Before I leave

I am leaving for Mexico tomorrow. A small adventure through Copper Canyon. There should be plenty of photos to follow.

Enjoy your week.

A Face To Remember

Sometimes you just see light that matches any person, any face, and any tone. Churches and temples often create this light; perfectly diffused and hinting of Annie Leibovitz (minus the lighting team.)

It is also great when you see a face that can grab you and make you stare. It can be frustrating to see a person with the perfect face get shy once a camera is seen. For this reason, I usually shoot at least one frame before asking them to pose.

This was the one frame I was able to snap before the woman became aware and nervous.

Growing Up and Down

A sky-blue balsa wood car winning third place, a river trip with skipping stones and wet socks, and a faded comic book drawn by me but visualized by my father. These are the memories that surround Boy Scouts. I didn't make it very far. Past Cub Scouts and passing through Webelos I gave it up for more lazy activities. It's not that I regret it. Looking back, given the religious undertones fixed within the Boy Scouts establishment, I probably did well to avoid any heavenly promises at the expense of a good foundation.

Admittedly, the Boy Scouts often does promote community awareness and the awareness of communities place within nature. Qualifying nature's position and potential power over community is an important and under valued ideology.

It was inspiring to find a group of young kids from the city admiring the forest. Building a trail for bikes out of a trash filled forest is a good start for a Dallas, a city with almost no nature. I hope the trail works out.

Criss-Crossed Blackened X's

Criss-crossed blackened X's mark the time. Sprinkles of little seeds and added yellow slices of garnish don't quite complete the dish, but do ease the sweetness of that sauce.

That sauce, sitting in its dish with pods of pineapple stealing heat from a sliced jalepeño, which oddly enough has stolen sugar from the fruit. The dish is itself a separate fixture of a plastered white house that is nothing more than a temporary home of a former animal.

The animal is herded, hung, cut, packaged, stored, cut again with smaller knife, and blackened with criss-crossed X's. A tree sees its life follow a similar path. Somehow the story line has changed though, as the tree has itself become the great agent of cruelty that pierces the blackened X to make a handle.

Handles hang over patterns of unburned x's and perfect cream colored mats. A napkin is placed and soon is wet from condensation dripping down a glass of ice water. The ice melts over conversations so refreshing the heat is simply forgotten.

A nice sigh and a closed eyed breath end with the criss-crossed blackened X's ringing 11 o'clock. Lunch break has ended.

A Soldiers Gift

It is 2008. I can see 2009 approaching quickly.

On September 11, 2001, I was a freshman in college. I was on my way to film class when I heard the news. We didn't get class off or even speak about it. It wasn't until 2005 when the first movie about 9/11 came out. Flight 93 I believe. I still need to see Snakes On A Plane.

2003 marked the beginning of the second war in Iraq with the United States. This time I was old enough to visualize and somewhat comprehend the consequences. We are five years into it and I honestly don't see it ending anytime soon...despite McCain's promise to be out by 2013.

We have seen over 4,000 American soldiers killed and obvious uncountable Iraqi civilian deaths.

I wonder how much support the troops, kids my age and younger, are still receiving? Despite my strong left leaning ideologies, I still stop to think about how hard it must be to experience war.

I photographed a group of people (overwhelmingly women) who have organized a group to send care packages to soldiers. It was endearing. They also sign cards. Support. That is all they are trying to give.

Support.

Quin

My mom calls him Pepe. He goes by Quin, short for Quintana. He barks late at night and shows his teeth for fun. He is New Mexican and has funny ears. A mut relocated to Colorado for a 15 month tour in the mountains.

His only enemy will be his older brother. A 16-year-old with a new drivers license and a fear of mans best friend resulting from a failed canine sexual advance and a premature release of urine.