She was sitting across from me as I was holding down the fort waiting for our daughter while my unwife went browsing the little stores on 4th Avenue in Tucson. Turns out she was acquaintances with my daughter. I told her we were hoping her friends would watch out for her since we didn’t live in Tucson and she said she would, but was leaving to move back home to Oregon in three weeks.
‘Homesick’
She had moved to Tucson to become independent and discover new things, just develop on her own, which she had done for 6 months. But she was homesick for family and felt that the lack of structure to her life in Tucson, without the familiar obligations and connections was very hard. Her Uncle was in the hospital and she felt bad not being able to visit him.
She is a good and strong young woman, I think she will have a great life.
Another in a short series I did using co-workers at the restaurant, Eulipia, where I worked back in the 80s and 90s in San Jose, Ca. This one was a result of a photo shoot with a few people who had freckles. I was in the middle of doing a series of pointillist photo-collages where I glued photos of freckles on top of full-color reproductions of pointillist paintings I had in a big art book.
A Snake in the Eulipian Grass
This collage came about after I saw the possibility of making the negative background space of the sky in the prior collage into a solid positive part of the image. In this case the grass no longer just acts as grass but now has a shape and symbolism that makes it into a real/not real object.
Another in my series of portraits. She was modeling for our local photo group. I walked away from the group, looking around the back of this barn they were using. I found this gorgeous rust and metal wall and immediately went back and stole the model away for a brief amount of time to get this shot.
I saw her every day and what stood out about her was her hair. She pulled it back tight against her head into a bun. I didn’t know what her hair was like actually, beyond that it was brown. Because her hair was somewhat out of the picture I was able to see her bone structure very well. She had a great neck and skull, elegant and regal.
When I asked her if I could take some photos of her I explained those things to her. She was surprised since she said she only put her hair up out of convenience and didn’t really think it made her look all that great.
When the next school year came around after a summer off (she was a student) I noticed for the first time she was wearing her hair down quite often. It was very long and curly/wavy, almost half way down her back. I asked her why she had decided to wear it down more and she said she had been getting bad headaches. She went to the doctor for them and found out it was likely from pulling her hair too tight into the bun every day!
These were all taken on a brilliant October day in Luray, Virginia. My eldest daughter was getting married and some of our dearest friends took the day off and drove from Annapolis, MD to be there. This is a collage of the mother and the eldest daughter of that family. It includes the fabric from their dresses, a necklace, freckles and collarbones.
Way back when, in the 1980s, there was a very young and stylish guy who came to work at the restaurant where I worked, Eulipia. He was 18. We became friends over many years of working together. He moved down to LA eventually and I met him once down there for dinner with his girlfriend. They eventually married and he became a flight attendant on USAIR.
They settled in Annapolis, MD and many years later what should happen but my daughter attended St. John’s College in Annapolis. We reconnected with him and his family and my daughter ended up very close to them all, babysitting the young ones, staying at their home one summer, etc. We would visit whenever we came to town.
So, now that 18 year old kid who met my daughter when she was born, was at her wedding 18 years later with his wife and daughters who I was able to photograph. It was a great and glorious reminder of the beauty that is within the longevity of relationships.
