Five small years

 

Indulge me if you will.

Humor me while I pat myself on the back. 

Today is a day of celebration.

It’s a day that for a long time I couldn’t even imagine.  Couldn’t fathom.  

Today marks five – count em’ – five years of sobriety for me. 

Yayyy me!

So today, I’m going to put my camera down, wander away from editing, and stop for a moment and thank people and think about the past five years.

I first have to thank my husband.  He wasn’t my husband when we started this journey, so many many years ago as friends.  We had partied together, with our respective former spouses, and always maintained a connection through the years and through divorces.  When I called him, what was it, seven years ago, and told him that I was now single, I had been drinking that night.  It was a classic drunk dial.  But I did remember him telling me that he had quit drinking and had celebrated two years sober just a few months before that.  I couldn’t believe it.  I wanted to know why.  But not why, like what happened to bring you to this decision, it was more like why the hell would you want to do that?

Fast forward.  This man put up with a lot of the usual alcoholic behavior from me.  Lying, manipulation, deceit, heartache.  But he was there that day that I woke up and said that enough was enough.  And he cheered me on at every turn.  And though it’s been a long time since the thought of a drink had me firmly in its clutched fist, we still talk about it.  We even joke about it.  Despite his argument to the contrary, I don’t think I’d be sober without him.  He’ll probably never read this blog.  He doesn’t care much for sentimentality.  He just knows.  He gets it.  He gets me. 

My parents have been cheerleaders, too.  When they let me move back in with them so that I could start down the path to recovery, I doubt they knew what they were in for.  I detoxed and put together a few days, then a few weeks of sobriety, making an effort to go to AA meetings, and appear sincere, and then I’d relapse.  Some trigger or another had me off to the store.  It was a horrible, desperate time for me and for them.  How to win the battle?  I know they were relieved when in a final frightening weekend, my now husband asked me to move in with him.

It was supposed to be for ninety days, or for whatever it took for me to get sober.  I had to commit to rehabilitation, which I did.  Finally it felt like I was doing this for me and not to please others.  I couldn’t keep living the life I had been.  Those ninety days were hard days.  I went to meetings daily, to intensive outpatient treatment and tried to help others, giving rides and making phone calls.  My husband says that he know when I moved in that he was going to marry me.  He was right. 

So, because I got sober so many things have happened that I must be grateful for. 

Set aside the love story, which intertwines throughout.  I was able to repair the damaged relationship with my parents.  I worked on the financial disaster I was in and took responsibility for myself.  I learned to stop blaming others for my actions.  I have this absolutely wonderful daughter who is growing into a very cool teen.  I love that she is here with me in this house we bought and that we have a home and a life together. 

I renewed my passion for photography and picked up my camera instead of a drink.  In the past five years, I’ve grown this little business and have learned so much more about my craft and about the business of photography. 

I’ve traveled to places I would have never dreamed.  Of course you think of places like Orlando when you’re a kid, but I didn’t have a clue about Mexico.  I’ve snorkeled in the Caribbean and rode the tallest and fastest roller coaster on the continent. 

I make a mean guacamole and ran a 10 k.  I saw the Lion King on Broadway and Blue Man Group at the Charles Theatre in Boston.  Cozumel.  Phillipsburg.  Hollywood.  Virginia Beach.  Tampa Bay.  Bar Harbor.  My own backyard.  Planted gardens and flowers. 

All in the last five years. 

I sit on the couch at night and watch TV with my family and it’s all perfectly normal. 

This morning I took photos of frosted leaves and snow in my driveway before going to work.  Simple little things like that are things I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to experience had I continued drinking.  Hell, I don’t even know whether I’d be alive.  I’m certain that my daughter would not be living with me and my husband wouldn’t be my husband.  That much I know.  Where I would be no one knows.  It’s surprising and wonderful the paths we take and where they lead us.

So today, today is yet another day that I won’t drink, and I will love and be loved, trust and be trusted, give and be given to.  Today is another reason to celebrate.

Christmas Stalking

The little trick or treaters had barely been nestled into their beds when I heard it.


The first jingle of the holiday sales season.

Marketers so focused on one of the three big kid holidays of the year quickly shifted gears and ads went from orange and black to green and red. Pumpkins into snowmen. Autumn leaves into snow flakes. Red ribbons on boxes and that silvery sparkle everywhere.


The seasonal queues not so subtly slide into place.

This brings me to the topic of Christmas stalking. Really, Christmas stock, as in stock photography. I just like to create that visual of the holiday lurking and haunting us as it does. Part of the ability of the advertising world to be able to send us those little hints of the impending demands of this time of year comes from their access to seasonal stock photography. By that I mean the photographs that are used just about everywhere you look, if you know that you’re looking at them.







It’s the sparkly Christmas tree branches, the smiling kids with snowballs in their hands, the happy family in new pajamas sitting by the fire, the pretty boxes stacked up in an unnerving tower being carried by a smartly dressed woman who appears to have it all under control.

Seasonal. Holiday. Christmas. Those are the keywords that click.

So I have to admit that it was months ago when I started thinking about holiday stock. I bought a few props at the dollar store and created scenarios to photograph for stock. This image is pretty simple: a cup, some fake holly berries, and the idea that it would imply a relaxing tea in a busy time.

Last year as I began to put away the ornaments, I found the contrast of the freshly fallen snow and the brightly colored Christmas balls impossible to resist. I tossed them out to see where they’d land. With a tangle of red raffia, they disbursed into these images.

The decorative pine cone on the snow. (I shot this sometime in March.)

The carefully and colorfully wrapped presents. (I wrapped these in September.)

The smiling little girl hugging her presents. (ok, this was shot in December, a few weeks before Christmas, and the presents are fake and she's a good actress.)

The point is that the images you’re seeing everywhere are often shot by people like me. And people like me think about stock photos all year round. I’ve become accustomed to the potential for any combination of items to, at certain times of the year, evoke certain emotional responses.




In order for the advertising folks to be able to access the images they need for any particular holiday or time of year, the stock photographer has to be thinking ahead.



At the end of the school year, take a few photos of the busses and kids with book packs so the shots are up on stock sites by the time back-to-school advertising begins, say somewhere around the middle of July. A big fan of the summer months, it really bugs me that the flip flops and swimsuits leave the store racks so soon. But that’s when the power of economic psychology begins its work on the mass market.


We seem doomed to mental battle with the forces of the media’s marketing monster. I’m just as vulnerable. And I know better. Sort of. I know that the jingle I heard on Halloween night was heard by zillions of people who didn’t think “oh god, they are starting with the bells already?”. They thought “hmm, maybe my dad would like that scarf.”

Despite my feelings about winter and the rushing of the season, I benefit from it. People who create these ads, somewhere in their air conditioned offices back in August was developing a Christmas ad campaign to sell whatever it is and started looking for “holiday ornaments” or “twinkling lights” or even “relaxing cup of tea with holly berries” and click, selected my image from the stock photography website, and click, I benefited from the holiday rush and the commercialism of Christmas.


In turn, like a circle of life thing, I took the pennies I made on the sale of that photo and added it to the pennies I made on the sale of “holiday ornaments in the snow” and “pinecone” and went shopping.

Maybe my dad would like that scarf . . .

Happy Halloween: Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia

Being the day before Halloween, it’s perfectly acceptable to be thinking about the creepiest experiences you’ve ever had. One of the most recent of mine was on a recent trip to Philadelphia. First trolley stop on my list: the Eastern State Penitentiary.

It’s located right near the Museum of Art – home of the “Rocky” statue. Pretty darn near downtown.



The first thing I noticed was that it’s in a neighborhood. A neighborhood where people live and drive and walk their dogs. This evil history, just set amongst the townhouses.



We walked in from the street into the gift shop and paid for our admission. There’s an audio tour you can get so that you can listen to different parts of the story where ever you are in the complex. Many parts of it are narrated by Steve Buscemi. We got our headsets on and started off.

It was really hot that day and stepping into the first spoke of the wagon wheel shaped set of buildings was at first refreshing. Then your eyes become accustomed to the dimness and focus on the corridor for what it is: cell after cell, door after door, a place in history where the worst offenders where kept.

We learned that in its earlier years, it was a model for prisons around the world. It was the Pennsylvania System and was based on the true concept of “penitence”. Inmates were kept completely solitary, not seeing another human being for months or years at a time. Even while being led into their cells, their heads were covered. It was “confinement in solitude with labor” and worked extremely well for years.



I found the extensive corridors mesmerizing.



I had seen one of the ghost shows do a visit of this place, declaring it haunted. This place, on a catwalk across the second level, was the area of the most paranormal activity. I found that out after we went, but recall feeling, as I stood on the catwalk, that I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I took a few photos and hurried back down.

There are artist installations throughout. One is in homage to the many cats who moved in after the prison was closed in the early 70’s and the man who continued to feed them. There are plaster cats in various poses throughout.



Another artist’s installation had these small models of cell and prison life. I found this one extremely unsettling.

Women were incarcerated in separate wings.

Al Capone spent some time in here. His cell was outfitted in the finest of the time.

Mostly, what struck me, as a photographer, was the age and decay, the texture and ruin, the glimpses of lives lived in this place. Men, women, sleeping, eating, living here in these small rooms, doing penance for their crimes.

The aging provides some beautiful terrible texture to these walls. So pronounced in some places that the layers of paint curled inches away from the surface.

One of my favorite musicians, Sting, used this dimension as a backdrop for an album cover shoot.

Another creepy place in the prison was the hospital, although we could not enter the actual rooms, the implication of disease and death hung heavily in that part of the prison.

This is a scary and fascinating place.

With some unusual and unexpected beauty.

When you are here in Philadelphia, come and check this place out. It’s really worth a few hours of your time to understand the evolution of the prison system in this country and the power of this place.











You can read all about the history and check out the plans for this year’s Halloween.

http://www.easternstate.org/

Travel Photography - Favorites from California

Water Lilies at San Juan Capistrano

In August, we traveled.  Vacation to California early in the month, then a business trip to Philadelphia later on.  Hysterical.  Delicious.  Saturated.  Gluttonous.  Exhilarating.  I could go on, but thankfully you might say, won't.  For now, I will share some of my photography from the road. 

One of my favorite stops - kind of a surprise - was at the Mission at San Juan Capistrano.  Yeah, I had heard all about the swallows and certainly enjoyed the story - But the gardens, and the buildings, and I just fell in love with the feeling of the whole place.

Loved the cacti and the adobe.  They compliment each other.

The flowers, the palm trees, oh my!

 

 

 

 

The blooms and the arches.  So pretty.

Our stop at San Juan Capistrano was on the way between Los Angeles and San Diego.  In San Diego, we planned a trip to the world famous San Diego Zoo.  Here are two of my favorites from that day?

I know you're not supposed to cut off the heads of zoo animals but I just loved the shot of the little guy.  The giraffes are my second favorite animals of the day.

This one - the flamingo - is my favorite.  Just look at how delicate the feathers are.  How soft a place to rest one's head.  Too bad you have to stand on one leg to do it.