Capturing Grace

It seems that I tend to write about writing and doing more than I write and do. And now I'm writing about writing about writing. Lame.

I've been doing a bit of soul searching and I'm discovering that I'm a serious right-winger. Not in regards to politics or religion (though admittedly I'm pretty hard-core in regards to both) but in the soul-character spectrum.

Kabbalah teaches that there are ten soul faculties. Three intellectual, and seven emotional. There is a right side, a left side and a middle. It goes right, left, middle, right, left, middle, right, left, middle, middle.

The right side is outgoing, challenging, always looking for the new, restless, visionary, revolutionary, fast, and furious.

Left side is calmer, reserved, disciplined, organized, submissive, evolutionary, focused.

Big plans excite me. The minutia of actually implementing it, not so much. And that just ain't cool.

I like me some new cameras. Holy moly I like new cameras. I've gone through more in the past three years than most have seen in a lifetime. I have this weird aversion to what's popular. "If everyone likes it, it must be really bad." Which oftentimes is true, but it's a bit (a bit?) elitist, and you know, sometimes it's good enough that even the proles (sic) get it.

I wonder if everyone shot film would I shoot digital? I don't think so, but it's hard to know the working of the subconscious. Who is deciding here?

So I raise this cup of ice coffee to the lefties of the world. The plodders, the planners. The ones who get stuff done, and are able to focus the crazy ideas out there and actually implement them. And a special sip for Estee who holds my feet to the fire.

Not that I'm boxing myself in. One isn't "either or". There's always some sort of balance and we can always work on ourselves. It's just important to know one's merits and faults. Both to capitalize on what you've got and to work on the other half.

Truth is I'm getting better. Slowly, but it's happening folks. One day I'll be a picture of orderly submissiveness. With a huge side of rebelliousness.

***

One of the good things about being a righty is the questioning of things that are. The why. And the why behind the why. In between checking ebay for new cameras and expired film, I do my fair share of thinking, especially in the field of photography. What I really wish I had from my childhood (besides Microsoft, and later Apple stocks) is an album or two, from different stages of my life, of how we lived. What we did, how we interacted, what our house looked like. I want to know what we wore, and how many dishes were in the sink. What was in the fridge and what we did at the park. I'd want a beautiful family photo every once in a while.

I had the recent pleasure of photographing Amy Grace and her beautiful children. Amy, besides being a beautiful person inside and out, is a wonderful artist (and I don't use that word lightly) with both images and words. And she gets it. Her photography is quite different, but it is much more of "this is how it feels" than "this is how it looks".

So here is just a normal day at the Graces. Breakfast, chillage, playing, getting food, park, ice cream, back home for some more chillage, reading, back to the park, bathtime... You get the gist. I also busted out my new polaroid machine made by some good friends of mine in LA (it's a modified Speed Graphic with a huge old aerial lens). That thing is annoying, huge, slow, and challenging, but that's why I like it. Nothing normal allowed here. Oh, and the images it produces are spectacular.

Enjoy!

And some instant film. I gave the prints to Amy, these are scans of the negative (which are cool, but not as pretty as the actual prints).

Please check out Amy's work. You'll be happy you did.

***

If you haven't heard... I'll be having two (or more) quickshoot days with all the profit going to help my brother in law who has been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). One in LA and another in NY. It's a wonderful chance to get amazing photos of your family and help a family who could really use it. You could see the details here. Thanks!!

I'll be wandering around the East coast towards the end of October, so if you want to book a session do so before the fat cows sing (that's the deadline).

Birds of Small Bag

"Eagles are smaller than me, but their wings are bigger. The Tawny Eagle is the biggest." "The Condor is a vulture. Like in Lion King. Their wings are soooo big. We saw one at he zoo."

"Seagulls are baby eagles. So they are smaller."

"LOOOOOOOOK!!! A pigeon!!"

"Why can't we fly?"

"Can birds swim?"

"Can we go swimming?"

"Can we buy a new pool?"

We homeschool. That is to say our kids stay home and don't go to school. In my very limited experience and slightly less limited thoughts, it seems that the most important aspect of homeschooling (especially in the younger ages), is to foster and encourage kids natural curiosity about anything and everything. One week it might be worms, the next gardening, the combustion engine, or maybe Egypt and the ten plagues (or Mongolia. They are convinced that "bad people" live there). One of the great advantages of homeschooling is that you can spend as much time on whatever subject your kid is interested in at any given moment. A kid may be obsessed with whales in 4th grade, but by the time they learn about them in 5th grade he's into tractors. Or by the time he actually gets excited about them, the class has moved on to the indigenous people previously known as "the Indians".

Lately the older half of the Berkowitz offspring have been mindjacked by anything with wings. Ostriches (the biggest. Doesn't fly. Crazy people with sun addled Aussie minds ride them), Peregrine Falcons (the fastest, not that strong or big), Condors (especially the California one, not that many left, bigger than Tatty (me), lays eggs on cliffs), Eagles (they LOVE eagles, they fly the highest), Seagulls, Pigeons, and lately, Terns, Herons, and Ospreys.

So one Tuesday morning, in the latter part of the early hours we packed up some apples, cheese, water and cameras and headed to the Bolsa Chica Wetlands (sounds much better in Spanish. The English version would be "Small Bag Wetlands". Don't ask.) The wetlands are (is?) a huge swab of land on the Huntington Beach coast set aside for all sorts of odd birds and their even odder watchers. The real estate value of this land chunk is seriously crazy.

We saw stingrays, ospreys, terns, herons, seagulls, bird watchers with monstrous camera lenses, bird watchers with ipads, bird watchers with binoculars, barnacles, pelicans, and red ants. The kids were most excited about the ants.

We ran, danced, climbed, photographed, whined, dined, cried, and spent 20 minutes looking through the cracks in the bridge at pigeon nests.

We did end up buying a pool and swimming in said pool, but that's another story.

the Bar {Mitzvah} // Temecula camera-wielding crazy man (take that google!!)

It’s not working. The “it” inside, which is somehow supposed to guide my typing until I somehow catch on, is either lazy, drunk, sleeping, or just out of town for a bit. I seems as though I may have to think in advance (I hear the word for this ridiculus concept is “plan”) about what to write here. Which may be a good thing. The way things normally work around here is first we have a lengthy unrelated preamble, possibly followed by a very short amble, and sometimes concluded with a postamble. This time there will be an actual amble.

Thirteen years and thirty five days ago (somewhere around there), a cute and chunky nephew was born to my sister in Temecula. Well, she didn’t have the nephew, and I’m not sure who did, she had a son. The first child born in their new place of living (numero uno was born in the city of New York, and numero dos was born in Boulder, Colorado). Much excitement, joy, bustle and hustle was had by all. Number three was followed for four, five, six, and seven. Well, number three grew up (actually for the first few years most of his growth was sideways) into a remarkable young man (made even more so by his love of Estee’s sourdough bread), whose good cheer, cute cheeks, crazy humor, and pure heart reminds me of myself at that age. And though I don't really remember much of myself at that age, I do assume I was awesome. Nothing has come up to disprove this theory (and the fact that I used to ask an adult to tuck my pants into my sneakers just made me cooler).

In the months before Eli Chaim’s Bar Mitzvah, his family has been hit by some pretty intense challenges. We don’t know why G-d does what he does or what His plans are, but we do know that He never gives anyone something they can’t handle. We also know that life itself is a miracle; to be cherished, guarded, loved, and lived. And somehow, we have absolute faith that all will be good. Not only in the macro but in the micro. In my life and in yours.

Challenges have the paradoxical tendency to bring out the beauty in life, the truth in friendship, and the pure awesomeness that is family. The Temecula community and the Chabad community both near and far have been immensely inspiring in their support and friendship. And we are incredibly thankful. You could check out my inspiring sister's inspiring blog for inspiring posts in inspiring topics. And now I can't use that word for a month.

I wasn’t the official photographer here, and if I wasn't family I would have loved to have been. Loved the sunniness (which is funny because I used to be terrified of it. I would beg and pray for clouds to make the photographing easier. But easy doesn't equal interesting), the outdoorness, the vineyardness. But it's good I wasn't; the food was too good and my kids were going bananas. Until they found the one thing that will forever be the joy of any and all children. Dirt. Loads and piles and mounds of it.

Here is a small glimpse of some of the festivities, captured on a bunch of random expired film stocks on some random cameras and all scanned by me.

Enjoy.

A few weeks ago I left my lightmeter at my sister's house. When I went to pick it up she gave me a roll of film that she thought I left there.Turns out I didn't. It was some random roll of film from (I'm assuming) a cheap point and shoot or disposable camera from almost thirteen years ago. This is Eli Chaim (the Bar Mitzvah dude) when he was a wee li'l lad, and his two older siblings. I had no clue what it was until I scanned it in (a few minutes after I scanned the photos above). I love random lost film!!