Can You See the Baby in this Picture??

Note: Honey still isn't ready with Meghan O's images - they'll be up as they're available.

It’s been another busy weekend. We worked with the lovely and always prepared Meghan O’Hare on Saturday night. Also got to meet her new fiancé, Ben. Congrats, you two! The location was basically in the middle of nowhere on some railroad tracks. I think a total of three cars passed in the two hours or so that we were there. Very eery after dark.

Sunday we met up with a fellow photog. While on vacation in Hawaii he got his main camera wet with sea water (for those that don’t know that equals instant death). His back up camera is in the shop, so we loaned him our old Sony, the one we bought for my college graduation pictures back in the day. His model for the day was…damn - and not in a good way. She had really bad acne, the make-up she put over it was too light for her skin tone, and there wasn’t an inch of her with any muscle tone. Plus she was almost 30 minutes late and still had to get ready. Ladies, this is not how to be professional model! She wants to work with Honey. I’m gonna leave that as “no comment”.

Later that afternoon we did our first expectant mother photo shoot. Belly pictures are a must have for soon-to-be grandmothers apparently. The model and I used to work together; I haven’t seen her since I quit, mostly due to scheduling conflicts or either of us being out of town. We’d sent sample photos to give her some ideas; it took about an hour and a half altogether. She was, as I’m sure all expectant mothers are, concerned about stretch marks and looking lumpy in places, but Honey smoothed everything and she’s very happy with the two sneak peak photos she’s received so far. I think we’ll be doing her new born pictures here in the next 3-4 weeks. Fingers crossed.

The Britney Spears concert was surprisingly good. I say that because it never would have occurred to me to buy tickets, but having gotten them for free – which reminds me I need to send an email thank you – it was really good. She had two opening acts; someone named Kristinia Debai and Jordan Sparks, who looked fabulous in a black fringe dress. Then there was a 25-minute intermission of sorts. A big clock showed up on the megatron saying the show will begin in…and started counting down. When the show, called The Circus, did get underway there were real circus acts: acrobats, feits of balance, ninja warriors, and a very talented and flexible lady with lots of hoola hoops. The crowd cheered so loud when Britney did take the stage that I think I went slightly deaf for a few minutes.

I gotta give it to the girl – she’s gotten her shit together. She looks good, can strut the entire concert in heels, and has learned not to dance all the time and so hard that she can’t catch her breath to sing. This time she was actually singing and she’s got a good voice live. The stage, which I’m sure was custom made for her, has three discs (to represent the three rings of a circus, duh) and lots of floor panels that spin, raise, lower, etc. There was also a round LED screen the size of the center circle (think like 30 feet across) that raised and lowered to show videos and stuff in between sets and costume changes. And it was a sold out show, which in these economic times, is saying something.

Attendees ranged from 8-yr old kids to woman in their 40’s or beyond, some dressed like they were going to prom and some like they were going to a backyard bbq. I saw a lot of skin, some good and some other, and one man dressed convincingly in the blue stewardess outfit from the ‘Toxic” video – he had very nice legs and managed just fine in heels. I watched four grown women seat-hop and get booted three different times before returning to their original seats. It was a good time.

Yesterday (Monday) we took Darryl to dinner for his birthday which was earlier last week. As far as Honey is concerned, his last meal if he ever gets on death row will be stuffed shrimp embrochette and bananas foster. We all ate too much and it was savor-ever-bite fabulous. I’m pretty sure that’s the only dish I’ve eaten at that particular seafood house.

Oh! Before dinner I managed to tame the closet monster. It took 4 hours and several waves of dust bunnies, but I reign victorious. It was a pretty big deal so I thought I’d share.

Please enjoy the music

Play music here
So I haven't got the link to Kendra's horror short. And Honey isn't ready with pictures from the last photo shoot, even though I have the next blog written already. I'm working on both parts, hopefully coming soon...

Brianna, Stephanie, Seth, and Kendra

I’m writing to you from a work computer today. Not that I’m seeking sympathy for my crazy schedule (photo shoots, work, meeting models, fishing, business infrastructure, the necessities of everyday life, etc) I just hope ya’ll appreciate my dedication, despite how long it’s taken to publish this post.

Last week Honey did a photo shoot with two new models, Brianna and Stephanie. I didn’t get to go since I was working – same feelings as previous shoots I’ve had to miss: bummed, “it’s not the same without me”, etc. But Honey got some great stuff out of it.

Just found out the guys are going to Henderson for a car show without me. Again, bummed.

Got to go fishing last weekend. After you’ve gone for 8 days, 3 days just seems kinda short, like you’re not trying hard enough, but now that I have a job it’s the best we can hope for. We got rained on twice the first day, both times hard enough to bring us in off the lake. The second time we headed back to camp, because even though the rain had passed us, the camp was getting dumped on, and Honey had had the bright idea earlier to leave the rain cover off the tent so it could “air out” from the last trip… luckily there wasn’t too much stuff in there to get wet and what did was dry by night fall. His first ‘blonde’ moment of the trip. His second came the next day when we launched the boat to fish, and as the boat was sinking at the dock, Honey realized he forgot to put the drain plug back in (after taking it out so all the rain water could drain). There was good fishing that afternoon; Honey caught an 18” bass that came home as fillets. The last day was so windy we weren’t on the lake much. The fishing was lousy; caught one decent rainbow trout but decided it wasn’t worth the hassle for one fish and let him go. Maybe it’s snobby, but I love fish only if it’s no longer attached to its body. We had lunch and both of us dragged our feet a bit when it came time to pack up. That was our last trip with our faithful boat.

“Many go fishing all their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.”
–Henry David Thoreau

We know, the fish are just a bonus.

The first day home we had a night shoot with a Cirque family, featuring Seth and his sister Kendra. It was a lot of laughs and flowed easily. Kendra is in a 3-minute horror film you can see on youtube.com here.

A Lady and a Clown

Labor Day, aka Creepy Clown shoot day. It was a last minute deal; the model called and said “hey, I’m off tomorrow, you wanna shoot?” Of course, we said yes. Alethea's boyfriend Darrin is a professional clown (sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?) and apparently his “inner creepy clown” is just below the make-up. See Alethea's link at right. We met at a bar – we’ve never shot in a bar before – this one a seedy little, off-neighborhood bar which shall remain nameless. We expected it to be empty; the people expected a peaceful afternoon drinking, not I’m sure, a clown and photography show…it worked out. One couple carried on like they were witnessing something akin to celebrity. These are a sampling of the fruits of Labor Day…

We also met an upcoming, prospective model that night. I’ll link to her site when she has something worth showing – she’s in full agreement of that statement, by the way. That was after Applebee’s “2 for $20” and a mile high ice cream pie. It was a great day.

Last night was the monthly meeting of LVPS, a rather disorganized and forced emotion kind of night. When people say they’re excited but their body language says otherwise, it’s very confusing. There was “brief” presentation of Lightroom. I sat through one of these in Portland that lasted 2.5 hours; the local one was very similar. So far both presenters have been lazy wedding photogs.

Tonight we’re guesting at the Nevada Camera Club (NVCC). They’re having a guest speaker from the Review Journal on photojournalism. We’ll see how it goes. My only complaint so far is the chairs are agonizing. Young and spry meets hard and non-ergonomic.

Lightning and Thunder

It’s been kinda busy this week. Darryl, Guy, and Honey went to Hoover Dam to see the completed arch. For those not familiar with the area, there is a massive arch bridge under construction to connect Nevada to Arizona, bypassing the dam which was never meant to carry as much traffic as it currently does, called the Colorado River Bridge. See details on their website here. The roadway that will be on top isn’t finished yet, but the keystone of the arch was placed not long ago and I’m told it’s pretty impressive. It was stormy on the day the guys went and Darryl Ginwright caught this amazing lightning shot.

We got free tickets to the Brittney Spears concert the end of this month. My job has some perks after all, besides being ridiculously laid back, easy money, and stress free. Her new album is good; there’s only one song I don’t care for. It should be a T&A festival of epic proportions. We’ll let you know.

Last night we went downtown for the last night of “Summer of ‘69”. For the last two months free concerts have been held every weekend, the bill being footed by the casinos on Fremont Street, who I’m sure are easily making back their money in beer sales. Got to see a guy win a ’69 Camaro. There was a really bad Fleetwood Mac tribute band.

It became a mob. A stationary mob with people trying to pass thru spaces that weren’t actually spaces to get to the other side. Some people made multiple trips in both directions. We got very friendly with lots of people we didn’t know, to say the least. The band was Three Dog Night and was very good. I was surprised how many songs I knew, having not been born yet during their peak years. After awhile, the crowd was starting to feel suffocating, so we headed for open space away from the stage. Honey is very effective at getting thru a crowd; he basically squares up and walks – people just move. There were a few who didn’t and were nearly bowled off their feet – we didn’t feel bad about this since it’d been happening to us for the last hour. There’s no such thing as crowd courtesy.

We witnessed a fight, sorta. A big Hawaiian guy was walking towards us; he stopped and looked at another guy, punched him in the face, and kept walking. The guy doing the punching was former heavy weight boxer, James Thunder. Once ranked 12th in the world by the WBA, he’s now homeless by choice on the streets of Las Vegas. He holds the record for the fastest knockout ever. See it here. The guy being punched was an off-duty police officer from Arizona, who thankfully wasn’t carrying a gun because he was drinking that night. Having witnessed an assault on an officer, we stuck around to write statements. We’ve seen James many times before; he hangs out downtown, always shirtless and shadow boxing (it’s like boxing the invisible man – you’re going thru all the moves but no one is there). He looks exactly the same now as he does in the video I linked – in top shape and ready for a match. The marshal who arrived on the scene knows James from a previous incident, where he put another marshal in the hospital with a broken nose and ax-handle to the head. He said drugs and a criminal record are keeping James out of the ring. I guess he can’t get a license to box. Every time I’ve seen him though, boxing appears to be all he thinks about. It’s a shame.

I miss my Friend

I don’t really know how to write this. I’d planned to write a post on what animals can teach us based on a great email I got. And then my best animal friend died.

Bubba was my favorite; I won’t try to pretend otherwise. He shared my pillow (often completely stole it), comforted me when I was sick or sad, waited in the window for me to get home, and stayed up until I went to bed, often reminding me how late it was getting. My neighbor called him a puma and joked we should have a permit. Darryl called both of them dogs, saying they were too cool to be cats. I called him Handsome a lot, with his big blue eyes. My massive Siamese, who wasn’t old or sick, was found dead in our garage last night. An hour earlier he’d been lounging in front of our TV. We don’t know what took him, but we’re speculating about a heart attack or a black widow. There’s nothing poisonous in there for him to accidentally eat. So we cried like school children, held each other, and buried him in the back yard. Honey’s never had a pet long enough for it to die on him; he was pretty upset. I broke down again after work today – there are too many big empty places where he should be. His sister, Bebe is taking it fairly well. She’s lying on the computer desk in front of my monitor right now so she can be with. She’s more of an internal-emotion type cat; never seems to care about much, but if her brother got locked outside she’d let me know.

So then there was one. It’s brutal to say, but I wish it was the other one.

So the animal lessons are as follows:

Live simply.

Love generously...

Care deeply.

Speak kindly.

When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.

Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure Ecstasy.

Take naps.

Stretch before rising.

Run, romp, and play daily.

Thrive on attention and let people touch you.

Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.

On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.

On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.

When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.

Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.

Be loyal.

Never pretend to be something you're not.

If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.

When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle them gently.

ENJOY EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY!