Most of today I spent at a softball tournament in Westminster and Winfield, Maryland. On the way home, I was witness to a rather horrific traffic accident. I’ll leave that one to the police and fire blogs. It’s not something I want to witness again.
When I got back to the studio, one of our best customers was on her way back to the studio. Lillian has brought grandchildren, great grandchildren, her dog and her husband (not necessarilly in that order). We enjoy every visit by Lillian and her relatives.
This was her son and wife, and their three kids. Of course, mom and dad just wanted pictures of the kids. It’s usually that way, and since I love kids so much I was just happy to have mom and dad in the camera room with us to help with the kids.
Isabelle, Griffin and Jacob were the kids. Jacob is the oldest at ten, Griffin is almost three and Isabelle is ten months. As always, I took somewhere over 60 images. And if I had room and time to post all my favorites, you’d be seeing LOTS of photos. But there are two that were standouts with Lillian and really epitomize the effort and timing that go into photos of children – it’s all about patience and timing.
Before I show you those photos, I want to share something with you that Lillian said when she was viewing the photos. Around Christmas time, her son and daughter-in-law had taken their children to the mall photographer. It was cheap, convenient and they had plenty of samples that looked “okay.” Just prior to taking photos, the sales associate pulled down a background while the children were in the set. This frightened Griffin and he cried for the entire length of the session.
If any of you have been to the mall photographer you know that they schedule sessions every 15 minutes to get as many photos taken as quickly as possible. That is how they can offer you the cheap fees they do, that and the “portrait club” and add-on type of things that drive up the price and which you will never use, or use rarely. The bottom line is that the pictures they ended up with showed Griffin crying in every photo. Happy Holidays, right?
In our studio, we allocate a minimum of two hours for each session with children. This is terribly important. We always spend at least the first few minutes of that session getting to know the kids, letting them get used to our place and playing with some of the toys we have. Only after they start getting settled in do we start taking pictures. And with each flash of the lights, we make a face or silly noise that makes it seem like fun.
Two hours later we have a lot of images. Yes, we have our share of crying kids. But in the end, after 15 minutes we’re not going to shove you out the door because we’re expecting someone else. That is a big difference between a professional studio and the mall photographer.
Now, on to the photos.
So we took a little time off. My goal, ambitious though it sounds was to finish painting the house. As part of that goal, I needed to remove part of a Holly bush that is directly under our bathroom window. Small though it may be, it still needs the same preparation as the other windows and doors.
I took a quick whack at it with the hedge trimmer. My theory on power tools is that they should do the entire job, regardless how little I know about the task to be performed. Hedge trimmer, to me, means that it should trim hedges. What the trimmer didn’t know, and was a mystery to me as well, is that deep inside the bush was a trunk that was three inches wide.
[Heavy sigh]
So, after doing a little outer edge trimming, I used the tall-tree branch cutting tool I have (by the way NOT a power tool) and began sawing away at some of the smaller 1-2″ branches. After three or four of them, I realized that the saw portion of the limb cutter was a little rusty and a lot dull. I would heavy sigh again but I remembered that I had a hand saw that was specifically made for cutting branches and which was sharp and cuts most branches like butter.
But I couldn’t find it. 🙁
So I didn’t cut anymore.
But on Thursday, the first day we had without rain (which meant I couldn’t have painted anyway), I did go to a Men’s Wearhouse (yes, I spelled it right!!) and bought a new suit. Why is this such a monument? Because I haven’t had a new suit since I got married. I was married in 1994, so you can imagine how much shrinkage that poor little suit has been through. It’s black, which Diana says makes me look better. It has a second pair of pants, too.
[Heavy sigh]
Oh… in case you were wondering about the holly bush situation. Sunday night I was looking for something in our storage room. I found my reciprocating saw. Yes, it’s a power tool. For those who are “power-tool challenged,” a reciprocating saw is about like a jigsaw that is hand-held. I replaced the blade last year with a ripping blade, which means it can cut through most wood without a problem. In 30 minutes I had almost completely disassembled the bush, down to two or three large stump pieces. If it dies off, I won’t miss it. It’s pretty and we get a nest or two in there every other year, but it was also out of control.
Now I intend to take “the saw” to the bush at the corner which has caused some minor damage to the corner pieces and a bit of the downspout. Something about this says I’m power-tool hungry. But the male in me says “I don’t mind so much.”
When most of us walk into a monument, memorial or museum there is something about it which creates a kind of awe that is unprecedented in our own life. For example, I clearly remember the first time I walked into the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC as a child and stood in complete awe of the huge statue of Abraham Lincoln. I was so transfixed that my parents came and grabbed me after having called after me for several minutes while visiting with relatives.
In what Diana and I have been referring to as “day trips,” we visited DC today and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I had ordered tickets a week or so in advance in anticipation of a larger than usual crowd over the holiday weekend. They use tickets (which are free, although tickets.com charges a $1.25 service fee) to make sure that they can control the volume of people going through the permanent exhibit (more on that later).
The exhibit starts on the fourth floor of the museum, to which you are taken on an elevator. With only 7-9 people on each car, they also try to control the volume of people. For us, today, the control didn’t much matter. There were lots of people, and with lots of people in a museum there comes lots of interesting problems.
Ever been in the theater and someone’s cell phone goes off? Ever been in church and someone’s teenager is talking about everything OTHER than the service? Have you ever been watching a program on TV or a movie in the cinema and someone disrupt you? Imagine being in a diorama that includes hundreds (perhaps thousands) of individual exhibit parts which culminate the history that makes up the story which is the purpose of the museum itself. And then imagine people walking in front of what you’re reading, and talking out loud about problems with their boyfriend, and screaming at their children for being noisy and rude – which is noisier and ruder than their own kids!
I’m not big on uncontrolled crowds, but people are just so uncaring and unfeeling. This is THE museum of the 21st century that means more than just memorializing an era of time – its meaning goes far beyond that and into the realm of a continual reminder that what has happened before can NEVER be allowed to happen again. And it is very solemn. A considerable degree of respect is expected. It’s not a place for your cell phone.
Okay, enough grousing.
In one part of the permanent exhibit’s tour there is a “room” in which you enter where all of the walls are covered in portraits, which spans two floors. These portraits are not pictures of people in situations of death and disability. These are pictures and portraits of people through the years whose lives had been touched by the era in which they lived. It is called The Tower of Shtetl. As I looked upon these portraits, most with no labeling or captions whatsoever, it struck me that I was witnessing the history of someone’s family. Years had passed since those pictures had been taken, but for that instant time stood still… and that person was immortalized for eternity. And now their family had a memento of their face, a bit of their personality, and a glimpse into their soul.
What hit me the most is when Diana said that THIS was the reason that what we do for a living is so important to us. I wept. I have never felt more important to so many people as I did at that moment. I enjoy my work so much that I almost never feel like the future of what I’m doing now will make much more of a difference than a beautiful portrait on the wall. But in 100 years or more, people will look at those same portraits and say “that was Uncle so-and-so and his wife and kids.” And it won’t matter anymore who took the picture – but those descendants will have a moment of their life for years to come, and a piece of their personality, and a glimpse into their soul – and I gave it to them.
I’m humbled.
For more information on the museum, which I cannot begin to do justice to here, please go to www.ushmm.org. The permanent exhibit takes 2-3 hours to see properly.
Don’t go on a holiday weekend. 🙂
I couldn’t just let this go by without comment. I usually only blog things that I photograph, but sometimes you just have to throw in other stuff.
I sent Jeff to photograph an annual Boer Goat Show that was being hosted at the Berkeley County Youth Fairgrounds. My original impression of what he was to do was to take winner’s pictures after they were awarded, and in front of banner that is hanging on a lattice. And for the most part, he did.
But at some point, he also started taking photos of goat handlers with their goats in the judging ring. For those of you who are goat experts, please forgive my amateur descriptions of what’s going on, because I’m nearly clueless. I know they like to eat things, and that’s about it. Oh wait, there’s goat milk and goat cheese. So, there’s that.
Most of the photos are about the same, in that there’s a handler, a goat, and a ribbon. There are a few interesting photos, but none more interesting than this one.
So as I was looking through the photos, I couldn’t help notice that as the day got longer, the goats got bigger. What’s more, the kids handling the goats were the same kids. Which means that as the goats got bigger the kids trying to handle them had to work a little harder. This particular participant wasn’t handling quite as well as she’d probably like, though.
Now Jeff, who’s also our senior photographer (not just because he’s so old, either) goes around making everything sound like the “ba-a-a-a” of a goat. It’s very sad.
As a very good friend of my older daughter Jessica, Shannon came to use quite some time ago to ask us to photograph her wedding. She was very insistent that she wanted us to photograph the wedding and of course we were happy to oblige.
Most of the groom’s family lives further south and were not able to make it to the wedding. But since he has fit in so well to Shannon’s family, he felt right at home.
Also married at Poor House Farm Park near Martinsburg, a later day wedding gave the happy couple a chance to use the day to make final preparations and have some beautiful light later in the day.
With Diana as the minister, and later as my posing assistant, we got some great photos. The best sequence was obtained from nearby playground equipment.
We wish them a wonderful marriage and look forward to working with them again shortly.
It’s pretty rare that I will take two weddings in one day. Weddings are emotionally draining for me, but after I had already booked one wedding for July 1, and Rachael called with a need for short coverage, it was easy enough to take on the roughly two hours of coverage for her wedding before my later wedding in the same location.
Poor House Farm Park is remarkably beautiful, and has more facilities than most people know about. In addition to a large converted barn which is used for receptions, there is also a large covered pavillion and a lovely gazebo in the middle of a large pond, which is home to many ducks and geese.
With only coverage of the ceremony and formals, there weren’t as many opportunities to catch people off guard, but there were plenty of opportunities to be creative and have a little fun.
We enjoyed the short time we spent with Rachael and Chris and look forward to working with them again in the future. All the best to the newlyweds.
