know what I mean by that… and I don’t want or intend for you to lose sight of them in the scheme of all of this. But the reality of how important all of the relationships in our lives are to us isn’t something we should allow to fade away either.

The main inspiration for all of this is two recent losses in my life: my best friend from high school, Jason and a good friend of mine Amy who just lost her daughter, aged 22. Two very different experiences for me. With Jason, I had allowed myself to get far too comfortable with the idea of our friendship always being accessible. Months could go by and when we re-connected any time disappeared and it was like we were in High School again. But those times in between connections became larger. “I’m just so busy, dude… sorry… let’s catch up next week” “I’ll call you back next week” … we have all said that to people, right? Well, next week will never come for us again. And Jason I am sure knew I loved him just as I know he loved me. But I wish I hadn’t put him off so much. I wish I had spent one less hour doing this or that and taking 10 minutes to talk to him and some other friends instead. On the other end of that spectrum is my friend Amy’s daughter, Alyssa. I never met her. Amy is a fellow photographer and we have become pretty close over some years now and have been trying to get together for a year or so to do photos of her other daughter. And who knows if I ever would have met her eldest. But now I won’t ever have that chance. I won’t be included in the number of people whose lives were touched by her in one way or another. The finality of it all is hitting me in so many different ways. And this is one of the things to evolve from it all. I plan to do a lot more to change my style of living, and how I approach the relationships in my life. This is just a fun way for me (and maybe you) to go about it in kind of an organized and challenging kind of way. Will you do it? Will you at least try it? At least some of you will likely be amongst my many targets in November. How you respond and maybe work it into your own life will be up to you.

so, if you’ve never been to the venue known as “the gorge” in washington, i think you’ll have to agree after all of these posts that it is beyond descriptive words with how gorgeous it is. and let me get this joke out of the way now, you can’t spell gorgeous without the gorge. there ya go. phew. i feel better now.

i drove in very late at night and pulled over on the side of the highway to catch this shot of the sign on your way in. unfortunately, it was so late so there were very limited car lights to get into this… but this works for now:

i have only been to the gorge once before, with my brother about 8 years ago. we camped out near the venue, like so many people do, so this weekend was a much different experience. i was set up at the cave b inn which is adjacent to the venue. yurt living. so here is what my yurt was like (since i had never seen one before, now you will be informed too — you’re welcome):

kinda cool. and even if it had been just a sleeping bag on the rocks, how could you complain with views like this around?

the cave b estates is also a vineyard.

before i went over to check out the venue, i wanted to see the campsites before they got completely flooded in with people. like i said, you can not complain at all about camping amongst such beauty. look at the view some of these people had all weekend!

and here is a view of the venue, as yet, untouched by all of the weekend caravaners:

between venue visits, i was able to catch the pre-sunset from my yurt. dare i say ‘gorgeous’ again?

so, back to the venue. i had the amazing opportunity to be on-hand for dave matthews band’s soundcheck that day. i figured i would keep the whole thing in a more documentary styled black and white.

everyone was in fine spirits that evening… loose… having fun… and tim reynolds was being quite the comedian.

i know i said all black and white… but this one just screamed to stay in color.

and there ya have it… my ‘the hobbit’ for the weekend. day one photos will include kopecky family band, john butler trio, soja, gogol bordello and a few more, of course including dave matthews band. so keep your eyes peeled for day one’s post.

she even got this little shot of me while i was shooting during day 3:

oh and she got this other shot of me, that i asked her to take. see, if you know me, you may well know my addiction to coffee since the day my wife and i brought our little girl home from the hospital. and my love is with dunkin donuts coffee. unfortunately, unless they are underground somewhere, we do not have any of them out here in so cal… so i have to settle for the bagged versions in the supermarket. every time i travel outside of cali, i search desperately for a dunkin donuts. and i get my “heavy heavy” from there and just wanna dive right into it and stay there. (can you tell i have issues?) so, thanks, jess, for this great memento!

so off we went to philly. we knew where we were headed… to try and compare two of the most trumpeted cheesesteak places in the city proper. we parked nearby and headed out with our cameras. now i have even more envy for all of the great atmosphere some people outside of so cal have to do shoots in! here is my take from the very small section we were in, with a very limited amount of time:

two people, two mirrors, one window = many reflections:

i do love me some muscly cars.

jess sat down and this was our 2 minutes of a photoshoot. next time, jess. next time.

we arrived at our destination. and the choice had to be made. geno’s or pat’s? we decided on pat’s… it was almost a coin toss, but i had heard a little more about pat’s from some of my philly friends (thanks, everyone, for chiming in on facebook!). i asked jess to order since i was completely clueless.

this is how it is done! wit whiz! (and yes, i made sure she was okay with me posting these ones… haha… i love it!)

it was so delicious. i will have to get back to try geno’s and some other places so i can give a fully informed opinion, however. but, literally, geno’s and pat’s… the two heavy-hitters in this war of cheesesteaks are right across from one another. so convenient.

i loved this wall art in a lot across from pat’s:

and then it was time to go. we basically had time to walk to eat and walk back and that was it. kind of sad. however, time i will always remember. i have been friends with jess for a couple of years now and we are just like brother and sister. we just get one another and it helps that we have a lot in common. and this is why i have my john stamos shirt. it is our version of the friendship bracelet. yes. i just said that. so? anyway, thanks again, jess, for making the drive to hang out. it was SO good to spend time with you, however limited and packed with my busy-ness it was. until next time, we are locked in a perpetual high five in philly! haha

photographer workshops. i just sat here for a minute after typing those first two words. pausing over them. so, i have been hearing about workshops for some years now. i have come close to signing up for a couple, here and there. every time, i bowed out for one reason or another before sending in my payment. i have heard lots of stories from other photographers as well, about workshops they have attended: the good, the bad and the very ugly. i have always tried to be very selective about ever attending a workshop based on these things. well, lou noble is a photographer out of the LA area that i have known about for years. lou works a lot differently than i do, using a lot of polaroid and medium-format gear (though he does also shoot digital). when a very good friend of mine (hi, zara!!) attended his first ever workshop in seattle, i was so thrilled that he was actually doing workshops and knew immediately i would sign up for one if he ran one locally. zara emailed me one day to let me know he had released details for an LA workshop and i was all over it.

the workshop took place right at the front end of the so cal storms from december, on a rainy sunday.  i love incorporating sunflare in my shooting whenever i can, and was hoping to see what different takes lou had on flare during the workshop. the rain would kill that plan. drat.

so there we were, maybe 20 or so of us in this little studio, listening to lou speak at first, the rain pouring right outside (off and on). the models started to arrive and i just kept hoping for breaks in the rain…. desperate to not be confined to shooting only inside.

one thing i absolutely loved about this workshop was that we were on our own with the models. lou did not set them up for us, like many workshops do. i am not saying that is wrong to do, but i loved not having the models at point A and all of us on the other side, shooting them in their pose, trying to not elbow each other while we tried our best to get at least a slightly different angle on what was essentially the same shot for 20 people. we got delegated a model and we took them wherever and shot with them for anywhere from 5 – 15 minutes and then went back to being with the group and lou while someone else took that model out to shoot. and so on. when nicole and i got paired up, the rain took a little break.

the photo above and the one below speak a lot about the way i see people. and i try to portray this in my portraits of people. to me, a person’s hands can sometimes tell as much about them as their face. i tend to watch people’s hands a lot, whether they are speaking or listening.

another thing i noticed from the workshop was discussion on negative space, and the center framing of a subject. when i first started taking photos, i became a fool for negative space. it really tickled me to have it in portraits when i could… it was kind of like how textures became for a lot of us (those were the days, right people?). i have toned that down a lot, but sometimes i find myself panning my camera slightly left or right if it feels right to me. so this photo below was kind of my rebellion shot from the day  :)

it was a pleasure to shoot with nicole, even if i was uncommonly nervous as we started. i definitely felt almost under the gun since we were kind of given ‘assignments’ to use what we had already learned from lou as we worked with the girls.

so i came back to the room, listened some more and then jumped at the opportunity to start shooting with amanda. i knew that zara had worked with amanda at the seattle workshop and she had told me she was amazing to shoot with. so i introduced myself, told her that zara said hello and we went outside for some photos.

as soon as amanda started moving around, even in the most subtle ways, i knew this was perhaps the bigger reason for me to be at the workshop. to learn how such seemingly simple movements and expression changes can mean to an individual photograph. still blows my mind a little as i go through these and made it difficult to not love nearly ever single frame.

one last frame from our time together… in a style that i think just fits her well…

back inside we went as the rain started to fall again. some more ‘workshopping’ with lou, as he taught and spoke some more.

and during another brief break of rainfall, i was able to run outside with erika. we literally had about 6 minutes of dryness before the rain chased us back inside again.

the shots above and the ones below are more examples of how i see things… and how i enjoy presenting them in my photography. I try not to be too “snapshotty” with my approach to people. so, sometimes, i will take more than one photo of things to adjust your focus… almost my way of using still images to convey what moving pictures might do for you.

the rain started and we ran back to the studio space. i saw some of the models talking and amanda started putting on this big jacket and i thought about how many times i have wanted to go out with a model into the rain and just shoot. here was a great opportunity for me, even though i have left my camera’s “raincoat” at home. i couldn’t let that stop me. i asked amanda if she might be game for it as well. we went out there ever so briefly so i did not ruin my camera, but… you be the judge if it was worth it:

i loved how into a puddle jump she was. not the biggest puddle around, but i swear… jumping in puddles is one of those magical gateways back into your childhood. look at that smile on her face  :)

i thanked (and thanks again!!) amanda for braving the rain with me. and there was some last discussions taking place before we all milled about a bit before taking our leave.

i asked the three girls (one of the models had a very limited time there and i never got to shoot with her at all) to pose together for some photos. they were all so friendly and helpful…

and at the very last moment, there was a little bit of fun to be had (even though we got reprimanded for going too far up on the ramp of this… i’m a rebel…)

so much gratitude to lou and all of the models. i learned more than i expected to that day and came away with some ideas more solid in my mind than they had been before, and some new perspectives as well. maybe i will be able to use some of these new views with some of you as this year moves along (dun dun dunnnnnnn…)   ;)

we stayed at our friends’ house (they were actually down in so cal for the time, ironically) during our weekend and their place is just brilliant. (thanks again, toby and sonja!)

not too long after we set our bags down, we headed out to see some of their neighborhood. so, you can maybe read in the shot right below the full story of this “artist/collector”, but he basically has created these intricate sculptures on his property from things that he has found washed up on the shores of local beaches.

from litter to nature… a natural segue, right?

we got a few things together and headed to downtown berkeley for some food and general wandering.

excuse the grain on these two phish show photos… they were shot with my point-and-shoot… but i still like them.

after the phish show that night, we went to a late night performance downtown. jennifer hartswick (who plays/sings in trey anastasio’s solo project band) was going to be guesting with a band named moksha from las vegas.

the next day, we got a little bit of a late start for breakfast and decided to have lunch instead. we stopped at this place that we had heard good things about, but what people said could not even touch how amazing these burgers were. and there were so many options on the menu. the choice was difficult, but we both left super full and super happy. if you are ever in berkeley, make a point to get to Barney’s. trust me.

get into it, brother. don’t be scared!  :)

as we walked back towards our friends’ place, we saw a few racks of sunglasses outside a little shop and decided to try some on before making a purchase. well, my brother ended up being the model for a very impromptu sunglass product shoot. and he was good at it!!!  ;)

onto pre-show fun and people watching. no show pictures coming… just stuff before it.

for those who may not know, the upraised finger as people walk up and down the sidewalk is to indicate they need a ticket. the grateful dead did a song called “i need a miracle” some years back, and the term kind of stuck with the hippie crowd as saying: “i need my miracle ticket” or some form of that. so now you know… and you thought you wouldn’t learn anything today… pshaw!

the next morning, before we left to come back home to so cal, we went out again for breakfast. i had to pull the car over really quick to take a shot of these old “street signs” that i do not know the history of (sorry… wasn’t it enough that i taught you the story of the miracle tickets?), but these are just so cool to me. this is good history. well, visually, at least… since i do not know the actual history.

and who would have known? we scored again with where we ate. the breakfast was nothing short of phenomenal at this little place in north berkeley called the sunny side cafe.. another place for you to bookmark if you like making your tastebuds do a little happy dance.

overall, yet another amazing time in northern california. i need to live up there. if you know me, you know how much i firmly believe that. some day, nor cal… some day we will be co-habitants. until then, i will return soon   :)

i had to take some photos of her fresh from a nap…

this is me and the hired santa (ahem… don’t let your kids read this. should i have put “spoiler alert” at the top of this? haha) from my brother’s holiday open house last year for his non-profit organization, the pet rescue center. of course, santa’s beard made mine look sad.

here is our christmas card photo from this year (sorry if you did not get one. maybe you need to give me your mailing address?). this was my wife’s idea and we are all warm in the holiday cheer, er uh…. our snuggies.

here we are just before going to an (now very popular theme) ugly christmas sweater party/dinner with our friends a couple of years ago.

and here is the grand finale, the shot that i just found out is back up on websites again this holiday season after making a big splash last year. i admittedly pat myself on the back for that, because, well… i am not famous and never will be. i was not the star quarterback in high school, i never win in the lottery… so it’s the little victories, right?

shout-outs go to my dear mom who just celebrated a birthday last week. these sweaters belong to her. well, they used to. i have basically confiscated them now as my own. also, to cordarounds for those awesome discoball pants in that last photo above. and to my wife… cuz she not only put up with these kind of shenanigans from me, but (as you see here) she sometimes jumps in too. happy holidays everyone!

almost as soon as we arrived, we headed over to the park to play with our friends’ kids and some of their friends. little d loves the swings, so she even got to have some fun.

i tried to muster a shot that entered my mind with the lens i was stuck with. it kinda worked. i kinda love it.

i climbed onto some of the jungle gym and caught what are now a few of my favorite photos of our little girl and of her with my wife.

this is our friends’ little girl. for some reason, some of my favorite shots i get of her are always while she has something going on that makes the picture seem a throw-away. she just gets this calmness about her, i guess, when she is pre-occupied. who knows… maybe Horizon Organic will contact me for using it as an ad?  :)

just some of what makes petaluma take the breath out of me sometimes.

and here is our little girl all dressed up for her first thanksgiving with our friends up north.

and this is my wife (melissa) with the middle generation of our friends (colleen). she is a dear friend that melissa has basically known all of her life, for the most part. and she is crafty as all get out. i cannot even tell you how many things she has made for us and little d. oh, for instance… she made that dress in the shot above for her and the little kicker she has on her head too! and, i might bet you that she made what she has on below, as well.

so… i will try to keep this from being a “you had to be there” kind of thing. for those of you on facebook, i will post a video soon. but our little girl does this thing we now call “mind control” where she tenses all up and kinda stares at you and shakes a little. the best is when she shakes her face just right so her big old cheeks just rattle along. good times.

it became clear to me again this weekend how much i love just taking photos. how i love the organic process of just shooting as things happen. i had my camera out even less than i would have liked to, but i got a handful of shots that are up at the top of my all-time faves (for now). i just love this moment with my two girls.

again, for those of you on my facebook, you know about one of the things that really got me excited about this particular trip. i usually try to break away for at least a half day of just photo-exploration. not always with a destination in mind. but this trip, our friend andy and i got up early and headed out to the small town of bodega. this is the home to the church that was used in the alfred hitchcock film “the birds”. i have been an enormous (not a pun aimed at the size of the director) fan of hitchcock since i can remember. so any opportunity to walk around and even capture a hitchcockian monument … well, it makes me giddy beyond words.

the top photos are the same… i just loved how much different this looked in hitchcockian black-and-white. of note, getting the second shot cost me a few rips in my pants from a barbed-wire fence. well worth it.

before getting back to the house, we made a brief stop at the rocks above dillon beach. i have no words… just photos.

while d and i were sharing some time while the mom’s shopped, she allowed me to take a few goofy shots of her.below is her excitement when she pulls out certain faves of her animal flash cards. she does so love the ducky.

and now for a storyboard of her excitement when ‘chica’ makes an appearance on the sprout channel:

you can tell when i am shooting more for me, because i will bring out my old argus camera. i just love the way things look through its viewfinder and the final product from it usually dizzies me in a good way… speaking to the side of me that used to love sifting through old family photos.so here is a handful of some of my faves from a little walk we all took together with my argus doing the story-telling.

i have high hopes for the reception of some of these quick shots i took of colleen and the kids on their porch that evening. hopefully i am not the only one who loves these this much.   :)

and here are the kids hanging out on their porch bench. i love the “group shots” we get with d in them. it makes my mind time-travel ahead to when she will look at these photographs…

… and i smile everytime that i imagine her saying “oh, that’s me and ______ ” … easily recalling different moments in her life that she shared with people that she loves. we all know that is what the holidays are about. family and friends and the love that we feel for those people becoming a tangible thing. and by that, i don’t mean a present. but, rather, a hug and a kiss on the cheek. a few days out of our life where we spend time reminiscing with the people that have helped shape us into who we are. and now that i am older, and can see things in this light, saying “i wish it were christmas every day” takes on a new meaning for me. because if any or all of us could be that wrapped up in love and affection and basic human kindness…. wouldn’t the world just be that much better?

** thanks for reading and looking through this post. i know it is a more personal one, in nature… but it does resemble my work as well. i hope each and every one of you had a blessed holiday and can continue to enjoy the holidays to come. **