Beautifully Flawed.

My Father - Walter M. Bush. Photographer: Unknown. 

According to photography standards of today, this photo is flawed.  The highlights are blown in the window. The shadows are blocked up. The focus isn’t sharp and theres a little camera shake. Further, the composition doesn’t follow the rule of thirds.

However, this photo is nearly a masterpiece. The lighting sculpts his face, accentuating his masculinity. The slight camera shake softens his contemplative expression . The composition is perfect in that half the photo is completely white, and half the photo completely black. His eyes are centered in the frame. His gaze is focused ahead to something unknowably pure, but there are bleak events in the past. The photo invites us to a story. It’s not despite the so called “flaws” that this is an excellent photo, it’s because of them.

Old Dogs Rule

As a freshman in high school I read the novel Where the Red Fern Grows, and immediately I had dog fever. I knew that I would love dogs and that they would love me. And I was right. However, it took 13 years to get my first dog, Josie. 

Josie was an exceptional dog. When you’d tell her your problems, she’d cock her head as if she understood. Then, she’d remind you that all you really needed was a nice long walk and a little food and all would be right with the world. 

Do you remember the ending of Where the Red Fern Grows? It’s the same in all stories about dogs, either fictional or real. The dog dies in the end. And after a very long and happy life, so did she. Even when they are just puppies we know this, but we put it out of our minds and time slips by faster than we ever imagined. 

My only regret is that I don’t have one really great photo of her. Sure, I have some snap shots.  But every good dog deserves a portrait. The value of the photo only grows with time. Below is a portrait of Mabel, my 15 year old Labrador. 

Mabel was the worst puppy ever, but grew into the best dog ever. Now she's 15 (which is like 100 in Lab years) and has slowed down a bit. But she still insists on following me everywhere. You know, as adorable as our puppies are #olddogsrule

Carlos "Los" Castro

Virtuoso guitarist. Vocalist. Songwriter. Storyteller.

I’ve been trying to get local musician Carlos “Los” Castro in the studio for about a month. Finally we set a date. And then I had food poisoning the day before. Not a good start. I was feeling weak and unprepared. I didn’t tell him because I knew he'd feel sorry for me and want to reschedule. But, I’d really been looking forward to this shoot for a while, so I pushed through. I'm glad I did. 

Los told me a story about his first real guitar and the old man that let him borrow it for 6 years. He started strumming his guitar and singing like the old man with this old time blue grass twang. Just pickn’ and grinin’. You could see how much he loved that old guitar and that old man. And the loss in he’s eyes when he said how the old man had passed away. 

Los told me about traveling to Chile with his mother, and how it changed his life. He told me about the wonderful people who love him. He told me of some of his regrets. You could see the depth of his feeling in his eyes and in his face. And that is why I wanted to photograph him. When you look at Los, you know there’s a story there. A story you want to listen to. You should really go check him out at  www.loscastromusic.com

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Los talks about his first Guitar

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun," - Shakespeare

What could be more common than the moon? And, yet the commonness of it doesn't distract from miracle that it continues to rise. How lost we would be without it! How we would moan and beat ourselves in lamentation if it were to disappear. But we still take it for granted, night to night, rarely noticing or considering it. Perhaps as rare as a blood moon eclipse, is pausing and really seeing something. 

"I would gaze at your face the whole night through
I'd go out of my mind, but for you" — Gordon Sumner (aka Sting)