About twice a year, we make the trek to western Maryland and Diana’s dad’s home (or thereabouts) in Garrett County. Sometimes it is elsewhere, but more often in that area than not. It’s always a pleasant journey, because we get to stop at Sidling Hill where the view from the parking lot is stunning and peaceful.
The rest of the trip is filled with trees and mountaintops, including our destination which is on the side of a hill overlooking a valley and another hill just beyond. It has become something of a ritual of mine to take a picture or two of that very scene. This particular weekend the amount of haze was very low and the picture turned out quite well.
I took a lot of individual photos of family and friends in attendance. But I also followed some of the kids out to the horse barn where they were treated to a lesson in grooming and taking care of these beautiful animals. I managed to get a pretty good shot of the kids busy at work.
This annual trek is more to me than an obligation to my wife’s family. It’s a journey of peace, renewal and friendship with people that I really associate with on a personal level that you can only get when you feel like you are part of the family.
If you have the opportunity, connect with your family. They miss you.
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.
A couple of months ago I get a call from a guy who turns out to be a former groom from a wedding we did in 2002. Of course, I believed his call had everything to do with that wedding or his wife Julie, or their 16-month old son.
After awhile, I learned that Kip was calling about a new venture he was starting that is based around a relatively new concept for this area. The magazine is run in concert with a website called tccsports.com (give it a visit if you’re a sports fan) that serves to highlight local high school sports. What he wanted us to do is to provide the sports photography for his local version of the magazine. This magazine has been highly successful and popular in the Loudoun County, VA area and he’s duplicating it here with the help of the publisher of the Virginia versions.
In short, it works like this. Six times a year, various players in seasonal sports are highlighted. The magazine goes out to all the area schools and is distributed free of charge. The website carries the same articles and photos, but also has game highlights and images, schedules and much more, including national coverage.
The concept is sound and like I said it is very popular in other areas. Kip has invested a lot of time and personal resources and we’d like to see him get started on a positive note.
I shot a few posed photos for the magazine for the football opener issue.
As the cover and feature photographer for Valley Homes and Style, I get to go to new places and meet interesting people. And for this particular assignment, I certainly ended up in a place I’m still not sure how I got back from. 🙁
Nevertheless, We shot the cover for the upcoming late Summer editing of VHAS using a table scene outdoors near a small barn and stream. There was a lot of work to do to find the best angles and prop arrangements to make it work with the cover layout. Don’t let anyone tell you that magazine work is easy.
While I can’t show you the images we are considering for the magazine cover (but the magazine is free, and we usually get several copies not long after it’s printed), I can tell you about a few of the characters.
While we were shooting, the owner’s cat strolled into the shot. At first, she considered shooing the little fella away, but as he laid down and got comfortable, we all agreed that it was the essence of a late summer day to also add that element of laziness. But like all good models, he eventually decided that the shoot was taking too long and left in a bit of a snit.
A small stream nearby gave me an opportunity to photograph some ducks that were swimming close to the mill. When the owner’s son Kevin came around to get them back toward me, I took a few shots – perhaps for later filler. This is the one that I liked the most and that Diana has offered to do a little “work” on. Perhaps we’ll make notecards and prints available. 🙂
At the end of the day, I trudged back home only to have to leave about 45 minutes later to make it down to Winchester for work for ANOTHER magazine. More on that later.
Enjoy!
Sorry that I’m just now getting around to blogging Jillian and Kyle’s wedding. Besides chasing wrens, it’s been a very busy week. Plus, I really wanted to edit and post pictures that I really liked and one that Diana had a chance to work on.
I did not meet Jillian until a couple of months prior to the wedding. Prior to that, I had only dealt with her parents. Supportive to the end, they wanted the best for their eldest daughter’s wedding, and set things up for her June wedding while Jill was away at college.
When I got there, nobody was there. It was a pretty sad sight, actually. The big, empty Hall behind the church had a few outfits, some flowers and a few things for a wedding, but no people. But when they arrived, pretty much everyone arrived at once.
When the bride started getting ready, she was the focus of everyone there. Four bridesmaids, including her younger sister (also her maid of honor), and two beautiful flower girls watched in awe as Jill transformed from Miss Jillian to the beautiful bride.
While the girls finished getting ready, I went in and took pictures of the groom and groomsmen – all in military uniform. Kyle is a second lieutenant in the Marines, and he had three groomsmen from the Navy and two who were Marines – all friends whom he’d known in his training, assignments, or in school. Dapper they were, too. And nice. “Sir” became my new name. :-
The St. Peters Catholic Church is as historic as Harpers Ferry itself. Used as a hospital during the Civil War, there are published accounts of corpsmen and soldiers walking out of the front of the church and immediately ducking as bullets whizzed by them. The priest used the history of this beautiful church as part of his homily, and I was fascinated by the tremendous role that this building played during a tumultuous time in our nation’s history. But this is not about the Civil War… I’m sure there are other blogs about it though. 🙂
Diana did a little work on the picture above. She gets these visions of what a picture should look like… we both do it. This one begged to be enhanced. I think it looks great. Look for more on our Impressions work at tlcphotography.com/impressions.
Following the wedding and communion, we had a great time with photos. Despite calls for storms and the like, the weather was cooperative enough to go out on the steps, despite the humidity and do some more photos than the ones in front of the altar.
I’ve told Diana before that sometimes I “see” in black and white, and this is one of those images that really hit me that way. We used the lovely backdrop of Harpers Ferry as well, but for the most part we didn’t want to keep the guests waiting. So, after packing up and slogging 80 pounds of equipment back to the car (UP hill), I drove to the Clarion in Shepherdstown.
Not unlike most weddings, there were a few surprises, and this was probably one of the nicest. Seems as though there are a group of ladies, all friends, who take songs, change the words and apply them to an event. This lovely group used “Goin’ To The Chapel” to create a story about how Jill and Kyle met, where he proposed and their wedding. The outfits were complete with veils, flowers and those big candy rings that the kids really like.
Once all was said and done, I was stunned that the time had just flown by. I’m not quite sure how Jill will accompany Kyle on his assignment at Quantico, but as a military wife I’m sure she’s already anticipating relocating.
It was a beautiful wedding and we wish Jillian and Kyle the best of luck.
The rest of the trip is filled with trees and mountaintops, including our destination which is on the side of a hill overlooking a valley and another hill just beyond. It has become something of a ritual of mine to take a picture or two of that very scene. This particular weekend the amount of haze was very low and the picture turned out quite well.
