14 years and counting

Each year I get to make portraits of this lively, fun, kind, close-knit, smart, funny, gorgeous family. All these years, we've done the sittings in my studio. This year, they decided it was time to go outside. It was a perfect day for such a choice.

thatcher and corbin

Thatcher kidnapped us all and made us hop onto boda-bodas our first day in Kampala. I have loved riding them ever since.

Corbin and Thatcher are in the lower left corner. This is the day they were our surrogate parents taking us on a field trip -  a very low-budget safari. It was riotously fun.

My teacher and friend, Thatcher Cook, recently married Corbin. The two photographers met in Uganda in 2005 when Thatch was teaching the Maine Media workshop on NGO photography. Corbin was a student in his class. I guess you could say they kind of hit it off. By the next year, when I attended the workshop, Corbin was Thatch's assistant. They made a great team.

Fast forward to their wedding, which recently took place in Ireland. It is featured in Martha Stewart's wedding magazine this month.

If you have five minutes, treat yourself to this 16 mm film of their extraordinarily beautiful event. It is special and moving in so many ways. My favorite part is seeing Thatcher taking his own pictures of lovely Corbin.

Congratulations and Mazel Tov, Thatcher and Corbin!

You can watch the film here. 

my favorite season

What a show the leaves have put on this fall! I keep hoping the winds will stay calm, so the incredible bursts of color dotting my neighborhood will stay in place a little longer. We've managed to avoid heavy rains and hard freezes so far this fall, and that has really helped, too. According to the local weather forecast, today just might be the day the winds descend upon these gorgeous trees.

So I'm glad I shot these yesterday. I simply couldn't help myself. Enjoy!

all i needed to hear today

OK, my day has just been made. Young SMK photographer Nicky, whose works I featured earlier this week (please scroll down to view them), sent me the following missive after seeing the post:

"that just made me speechless. am so great full to learn how to take photos coz every time i move around i wish i had a camera. photographs made me realize how beautiful the world is.......you are the best teacher ever."

perfect day

Just a perfect day
Drink Sangria in the park
And then later
When it gets dark, we go home

Just a perfect day
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later
A movie, too, and then home

Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on

Just a perfect day
Problems all left alone
Weekenders on our own
It's such fun

Just a perfect day
You made me forget myself
I thought I was
Someone else, someone good

Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on

You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow

I've been singing this Lou Reed song a lot lately. Maybe it's just because of all the specials about Lou Reed that I've listened to on the radio or watched on TV since his recent death.

(If you haven't read the piece Patty Smith wrote for the New Yorker about him, you need to. Click here. Then, there is his wife Laurie Anderson's piece in Rolling Stone. Also stunningly lovely.)

A few days ago, while the song was just beginning to set up camp in my head, I did some photos for the upcoming Operation Breakthrough video. I got to shoot pictures of three sets of siblings. These are brothers and sisters who genuinely love each other and enjoy spending time together. 

It was a crisp fall afternoon. Crunchy leaves under our feet, the breeze whipping up our hair every now and then, pumpkins still on the front porch. A beloved little doggie running around and then licking faces. A worm on a leaf.

Siblings playing hand games together, watching TV together, throwing leaves around together.

And me getting to take pictures.

Just a perfect day.

printing new work

Nicky

Today I've been printing some work. The images were not made by me; they are the creations of my amazing St. Mary Kevin Orphanage photography students.

Issy, Nicky and Brian are gifted artists. Put a musical instrument, a sketch pad, a blank canvas - and now a camera - in front of them, and you'll quickly be blown away.

I worked with these teenagers for only a few days this past August. By the end of the first, they were done with the old point and shoot cameras I had rounded up and brought over. They were hungry to learn much more. They wanted to know how to create movement, make things go out of focus or look very sharp. They wanted to know how to use light to their best advantage. They wanted to know about using different lenses. They were curious about how to approach potential subjects.

Yikes. I decided to let them take turns using my SLR. My Canon 5D Mark III.

[Me: Put the strap around your neck, and keep it there! Do not run with my camera. Do not climb any trees or large ant hills with it. Whatever you do, please bring it back to me in one piece!]

These young artists wanted assignments. They wanted to walk all day long with me and take pictures and watch ME take pictures. They wanted honest critiques of their work and assessments of their assignments. They wanted to see all of my pictures and hear me talk about why I made this one and why I liked that one. They wanted to know how I did this and when they could learn how to do that. They talked easily of what they felt worked and didn't work in their own pictures, of how they could make improvements, see more clearly, push themselves further.

It was exciting, exhilarating and inspiring (for me, absolutely!) It was great fun, too.

Other than to my own kids and to a class at Operation Breakthrough years ago, I had never really taught photography before.

These high school students made it easy. Their passion for image making was/is a beautiful thing. I maintain I have so much to learn from them.

(These photographs, and more, will be for sale at the Change the Truth Annual Fundraiser in March.)

Issy

Nicky

Brian

Brian

Issy

Nicky

Nicky

Brian

Brian

Nicky

Nicky

red heads

I got my workout in this afternoon trying to keep up with these adorable and very busy twins. They were everywhere all at once.

Could they be any cuter?

I love doing portraits of sweet, funny kids on crisp, gorgeous fall afternoons at my neighborhood park.

It just doesn't get much better than that!

a valentine on halloween

I know, wrong holiday. Nonetheless, this is my valentine to Brookside.

Brookside is my neighborhood. A lot of children in costume descend upon its quaint shopping area to collect treats from the gracious shop owners for two hours each Halloween. My camera and I had a blast being in the middle of it all yesterday.