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This is Novella Carpenter.
Among many many other things, Novella is a writer and an urban farmer, and for the past ten years she has been farming in Oakland, California and writing about her adventures raising farm animals in the two story Victorian house that she rents, and gardening in the vacant lot next to her house.
Novella has compiled her urban farming lessons into a book, Farm City and the Education of an Urban Farmer, which comes out this year, and she needed a photograph of herself for the book jacket, so she called me.
“I don’t want it to look too Martha-Stewart-like,” she said, as I climbed over her bio-diesel mechanic tools on the steps, and up through her kitchen filled with the morning’s leftovers sitting on dishes waiting to be washed, and out to her back porch where I was greeted by her Dwarf Nigerian goats on a paint peeling porch.
Novella’s urban farming world is a visual wonderland that is real, honest, and unapologetic. It may be messy, but it is messy with life and creativity. Novella spends her time on important things like: writing, milking, growing food, educating her urban neighbors, and making bio-diesel fuel. She is not concerned with superficial appearances or pretending to be something she is not… it is refreshing and wonderful. I reassured her that appearing Martha-Stewart-esque would not be a problem.
My favorite quote of the morning came as she was sitting on the stairs clipping Orla’s toenails and she said, “I don’t know why people would want diamonds when they can have goats?”
I couldn’t agree more.
Check Novella’s blog to learn more about urban farming and to see about upcoming events at Ghost Town Farm.
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I am currently working on a fun project with a group of researchers, and we are exploring different businesses in the Bay Area, in order to learn what would bring businesses back to the city instead of sprawling out in the suburbs.
So… so far I have mostly photographed interviews, which means I have lots of photographs of blackberries, fancy shoes and close-ups of hands that are frozen in the air as they help emphasize the brain’s important message. But, between the scheduled interviews, I have also been experimenting with my least favorite kind of photography… street photography.
It’s not that I don’t like street photographs taken by other photographers, because I do, I just don’t like doing it myself. It makes me feel like a creepy stalker when I try and take photos of people without them noticing. But so far it has been easier in SF than my last attempts, in London. Here are some of my impressions of City Hall… more favorite street photos to come.
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Vodpod videos no longer available.
more about ““Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… on Vimeo“, posted with vodpodI am lucky that in April, I get to marry the person who I love most, but I am heartbroken because so many couples are refused that same legal right….
…the right to be recognized by society as a couple, and more importantly, the right to be recognized by the government. The article below, from Nolo, proves that marriage is a legal matter… not a moral or religious matter.
If you would like to support equality for all, then please send a message to The Supreme Court here: http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/divorce
To read more about the rights and benefits of marriage… please read on…
Marriage Rights and Benefits
Learn some of the legal and practical ways that getting married changes your life.
Whether or not you favor marriage as a social institution, there’s no denying that it confers many rights, protections, and benefits — both legal and practical. Some of these vary from state to state, but the list typically includes:
Tax Benefits
- Filing joint income tax returns with the IRS and state taxing authorities.
- Creating a “family partnership” under federal tax laws, which allows you to divide business income among family members.
Estate Planning Benefits
- Inheriting a share of your spouse’s estate.
- Receiving an exemption from both estate taxes and gift taxes for all property you give or leave to your spouse.
- Creating life estate trusts that are restricted to married couples, including QTIP trusts, QDOT trusts, and marital deduction trusts.
- Obtaining priority if a conservator needs to be appointed for your spouse — that is, someone to make financial and/or medical decisions on your spouse’s behalf.
Government Benefits
- Receiving Social Security, Medicare, and disability benefits for spouses.
- Receiving veterans’ and military benefits for spouses, such as those for education, medical care, or special loans.
- Receiving public assistance benefits.
Employment Benefits
- Obtaining insurance benefits through a spouse’s employer.
- Taking family leave to care for your spouse during an illness.
- Receiving wages, workers’ compensation, and retirement plan benefits for a deceased spouse.
- Taking bereavement leave if your spouse or one of your spouse’s close relatives dies.
Medical Benefits
- Visiting your spouse in a hospital intensive care unit or during restricted visiting hours in other parts of a medical facility.
- Making medical decisions for your spouse if he or she becomes incapacitated and unable to express wishes for treatment.
Death Benefits
- Consenting to after-death examinations and procedures.
- Making burial or other final arrangements.
Family Benefits
- Filing for stepparent or joint adoption.
- Applying for joint foster care rights.
- Receiving equitable division of property if you divorce.
- Receiving spousal or child support, child custody, and visitation if you divorce.
Housing Benefits
- Living in neighborhoods zoned for “families only.”
- Automatically renewing leases signed by your spouse.
Consumer Benefits
- Receiving family rates for health, homeowners’, auto, and other types of insurance.
- Receiving tuition discounts and permission to use school facilities.
- Other consumer discounts and incentives offered only to married couples or families.
Other Legal Benefits and Protections
- Suing a third person for wrongful death of your spouse and loss of consortium (loss of intimacy).
- Suing a third person for offenses that interfere with the success of your marriage, such as alienation of affection and criminal conversation (these laws are available in only a few states).
- Claiming the marital communications privilege, which means a court can’t force you to disclose the contents of confidential communications between you and your spouse during your marriage.
- Receiving crime victims’ recovery benefits if your spouse is the victim of a crime.
- Obtaining immigration and residency benefits for noncitizen spouse.
- Visiting rights in jails and other places where visitors are restricted to immediate family.
Note that if you are in a same-sex marriage in Massachusetts or a domestic partnership or civil union in any of the states that offer those relationship options, many of the benefits of marriage won’t apply to you, because the federal government does not recognize these same-sex relationships. For example, you may not file joint federal income tax returns with your partner, even if your state allows you to file jointly. And other federal benefits, such as COBRA continuation insurance coverage, may not apply. Consult a lawyer with expertise in this area to learn more about the rights and benefits available to same-sex couples.
I pulled the information above from Nolo a website that claims to be the “nation’s oldest and most respected provider of legal information for consumers and small businesses.”
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Claudia sent me a message saying she didn’t have any photos of her new little guy, so we decided to trade.
She gets cute photos and Jude and I get photos for our stock business.
So I did the family photos that they wanted and then we tried to think of baby topics that magazines might want photos of. She told me babies like bouncing on yoga balls, they like the sound of electric toothbrushes and bath time.
We had a fun hour and fourty minutes… and then it was time for this baby to go to sleep again.
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I just had a fantastic girls’ weekend up in Sonoma with some of my most favorite females and I didn’t take many photos at all.
It was so nice to be a part of the weekend, instead of documenting it.
But I couldn’t resist this photo of my wonderful friend Rebecca, who was wearing her apron, after making her famous meatballs, and enjoying some tea by the glowing American flag in the last sun of the day.
I am still excited about the renewed sense of Patriotism that people have found since the election of Obama. And while Rebecca did not necessarily mean to be the image of Renewed Patriotism for America, I feel like this photo symbolizes that for me.
I have been invited to be in a Valentine’s Day art show with the theme A Mended Heart, and I think this photo would be a good photo for that show, although I think I am going to put in the Nixon Chicks instead… same idea just more of it…
Any thoughts?
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I saw Genevieve last summer while she was working in a cafe near my house and I immediately wanted to photograph her, but I was too shy to ask.
Luckily, my stock photography partner, Jude, also noticed Genevieve when she visited the cafe and she was not shy about asking Genevieve if she would model for our stock photography business, and Genevieve agreed.
I finally got to meet and photograph Genevieve last Wednesday. The three of us went and played in the mud once the rain finally stopped.
It was so much fun to just play.
We played with dresses, with umbrellas, with rain coats, with movement, with cars, with braids, with facial expressions and with lots and lots of mud. Genevieve was such a beautiful model and so much fun… we can’t wait until it rains again.
Jude and I are always looking for more people to play with us for our stock photography project, so if you would like to join in the fun then please let us know.
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It has been a busy seven months for this little one since the last time I saw her. She has learned all the usual stuff that babies have to learn… like how to hold her head up, and to sit up, and to roll over, she has a couple of teeth now, and she is practicing standing while holding on tight to mom and dad’s hands. But Elena has an extra challenge that she has to learn how to work with.
When Elena was born, Elena didn’t pass the routine hearing check that the doctors ran. The doctors said not to worry, but to check her ears again at her next visit. After additional tests, the doctors eventually told Rich and Susannah, Elena’s parents, that her hearing is severely impaired. No one knows yet why it happened or how serious the damage is, and the solutions for correcting impaired hearing are not easy… but because the doctors were able to catch it early in her development, Rich and Susannah will have a better chance of helping her have a normal hearing and speaking life.
After Rich and Susannah found out their daughter could not hear, they started learning sign language and teaching her signs, and they got her her first pair of hearing aids when she was 4 months old. The first day they put in her new hearing aids, their dog, Rudy, had a new squeaky toy that he was enthusiastically chewing. As soon as Elena could hear for the first time, she heard Rudy’s squeaky toy, and she started laughing and laughing and laughing. Rich and Susannah had never heard her laugh like that before. They laughed and laughed and cried too.
I learned a lot from Rich and Susannah about what options are available for children with hearing impairments. Cochlear implants are better today than they used to be, but there is still a long way to go in repairing hearing loss. Rich and Susannah are hopeful though, especially now that we have a new president who is in favor of stem cell research. Their doctor told them that in 10 years scientists and doctors may have a better solution to help their daughter hear… and not just hear people talking, but so she can hear music too, like the other children her age.
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Here are some more photos for our Mooney + Green stock photography pursuit. Just a cute girl and her horse.
somewhere between a handshake and two kisses 
