Rick’s Rants and Raves

Tonight I was supposed to have a photo shoot at Inniswood Metro Gardens. I had met a young women a couple of weeks ago who wanted me to do a portrait session with her mother and herself. We exchanged e-mails a few times, agreed on  the time, place and fee. As we were eating dinner, Anne asked if I wanted a VAL for the shoot. Sure, that’d be great, but I had though she had a conflict. We worked out the details so that she could come with me to help out.
A few minutes after the appointed time, I got a call from the young woman who explained that she had had a family emergency, and couldn’t make the shoot. The more hard-nosed photogs in some forums I read would charge her the session fee anyway. All we had was a loosely worded e-mail agreement, and really, I’m not that put out by losing the shoot.
Instead, Anne and I walked the grounds, looking for opportunities for her to play with the D5000 and f/2.8 lens. Of course, I couldn’t help but take a few shots, like the one above. Anne likes the pretty flowers. And frequently I do too. But a rose in decline deserves to be shot as well. So, above is a reprise of my black rose. This time, Anne was my voice-activated-light stand. And instead of doing a photo shoot, we got to spend a little time together, doing something we both enjoyed.

I’m a very proud husband today. This weekend, my wife and I attended the Dublin Irish Festival. But “attended” just doesn’t do justice to the time and effort we put into it. Perhaps I should say we “worked” the DIF.

Anne has been interested in photography for years. But over the last year or so, she’s been a bit intimidated by my development and passion. And as such, when we had just the one good camera, she didn’t feel like she could request usage of it for long enough periods to really start to feel comfortable with it. This weekend that all changed. She spent a significant amount of time with her eye to the viewfinder, moving her feet to compose shots, and working through the limitations of the camera and lens (focus too soft at 250mm? move a bit closer, or pan out just a bit). Friday night she had much of the same frustrations that I had last year. But Saturday brought renewed resolve–she took hundreds of pictures, and sought out compositions, rather than being a fan with a camera. By the end of the evening she was willing to tell me that we were going to stick around just a few minutes longer so that she could get a shot that she envisioned. By the end of Sunday, she had taken 800+ pictures. I look forward to seeing her work, and sharing a bit of it here (assuming she grants permission!)

Last year after the Dublin Irish Festival I made a goal for myself–get back stage. I wanted to have the ability to move freely to get the shots I wanted. I wanted to have access to the performers as they prepared. I wanted to be closer to the performance. I wasn’t sure how long it would take, but I was prepared for it to take a couple of years.

Much of what I did photographically this year was either directly or indirectly conceived to help me toward that goal. Much of it was building my skills, and a network of relationships. Then I shot 9 Castle Close. My relationship with them forged the ability to shoot Green for Greene. Through that event, I met the director of community relations for Dublin. 9 Castle Close wanted me to shoot them back stage at DIF2010, so I submitted a media access request stating that as the reason. It was approved by someone I’m pretty sure works for the director of community relations. Today, I received the all access media badge. I’m so excited!

I’ve come to the conclusion that Thanksgiving is the holiday that Christmas wishes it could be.

As a kid, I always was amazed that Christmas was only one day. It seemed like there was so much to do, so much fun to have, such great stuff to explore, that it really should have been three or four days long. Thanksgiving, in contrast, is a four day long event in my family.

This year, Thanksgiving started in the traditional way, on Thursday, at my aunt’s house. This was the gathering of my mother’s near-by family and we did much of the typical stuff–spent time with family, ate great food (contributed by everyone), and marveled at the first snow of the year, and played with army men. When we got home, we relaxed with a bit of TV (Mythbusters, of course).

Friday was spent doing various things with relatively little stress. First up, we got to see one of Emily’s friends playing ice hockey. I, of course, used this as a photographic opportunity. Emily’s friend was playing defense the whole time, so I didn’t get any good shots of him on the puck.This one, however is about the best I could do a) shooting through plexiglass, b) with crappy stadium lighting.

After we got home from the hockey game, we ate lunch, then the kids continued a recent fascination of theirs: knocking army men off of blocks using Playmobil canons!

They’ve spent hours together playing like this over the last couple of days, and it has to be one of the most heart-warming experiences a parent can have: kids playing together incredibly well.

We also cleaned up the house a bit in preparation for the only Thanksgiving meal that we’re hosting this year. After the house was pretty well prepared, we diverted into jamming to the tunes of DJ Rick spinning the MP3s on the whole-house stereo. Special request from Nathan: Black Sabbath Crazy Train; from Emily: Guns ‘N Roses Welcome to the Jungle. Some day we’ll probably be astonished we let them listen to this kind of music, but for now it was great fun to have watched them jamming to a mix of classic rock and modern pop.

Finally, we departed for an OSU Women’s Volleyball game. OSU played Michigan, and swept them 3-0. All three games were tight and very exciting.

We spent much of Saturday in relaxed preparation for my father and his wife to come over for dinner. We even pulled out Anne’s Grandmother’s china for the first time in our kids’ memories.

We were pretty laid back about getting the pork roast in the oven. My dad and his wife were to arrive at 4PM and we figured the roast would be done between 4:30 and 5PM. Unfortunately, it turned out to be closer to 5:30PM, and my dad’s wife had to leave to go work on the suicide hotline. Its incredibly meaningful work, I just wish we’d known that earlier than “Dinner’s on the table!”–”Oh, I’ve gotta go.” But quite honestly, that was the WHOLE DRAMA for the entire 4 day weekend. At least I remembered to get a shot of the kids with grandpa before he left.

Anne and I got up late on Sunday, and prepared our dish for our final Thanksgiving meal. We were tasked with making salad. Not content with dumping a salad out of a bag, Anne glazed some pecans to go with the spinach, red leaf, red onion, feta, and dried cranberries.

I enjoy salads, but I don’t normally rave about them. This one was fabulous, yummy, and perfect.

We descended upon Anne’s dad’s house to feast upon roast beast with a bunch of her step-siblings and their assorted “others”. Again, this event was relatively low-key, especially for us. I think Anne’s step-mother spent way too much time cleaning the grout (as she is wont to do) and every other nook-and-cranny-that-no-one-will-notice. But she would probably do that in preparation for a camp-out.

The evening, and our Thanksgiving weekend in general, ended in a rubber band fight–all the kids against uncle Lance.

So, back to my original point: Thanksgiving is better than Christmas precisely because there is none of that gift-giving stress. And for religious significance (and I ain’t religious), Jesus really wanted his disciples and followers to break bread and have meals together. I’m pretty sure he didn’t say anything about stocking suffers, gift exchanges, or putting yourself in debt to prove how generous you are. Thanksgiving has become the holiday that Christmas should be.