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It’s All About the Family…

Last week I received this email:

I am looking for someone to take photos of my extended family (13 people ages 3 mos-75 yrs) in Bolinas. We are renting a house there for the weekend for my mom’s birthday. I think we would want some photos of everyone and some of the four nuclear families that make up the 13 people. Your photos are beautiful. I didn’t look at all of them but they seemed to be mostly one person. Do you have any examples of larger groups?

Thanks,
Deborah

So, inspired, I decided to dig through the archives and share some of my favorite Rolleiflex “family”photos…

To see what digital group photos look like click here.

 

65 Years (part II): with the Holga

I made a decision to document one of the most important trips I may ever take, with two cameras: my Rolleiflex and my Holga. The Rolleiflex, I love, so that was an easy decision. But the Holga, I was not so sure about. I knew it could be wonderful, but I also knew it could be unpredictable, and I knew there was a chance that I might not get anything that was worthwhile. But because we did a lot of activities that did not make it easy to use a twin lens reflex (hiking, biking, kayaking) the Holga became my default.

And so, today when I picked up my film from the lab, I had no idea what to expect… and I had no idea that I was going to have a new camera love…

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Here it is… simple, fun and wonderful. A camera that takes photos that make me excited about photography again.

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65 Years (part I): Photos For My Blob

Happy 65 years of marriage to my grandparents, Bob and Sally Harper. For their celebration, they took 14 of us to Washington State. The first four days we spent hiking around Mount Rainer, and the last three days we explored Lopez Island, in the San Juan Islands.

The whole journey was amazing. Besides being in love with all the wildflowers on Rainer and all the wildlife around the Islands, I was also intrigued by the small town communities we invaded. We went from small mountain town to small island town… both very fascinating communities. I wish I could have stayed a little longer to get under the skin a little more, but even from the outside it was interesting to observe. It just may be a project for another day.

In the meantime, here is a more personal documentary… this is what 65 years of marriage and a strong commitment to family can give you…

While I was taking a photo of my grandparents playing cards, my grandmother asked me, “Are you going to put this on your blob?” She wasn’t excited about me taking the photo at the time, but she reluctantly allowed me to anyway, because she figured her friends probably don’t read blobs anyway.

Making an Exception for Tradition…

This is my extended family. Every year we all meet at my Grandparents’ home in Carbondale, Illinois. This year for our family portrait, I wanted to emphasize how far we all travel in order to continue our Christmas family traditions. And to summarize for you: the total number of the miles traveled by all of my 17 relatives and their spouses in order to get to Carbondale, Illinois is: 31,327 miles (32,025 if you count the dogs’ journey) and 64,050 for a round trip.

Those are a lot of miles and that is a huge carbon footprint… and that doesn’t include all of the presents, and wrapping paper, and trips to the mall.

Being a person who cares a great deal about the environment… the crazy amounts of consumption that occurs in one week is embarrassing… but at the same time… I feel incredibly lucky. I feel lucky because:

  • I have an amazing family, and we have wonderfully bizarre family traditions that we have carried out for as many years as I can remember…
  • I know not many people have such a strong extended family, especially one that is so spread apart…
  • and because I know that these traditions will not last forever, so I better enjoy them while I have them.

So, for the spirit of Christmas and for the love of family, I try and contain my environmental gripes, and I wholeheartedly throw myself into the crazy seasonal consumerism as much as possible. But I still do little things to try and make myself feel a little better, such as shopping at the local Carbondale stores, instead of the big box stores and chains, and wrapping all my presents in newspaper and reused paper, and preventing my paper-plate-loving relatives from adding to the overcrowded landfills, just because they do not want to do dishes.

And in the end… traditions make it all worth while. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for bringing us all together for all these years, and for teaching us the value of family. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Bathing Beauties…

The photo above is my absolute favorite photo, maybe ever, but that’s because it is of my family.

The elegant bathing beauty is my grandmother, facing her is my grandfather, and to the left is my mom. And I need to do my research, but I’d like to believe they are at the same beach we all still go to every year, but I am not sure.

My grandparents are now 84 years old and still want to go swimming in the ocean… although they are frustrated because they can’t get in and out as easily as they used to. For the rest of us it means we all come together and work as a group to get them through the rough waves and out past the breakers. It definitely was a little scary, but we made it through, together, every time. And as a result that experience is one of Arann and my favorite memories of the trip.

And for all my fellow photo nerds who are wondering how I got these photos… very nervously while holding my Rollei over my head and jumping very very very high when the waves came… I do NOT recommend it! As soon as I was out in the middle of it all I realized what a bad idea it was, but I figured I should at least try since there was no way of getting out quickly.

The Rollei seemed to weather the adventure just fine, but my light meter, the same one that went swimming in the Byrnes High School toilet last summer, did not live to see another photo shoot. It seems it was a fresh water meter only. RIP dear meter, you served me well.

At first I was bummed about the fuzziness of the photos, but I think it is appropriate and I like how it somewhat matches the old photo.

But the photo below… is my new favorite favorite… not planned, or staged, just a real moment (told to wait for a minute while I run and get my camera) on the way to the beach.

My two favorite boys, I mean, men.

the family beach trip to ocean isle, nc

every year we say “this will probably be the last year”

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the last year of putt-putt (miniature golf) with the dilapidated safari animals and smurf-blue water.

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the last year of standing outside restaurants waiting hours for really bad fried seafood, which no one orders anyway since the majority of our group does not eat seafood (but we do regretfully eat the hush-puppies with honey butter by the dozens which inevitably gives us an overfull feeling as we drive out of the parking lot.)

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the last year of my grandfather making at least one grocery trip a day to ensure that the kitchen is stocked with as much junk food and sodas as we can possibly consume.

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the last year of at least one person playing solitaire at any given time

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the last year of silently reading and rocking back and forth on the porch through thousands of words together

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the last year of swimming in the ocean that on most days, feels like a lukewarm bath tub with waves that are almost too small to be called waves but are still too much work for my 83 year old grandparents, my grandparents who keep these 30 year old traditions alive, the traditions that we travel thousands of miles for and that we simultaneously complain about and secretly relish.

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