Congratulations to our friends Susannah and Rich on making a super cute baby. Elena was born on May 16th and has been keeping them busy and entertained ever since. We invaded their get-away to the Bay this week and arrived just in time for chocolate cake, the sunset, and Elena’s 15 minutes of awake time before feeding and then going back to sleep…. we have good timing. This was our 15 minutes of Elena…
Waking…
Inflating…
And she’s Up!
Slipping back to the happy place.
Breaking point.
Gone.
On May 16, 2008 the California Supreme Court overturned the ban on Gay marriage. I heard the report in the car as I was driving and I immediately called one of my best friends who has been working for Equality California. They are trying to get people to Vote “No” on Proposition 8, in order to legalize Gay marriage in California permanently. We excitedly talked about what this decision will mean for California and for the thousands of gay couples who could not marry the person they loved. This is a concept that makes no sense to me. Why, in this world of so much negativity, violence and suffering, why wouldn’t we want to encourage people to commit their lives to caring for and loving another person… regardless of their gender?
Well, luckily, for the time being, California is taking a stand and making it legal, and so I wanted to show my support however I could. I have been nagging my friend to please spread the word to all her lesbian and gay friends that I want to photograph a Gay wedding. Finally, Jessamyn, another photographer, contacted me and told me about the competition she held on her blog, asking gay couples to share their story and then she would pick the best story and photograph their wedding for free. She told me that she had picked the winners but that she was so bummed not to be able to photograph all the weddings…. and I said, “Pass them to me, I’d love to.”
So Wednesday afternoon, I drove to SF and met and photographed the weddings of two different couples. Here are my photographs of one of the ceremonies along with the story they submitted for the contest:
Our story: we met 22 years ago and have lived together 20 years. I was previously married and had a 4 month old baby boy when my husband died of a sudden heart attack. I met Marguerite when Michael was almost 4 years old, and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have found love again. Marguerite had not had a serious love affair before me, although she had been out as a lesbian for several years. We were introduced by a mutual friend–someone I had known for many years and someone Marguerite met while she was delivering the mail! It was love at first sight and we have been together ever since. I am now 63 and Marguerite is 55. Marguerite is the first-born daughter of Chinese immigrants and she has now quit the post office and is a pharmacist. My background is Southern US and Caucasian, and I have been in CA since high school. I am a pediatric nurse practitioner. We both lived in Berkeley for many years before we met and still live in our home in north Berkeley. When our son Michael was 9, Marguerite adopted him and we have been his official parents since then, although he considered her his other mom before that.
We never thought of ourselves as the marrying kind. We hadn’t been involved in pushing for same-sex marriage in the past, but during the marriages in 2004, we both realized it might be for us. We had just decided to make a date at City Hall when the decision to annul those marriages came and we put the marriage idea behind us. I told our son it would never happen in my life-time. The day of the Supreme Court decision, I just didn’t even want to know about it, because I knew the decision would be against us. I learned of the decision via e-mail while at work, and I immediately texted Marguerite and asked her to marry me. She responded yes! We both could not believe how happy we were, and how suddenly we became the marrying kind! I felt legitimized and normal–it was and is a great feeling. Our son said, “Now maybe I could someday get married,” and we found out he had decided that he couldn’t get married until we could get married.
We looked for rings and finally decided–similar but not identical bands. I wanted a new dress, and found a beautiful dark blue dress that I love. Our friends and family are so happy for us and have been really great and we are looking forward to both the ceremony and the party.
We decided on SF City Hall for two reasons–it is totally beautiful and it is totally historic. If it weren’t for Gavin, we wouldn’t be getting married at all. We have friends who stood in line for 12 and 13 hours in 2004 to get married at City Hall, and the people at City Hall were just wonderful, kind, generous and we want to honor them and the City of San Francisco by getting married there ourselves. And we love the City–we always feel we can go anywhere and be welcomed as a couple.
Thank you so much for your offer. Pictures can be so special–ours will be snapshots taken by friends and hopefully by someone at City Hall so we can get one of our whole party. It’s hard for me to express just why I think what you are doing is so great, but it has to do with that feeling of being normal and legitimate. And the positive regard from people like yourself is like being bathed in sweet warm sunlight, after having been in a dark cave for awhile. You are very kind to make this offer and I know all of us, whether selected or not, truly appreciate you.
As Martha and Marguerite walked down the stairs after their ceremony, the next couple waiting to get married with their wedding party, started clapping and congratulating them. And that is how it felt the whole day. It was so fun to watch all the other couples who were there standing in line and waiting excitedly with their partners. It felt so good to be even a small part of such an important part of human right history.
My second gig for the PR company while I was in London, was photographing Vapiano, a new restaurant near Oxford Circus. Still no flash, but this time, thanks to the two-story wall of windows and the color red, it was much easier to photograph than the yogurt factory that I photographed a couple of hours earlier that day.
The hardest thing about the shoot was to convince the unsuspecting patrons to let me photograph them while they were eating. London is not the most photography friendly city. I have found that Londoners, as a huge sweeping generalization, are not into having their photo taken. I am not sure whether it is because it is their last shred of control over their image, after having every move documented by the thousands of surveillance cameras all over the city, or just the humble nature that is a part of their culture. Whatever the case, it is not as easy to photograph strangers as it is here in the: I-want-to-be-famous United States. But luckily, I was able to talk a few people into allowing me to unobtrusively document their Vapiano experience that day.
My most wonderful friend Claudia, who was a classmate of mine at the London College of Communication last year, was getting married in June… and she wanted me to come back to London for her wedding. So as a way to get me there, she asked me to photograph her wedding. At first I said, “No way.” Because with the American dollar being almost half the value of the British pound, there was no way I could afford to go… but then I got creative.
Before I went to London, I sent out a few eager emails to everyone I know saying that I was on my way and ready to work. Luckily for me, I have another wonderful friend in London, and she works for Gabrielle Shaw Communications, a PR company that I did work for while I was living there last year, and sure enough they had some gigs for me.
The first of the two gigs was for Bio Green Dairy, they produce a yogurt drink and they wanted to have images that show that they are a small family-like business and that they do all the work from start to finish. The owner saw my website of children and weddings and (somehow) thought I would be a good fit.
I was very excited to go to a yogurt factory, it would be my first factory photo shoot. But as soon as I walked into the factory, I realized I had a big challenge ahead of me. How do you make an all white room, men wearing all white jump suits, and a white product look good in florescent lighting. And to make it more challenging, I arrived without a flash (because I was living out of a bag and spread between three houses, in three different parts of London, I didn’t have my flash with me… opps.)
So, with no other options, I put my camera’s ISO on 3200, my aperture as low as it could go and I held the camera very very still. And then when I returned home, I searched the Internet to find Photoshop techniques that would turn my horrendously lit and very uninteresting photos into something, anything more. Relying on Photoshop is something new to me. Up until now, I have not manipulated my photos, besides the typical darkroom maneuvers, but this was an emergency, and I have to say, I think it worked out better than I was expecting. If you are interested in knowing the Photoshop trick click here.
And this time, I am sad to say, the Rolleiflex did not succeed. There was just not enough light, color or contrast to make even a black-and-white film photo look good…. oh well, the Rollei can’t win every time.
On a sad note, the only cow at this once dairy farm is now on Bio Green’s truck. The cows, where Bio Green used to get their milk, are now gone and instead the rancher is raising horses. As a result of the loss of local agriculture, Bio Green now has to order powdered milk for their yogurt.
When I took this photo of my friend Juliet, almost exactly three years ago, it was hard to even imagine how much all of our lives were going to change. We had no idea who that little human inside her belly was going to be, let alone who the the next one was going to be, or that in three years they would move out of this house and Arann and I would move in. Life moves so fast and sometimes you don’t even realize how much things change until you stop and look back.
Another Petaluma photographer, Jude Mooney, and I are working on building a library of images to join a stock photography agency (click here to see related posts.) So we have been asking everyone we know to help us by modeling for us so we can have enough photos to join… but some people are hesitant to volunteer to be models because they are not sure what stock photography means.
Our photo shoot last week with Kira, is a good example of what it means to be a model for us. It means you doing what you do best, in your environment, and wearing lots of different outfits…. sometimes your outfits, sometimes Jude’s. I think you can guess which outfits are Kira’s and which outfits are Jude’s.
Jude, as well as being an awesome photographer, is the expert stylist in our team. She is really good at details and making sure that everything looks perfect… whereas I am the spontaneous-seize-the-moment and come-as-you-are photographer… which has a different set of advantages.
Once we are accepted (fingers crossed) to an agency, the photos can be selected by magazines and businesses that need photos for stories or promotional campaigns. So instead of hiring photographers to take specific photos, they go to the stock agencies and buy the rights to use the photos. Therefore, the photos need to be somewhat generic and simple. We don’t get to choose what or how the photos are used… but we figure if we take wholesome, happy lifestyle photos then most likely the photos will be used by wholesome happy magazines and businesses.
At first I had a hard time getting used to staging everything and creating fake scenes… but I am really enjoying playing with Jude and with all our wonderful friends who are volunteering for us. We are always looking for more volunteers, so if you are interested in being a model, in exchange for some fun and funky photos, then let us know and we’ll come play photos with you too, even if you don’t have a chicken.
I am in the middle of a massive photo-edit. Maybe my biggest yet, and I find that I am having trouble focusing, because I want to see it all right away, but life is interrupting and my attention span is scattered, so I keep jumping around. But so far, here are my two most favorite photos from Claudia and Leigh’s wedding in Surrey, England on June 21st.
And once again, the Rolleiflex wins again. I have hundreds of digital photos, but none inspire or evoke emotion like the soft glow of the Rollei photos. So stay tuned… there will be lots more to come, this is only the beginning and the end… I still have the whole middle to go.
Photostiching brought to you by photoshop. I have discovered a whole new world tonight. I heard about photostiching, but I had no idea. I was preparing to throw together a rough composite of three photos, taken by my Rolleiflex, to make up the large group photo of everyone at Claudia and Leigh’s wedding, south of London in June. But with photostiching I just selected the photos I wanted, and 8 seconds later… I have this….(click the photo to enlarge)…
Amazing! Not really any seams, and it knew where I wanted to join the photos. Amazing. Thank you smart people at photoshop, I am a believer.
Meet Willie and Jackie… and the pig who sacrificed his body and soul for Claudia and Leigh’s wedding meal. At least, thanks to Willie and Jackie, this dear swine will not be forgotten too soon.
ps: congrats to Willie and Jackie, on their wedding this month, I am sad to miss it.
For my friend Claudia’s wedding, I wanted to set-up a photo-booth, where the guests could photograph themselves. I like photo-booths because people are always more relaxed and creative when they are allowed to photograph themselves, rather than when a stranger is taking their photo. And at weddings, inevitably there are guests that I am not able to photograph, so a photo-booth helps ensure that the couples have photos of everyone who wants to be photographed.
So before the wedding, I sought advice on how to set it up from Jessamyn, a photographer friend, who often sets up photo stations at her weddings. And then I sought help from Thomas, another photographer friend, who was also coming to the wedding. Together we set up the station with lights, a cable release and a sign instructing people on what to do.
The day after the wedding, Thomas and I were flipping through the photos, and we found a lot of good ones, but mostly the usual: smiling, kissing, silly face photos…. and then we found this…
Absolutely amazing!! I have no idea who these people are, but they are photo-booth geniuses in my book. Anyone who is that creative when left alone with a camera has got to be fun to hang out with.
And well… then there was this one… but I know these two, and yes, they are lots of fun to hang out with!
somewhere between a handshake and two kisses 