On attraction, falling in love, faces, diversity, stereotypes and breaking cultural bullshit …

I love portraits of people.

I love taking them.

I love looking at them.

I can’t remember where I read it, but one time I saw a quote from a photographer who said that you have to fall in love a little with each person you ever photograph.

This, as odd as it seems, is not completely impossible.

Sure, it’s easy to look at a young pretty girl and “fall in love” for a brief moment while I snap photos of them. Attractive people are easy, one would think. And the supposed challenge(s) are people who aren’t traditionally attractive; Overweight, over skinny, older, zitty, bad hair, blotchy skin, etc. etc.

My take on singer/songwriter Charlotte Cardin

Around a month ago, I photographed singer/songwriter Charlotte Cardin. She’s incredibly impressive. Her vocals are great. Her lyrics and depth-filled approach are stunning.

I could easily have a crush on her.

I wanted to do an edit to her photo that resembled my take on her complexity as an artist and came up with the above. I feel like i need to revisit it as I see some photosloppyness (sloppiness).

But I love the essense nontheless.

Below the fold is a version of what I started with.

Check out some of her work here and here.

Enjoy.

Ride with us to Asheville, NC

One of the funnest things I’ve ever done was challenge myself to create weekly vLogs for a while a year or more ago. We got busy and I got out of practice.

I’ve done vLogs intermittently over the last 10 or more years. To think, there are people who do them daily. I can’t keep up.

This one took me months to complete. It’s from our trip to Asheville back in August.

Enjoy.

Kottke and the United States of Guns

Like you, I’m heart broken, confused and angry as hell about yesterday’s mass shooting in Texas.

With every mass shooting, one of my favorite bloggers, Jason Kottke, responds with a post in which he shares the same material every time. I think it’s a wise use of his time.

I’m going to link to his post here in response to yesterday’s shooting. I feel more and more depressed that we live in a country so mismanaged when it comes to guns and of mental illness. Our president’s response  at a press conference in Japan was so painfully ignorant

Mind you, I’m not against gun ownership. But common sense conversations about gun ownership and the owners behind them should be on the table.

Either that or we need massive expansion of metal detectors in every public place imaginable … hotels, malls, grocery stores, Target, Kmart, Walmart … and could you fucking imagine … churches.

One standout part of Kottke’s post is this:

The gun is not a mere tool, a bit of technology, a political issue, a point of debate. It is an object of reverence. Devotion to it precludes interruption with the sacrifices it entails. Like most gods, it does what it will, and cannot be questioned. Its acolytes think it is capable only of good things. It guarantees life and safety and freedom. It even guarantees law. Law grows from it. Then how can law question it?

A designer friend of mine posted the above “Policy & Change” image to her Instagram this morning. I thought it belonged here as well.

 

My imagination realized …

When I was growing up, I stared out the window and imagined a kid on a bike riding beside the car tricking off houses, hills, ramps and whatever.

Whenever I ride as a passenger, I still do it. With the occasional imaginary trickery while I’m driving.

This video is that and more.

 

Impeachment? Quit playing games with my heart

Vanity Fair reports:

Until now, Robert Mueller has haunted Donald Trump’s White House as a hovering, mostly unseen menace. But by securing indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates,and a surprise guilty plea from foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, Mueller announced loudly that the Russia investigation poses an existential threat to the president. “Here’s what Manafort’s indictment tells me: Mueller is going to go over every financial dealing of Jared Kushner and the Trump Organization,” said former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg. “Trump is at 33 percent in Gallup. You can’t go any lower. He’s fucked.”

The first charges in the Mueller probe have kindled talk of what the endgame for Trump looks like, according to conversations with a half-dozen advisers and friends of the president. For the first time since the investigation began, the prospect of impeachment is being considered as a realistic outcome and not just a liberal fever dream. According to a source, advisers in the West Wing are on edge and doing whatever they can not to be ensnared. One person close to Dina Powell and Gary Cohn said they’re making sure to leave rooms if the subject of Russia comes up.

The consensus among the advisers I spoke to is that Trump faces few good options to thwart Mueller. For one, firing Mueller would cross a red line, analogous to Nixon’s firing of Archibald Cox during Watergate, pushing establishment Republicans to entertain the possibility of impeachment. “His options are limited, and his instinct is to come out swinging, which won’t help things,” said a prominent Republican close to the White House.

Trump, meanwhile, has reacted to the deteriorating situation by lashing out on Twitter and venting in private to friends. He’s frustrated that the investigation seems to have no end in sight. “Trump wants to be critical of Mueller,” one person who’s been briefed on Trump’s thinking says. “He thinks it’s unfair criticism. Clinton hasn’t gotten anything like this. And what about Tony Podesta? Trump is like, When is that going to end?” According to two sources, Trump has complained to advisers about his legal team for letting the Mueller probe progress this far. Speaking to Steve Bannon on Tuesday, Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions, specifically the firings of Mike Flynn and James Comey, that led to Mueller’s appointment, according to a source briefed on the call. When Roger Stone recently told Trump that Kushner was giving him bad political advice, Trump agreed, according to someone familiar with the conversation. “Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history,” Nunberg said. “I’m only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress.”