Two amazing things happened tonight.

The first amazing thing; it rained. It hasn’t rained since, I don’t know, April, it seems like forever, and normally it doesn’t rain until the end of October. The earth is so dry, the hills are bare, and wild fires have run rampant. But tonight, in the middle of September, it rained! Good news for the agriculturalists; bad news for the wine growers.

But for us, the urban Petalumans attending Tyler Young’s Door 2 Door event at Aqus Cafe, it just meant we had to bundle up and get a little wet. Door 2 Door was the second amazing event of this mid-September night.

Door 2 Door is part of Tyler’s Project Here. The purpose is strengthen the community in Petaluma by helping Petalumans get to know their neighbors. He sent out a request that people photograph themselves in front of their front doors, and then send in the photos for a collage made up of Petaluma faces and the homes they belong to. 90 people sent in photos. And about that many people came to the opening tonight, to show their faces, admire their photos, and meet their neighbors… in the rain.

To add an additional fun element to the evening, Tyler asked me to photograph the guests in front of a 100 year old door that was rescued from a house demolised by the 2006 tsunami in Indonesia. The door was brought to the event by Michael, “Bug,” from Heritage Salvage (pictured below.) I believe there are more of these beautiful doors for sale at Heritage Salvage if you are looking for an amazing door.

We had lots of fun playing in the rain. And it was definitely a kid-fest… they loved the huge parking lot puddle that was near where I was photographing and so there are quite a few photos with heads dashing across the front of the frames.

And then it got dark. So, lucky for me, out came Tyler’s lighting equipment. Who knew I would fall in love with lighting. But his kit was so easy… you just plug it into the wall and start shooting… until the running children trip over the cord and the whole kit falls over buring a hole in the umbrella… but it was good photographing while it lasted.

And this is Tyler, the man behind it all. He’s the kind of person who dreams big and then actually makes those dreams happen, and I am glad to know him and contribute to his community building dreams.

If you attended the event and would like to see more of the photos, please visit my on-line gallery by clicking here. All proceeds of the photos will go back to Tyler so he can continue to fund his fantastic projects.