Friends

I grew up in a forest in Belgium, remote from my school buddies ... no friends to play with ...

I grew even more up in a small house with 4 sisters ... no room for friends to come over and play ... no one inviting me to come over and play ... 

I was alone in my room engaged in Red Knight chivalry ...

I was alone in my room with my science books ...

I was alone in m room with my projects ...

I was alone in the world racing my bicycle ...

Music ... performing ... composing ... conducting ... an ivory tower comes to mind ...

I got married, got kids, got career busy, moved a couple of times, got different career busy, moved Transatlantic ... and I left the few friends I developed behind ...

Wife one left ... I raised the kids some more till they left ... love struck ... then wife two left ... 

What happened ... where was I ... what really is being alone ... the fear ... the solitude ...

*   *   *

Then one friend showed up because she was worried for me ...

A second friend reached out and listened  ...

A third friend showed me the other side of the mirror ...

A fourth friend drove me to the airport at 5:00am ...

A fifth friend  took me out for lunch ...

A sixth friend took me out for dinner ...

A seventh friend shared an opera ...

... wait ...

I have countless friends ...

Countless friends showed me unconditional love ... any time ... every time ...

I'm truly a blessed man ... I'm lucky ... for sure ...

... I savor every friend-moment how brief it may be ...

To friends ...

... all friends ...

Continued ... for sure ... 

Pixie Sunday ...

Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself ... before you can move their tears, your own must flow ... to convince them you must yourself believe ...

Winston Churchill was sure an artist ...

*   *   *

It was raining like hell last night and I was falling asleep while listening to the raindrops clattering the skylights ... I dreamt a red barn dream where I'm dreaming of listening to the raindrops clattering the panes of my father's father little farm in Flanders ... I was six ... sleeping on the attic where one could see the stars through the cracks in the panes ... where one would wake up in the winter covered with powder snow making it through the roof ... it was cold ...

The red barn was warm and cosy ... I curled up and listened some more ...

*   *   *

Image of Betcee May from our very first shoot a little over 9 months ago in LA ...

I had a great shoot ...

... with Jessa, Kristin and Kay ... make up artist Gina Novotchin joined us for the fun ...

Images later ... much later ... still having hard drive issues to resolve ... enjoy one of the images from Betcee and Tiana in the meantime ... shot in my studio one moon ago ...

*   *   *

Added new music to my car CD changer ... Paris by Night ...  a compilation of classic French songs and singers from 1929 to 1964 ... 

Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet, Maurice Alexander, Leo Mariant, Lucienne Delyle, Tino Rossy, Charles Aznavour, Line Renaud, Django Reinhardt, Jean Sablon, Mireille, Les Compagnons de la Chanson, Lys Gauty, Frehel, Eva Busch, Damia

Milord (Edit Piaf) makes me cry ... that good ... Eva Busch is a close second and who does not like Django Reinhardt in "Nuages"

French classic street song entertainment at its best ... I grew up listening to this music ... my parents were fond of it ... 

EMI CDP 7 94478 2

*   *   *

I dreamt about my Red Barn again ... pleasant ... it was full of people and art ... you were there too ... 

Hard drives fail

This week was hard drive failure week ... 

The RAID that has giving me problems finally decided to give up on me ... the controller board gave each drive a different name ... and ... voila ... instant data inaccessibility ...

Slowly rebuilding partition tables ... don't have the money to have this done externally ... two full shoots are at stake ... everything else is double backed up ...

Today brought a hard drive failure at my office ... at first Excel would give up on me and then each Microsoft Office application would slowly disintegrate and  send error message to the server ... we've all seen the crash messages at some point in our lives ... ;-)

Uninstalled the full Office suite and that was not successful ... hmmmmmm .... that didn't sound right ...

Turn the computer off, wait 15 seconds, turn on ... Windows's greeting screen pops up and then the dreaded sound of a hard drive trying to find the right track ... over and over again ...

IT is rebuilding my computer, rebuilding my data and hopefully I'll have my quarter end files back in time for corporate presentation ... keeping my fingers crossed ...

Not sure about the line up of planets and moons here ... something is going on ...

*   *   *

Model is Keira Grant ... nope ... she has nothing to do with the hard drive crashes ... ;-)

We worked together many moons ago and we'll work together again shortly ... 

Make up by Lauren Warner.

Continued ...

My backyard ...

Images from a recent shoot in my backyard ... make up by Chrystal Saville

All natural lighting ... vintage wardrobe ... D3 with my incomparable 105mm F2.0 DC lens ...

This lens is enough reason to own a Nikon camera ...

Today ...

More edits from a shoot for Channel Karama ... swim suits in San Francisco ...

Models Mirela and Karah ... fun ... fun ... fun ... [continued]

Yesterday ...

... started out as a "blah" day ... I'm allowed to have one once and a while ... lucky me has friends who listen ... no judgment ... no conditions ... 

Retouching images made it all go away  ... yayyyyyyyyyy ... 

Silly ?  Jamais de ma vie ;-)

I discovered Facebook

My friends shouted at me for posting an image with nudity on my wall ... big no-no on Facebook ;-) ... who reads the TOS anyhow ?

*  *   *

Couple of more images from my shoot with Kristin, vintage fur wardrobe ... 

Had fun shooting this and having as much fun retouching this ...

Make Up by Gina Novotchin, hair by Lorenzo

If you ever wondered ...

.... what would happen if your car got hit by a piece of flying debris on a freeway ... 

Wonder no more ...

My car got hit last Saturday night by a runaway "spinner" on the highway ... me 65mph ... spinner from the opposite direction probably 50mph ... it was dark ... couldn't see it coming and traffic was such that there was no room for an evasive maneuver ...

Resuls: front bumper spliced in half ... metal grille torn apart ...  unsightly damage ... will cost a new AMG bumper for my Benz ...

hmmmmm ... 

these "spinners" should be illegal ... they are aftermarket, not designed to fit any vehicle and cause some major damage when let loose on their own ... we've all see them lying around in one or other freeway lane ...

I guess I got lucky as the damage could have been worse ... wonder how many more vehicles were hit by the spinner that I hit as I saw it hit the road again in my rear view mirror

Studio double fun 1

Couple of weeks ago I had all the photography gods working for me when I got the opportunity to work with Betcee May and Tiana Hunter in my studio ... this was the second duo shoot with Betcee and Tiana, the first one being in Los Angeles, September 5, 2008 ...

We captured spontaneous silliness and goofiness ... the serious and even more serious ... but also a lot of tenderness, friendship and love ... 

It was truly a privilege to be have them in front of my lens(es) again ... these models know to sway the camera and how to emote ...

Betcee and Tiana connect well together and have a very similar posing style, yet different enough to make each image a keeper ... yes ..

. you read that right ... 

I'm a lucky man to have the opportunity to work with all this talent ... 

This series is once more about interaction ... I create the environment ... instill the plan and the rest is up to what develops with some gentle guidance ...

Lighting this set was simple, one overhead gridded softbox and one gridded snoot for accent ... side window light fill with a fluorescent wall of light ... no flash was used at all ...

Continued ...

My boudoir ...

I had the privilege and pleasure to work with two extraordinary models a couple of weeks ago ... 

Carlotta Champagne and SaraLiz were visiting San Francisco together and I couldn't resist scheduling a photo shoot in my boudoir ... 

Make up by Lauren Warner.

Both models are highly recommended to work with ...

To be continued ... retouching many more images from this session in due time ... there are also many more images from one on one and location work ...

All image were shot with natural lighting through a single window ... no flash, no reflectors ...

The sun would peer through the window from time to time which would make finding the proper lighting balance quite challenging in this overwhelmingly red and black decorated setting.

The key objective from this session however was interaction without making it a girl-on-girl shoot ... 

Shooting one on one is easy ... shooting two or more models and have them connect with the viewer is a different challenge for all involved ...

Carlotta and Sara are pro and have no difficulty following directions in a creative way ... they both added so much to the shoot ... thanks ... looking forward to the next session ...

More music in my car ...

Listening to Astor Piazzolla "Sensations" (DELOS DE3349) ... 11 tracks of pure bandaneon and bayan nuevo tango bliss ...

I always wanted to visit Argentina and roam the streets at night and experience the tango lifestyle ... one day ...

*   *   *

Also listening to "The Astrud Gilberto Album" ... a Verve Records Silver Collection edition .. 25 tracks ... 25 jewels ...

*   *   *

If everyone stopped talking about the recession it would be over by now ... negativity feeds negativity ... one vicious circle ...

My Red Barn ...

... in the Fremont hills ...

*   *   *

I discovered these hills during my first visit ever to Fremont on December 22, 2001 ... I'll never forget the day ...

I casually explored a one lane wooded canyon road ... I grew up in the forests in Belgium and can't resist exploring, looking for the view, the peace, the quiet ... the history of it all ...

The top of the hill rewarded me with this most magnificent view ... miles of it ... to never forget

*   *   *

On my way down the hill I made my next discovery ... insignificant at first ...

I was wrong ... this first glimpse is still on my mind ... the taste of the air ... the smell of the nearby eucalyptus forest ... the sound of a nearby spring ...

A red barn ...

A tin roof ...

Old ...

Rusty ...

Cracks ... missing boards ...

Inhabited ...

Full of character ...

... the history ...

*   *   *

In the months that followed I would be preoccupied moving from Los Angeles to Fremont ... new job ... new challenges ... new realm ... 

*   *   *

The red barn took on a life of its own ..  at night, when I could not fall asleep, I would nurture the barn to health ...

Fix the cracks ...

Replace the boards ...

New tin on the roof ...

Massive skylights ...

Windows ...

Doors ...

I would talk to the old red barn and ask permission to gently add some new comfort ... 

A wooden floor ...

Fireplace ...

Clawfoot tub ...

Staircase to the rafters ... 

Loft with bedstead ...

A pipe stove ...

In my sleep the red barn became my studio .. my workplace ... my home ... a place where I could curl up and dream on about yesteryears and forgotten lives ... 

*   *   *

The dreams were real and recurring  ...

I've worked many a night in my red barn ...

Escape ?

Past Life ?

Parallel Dimension ?

With time the red barn disappeared from my mind ... or so I thought ... 

I goofed up ...

The red barn is there ... it always was ... it always will be ...

Elusive ?

Yes ...

Unattainable ?

No ...

*   *   *

I've been dreaming about the red barn for the last 9 months again ... 

I finally figured it out its secret ... 

Continued ...

Carly Erin ...

... showed up about a year ago at the studio just when I was setting my first steps with my Nikon D3 ... time flies ... 

This was the first shoot where I finally got a grasp of what it meant to be able to full frame photography in almost any lighting condition ... there's no going back  ... 

From the after-sunset outdoor shots where the diffuse lighting proved sufficient for beautiful portraits to the darkened studio work where the only light source was a 250 Watt incandescent in a baffled and gridded softbox ... it all worked ...

No regrets ... Thanks Carly for knocking on my door that day and giving me a taste of how it feels to work with full time traveling pro-models ... ;-)

I had the privilege of working with quite a few pro-models since then and I'm always pleasantly surprised by the professionalism, the injection of creativity, collaboration and the personal growth ... 

Continued ...

*   *   *

Fortune cookie of the day:

Avenues of good fortune are ahead for you ...

There's obviously a new fortune cookie maker in town ;-)

My crows ...

... are back ... they're waiting outside my office around my car ... they follow when I walk the 3/4 mile to get lunch ... the three of them fly ahead ... wait on the fence posts and then fly ahead again ... when I'm on my way back, they do the same thing again ... they are extremely playful ... ;-)

Where have you been ... ;-) ... craa ... craaa ... craaaaahhhhhh ...

Bringing my camera tomorrow ... let's see if you still want to play ...

*   *   *

Fortune cookie of the day:

You will have much to give thanks for this month

So true ... so true ...

*   *   *

Kevin, Lauren Warner's husband passed away last Sunday night ... he'll be missed by quite a few of us ... hugs to Lauren, Oliver, Zoe and the rest of the family.

*   *   *

I like big hair ... the images in this blog post are from my shoot with Kristin ... She's fun to work with ... make-up by Gina Novotchin and hair by Lorenzo ... I always wanted to shoot hair like this ... lol ... thanks team !

Slow day ...

... raining ... cold  ... 

Yesterday we had snow in the hills in some places at the 2000 ft level ... has been a while since I've seen snow here ... ;-)

Some more work with Jillian Ann from our most recent photo shoot ... enjoy "The Piano Lesson" ...

Happy Valentine ...

All days are Valentine days and today is no exception ... 

*   *   *

Fortune cookie of two days ago ;-)

Now is the time for peace in your life.

Go along with other's ideas [in bed]

Adding [in bed] to any fortune cookie makes them sooo much better ... 

*   *   *

Another pic from a shoot with Jillian Ann ... make up by Lauren Warner ... 

These images were lit with a single tungsten lighting up a dark scene ... no tripod,  ISO 3200 ...

The ability to shoot in pretty much any lighting condition with even make shift lighting is a feature I wouldn't want to miss anymore ...

These images are from the most recent shoot with Jillian Ann ... "The Piano Lesson"

Stay tuned for more ...

I am elated ...

is the fitting name for the "Special Enchilada Del Dia" from Cafe Gratitude ... a delicious dish ... soft vegetable tortilla with sprouted seed filling, topped with spice salsa verde and cashew sour cream.   Mine was served with Mexican spiced coleslaw and Bhutanese red rice ... 

Highly recommended ...

Image from my first shoot with Jillian Ann, now many months ago ...

 Jillian is extremely talented ... beautiful ... lovely voice ... writes great music and lyrics ... engaging ... constantly advocating environmental and health conscious choices ...

*   *   *

My fortune cookie of today:

Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded ...

*   *   *

Been listening to Astor Piazzolla for the last couple of days ... divine tango music ... the rendition of Gideon Kremer is close to my heart ... Astor is missing from this recording but the powerful violin playing by Kremer of Piazzola's work gives the music a different, totally enjoyable, dimension ... 

To be continued ...

I am bliss ...

... is a Chocolate-Hazelnut Mousse pie ... I got to savor one in Cafe Gratitude ;-) ... after a shoot with Jillian Ann (MUA: Lauren Warner)

Never has raw vegan tasted so divine ! ... this is a must taste dessert even if it is the last dessert you'll ever taste ... 

Ingredients: rich cacao and hazelnut mousse topped in coconut meringue in a hazelnut-macadamia date crust ... 100% vegan ... 100% raw ... sweetened with Yacon syrup ...

Best ever dessert ! ... taste is absolutely fabulous but the texture is unlike anything I ever had ;-)

"I am bliss" is a most appropriate name for this delicacy ;-)

The above image from Jillian is from our first shoot ... quite a few months ago ... stay tuned for more ... (MUA Lauren Warner)

Recession

Layoffs ...

Salary freezes ... 

No bonuses ... no merit increases ...

It's everywhere ...

but ... how much of it is driven by fear because of media negativity over-coverage ? 

*   *   *

Fortune cookie of the day ...

You have a friendly heart and are well admired ...

There seems to be a theme to these

*   *   *

One of my friends got a new job after months of being unemployed ... the glass is half full ... always ...

Primal scream

Worked with April and Lauren Warner yesterday ... Lauren came up with a fun make up concept for April and April lived her emotions ;-) ... this model doesn't act it ... she lives it ... raw

This series was pretty much shot on the street in San Francisco ... onlookers didn't believe their eyes ... ;-)

3 minute shoot, 3 primal expressions ... fear ... anger ... pain ... 

None of these images were posed ... they were lived ... the way I like it ... love photojournalism ;-)

April models fashion, fine art and she just starred her first leading role in an indie film.

The joy of chocolate ...

I'm not the only one who's enjoying chocolate ... 

Ankha wrote:

"It's official.  My number one favorite chocolate in the WORLD is Gianduja by Cote d'Or ... WONDERFULLY AMAZING ;-)

This bar is widely available in the US ... for those who don't know Cote d'Or ... they don't know what they are missing ;-) ... Google is your friend ;-)

*   *   *

Fortune cookie of the day:

You are admired from afar ...

*   *   *

I wouldn't mind being admired from a bit closer ;-)

*   *   *

Picked April up from her shoot with Jason Fassnacht ... I absolutely love Jason's work and it was a delight to finally meet Jason and J

Sacramento ... crazy drive ... loads of fun ... and my little car got over 29 miles/gallon ... not bad for a MBZ roadster ;-)

April is in town

Images from our previous shoots in Los Angeles and Fremont ...

She's tall, has strong lines and is absolutely fun to work with ...

Boston

R&D speaking engagement ... snow ... cold

* * *

Fortune cookie of the day:

Your mind is ingenious and you learn easily

Who makes these things up ?

My dungeon ... continued 2