God in a basement

"We're a front row family," Mindy Gunnels said, after she and her friend Donald Litter attended another Wednesday night church service in the basement of an O.U.R. Home. Sermons for the weekly crowd of homeless and mentally and emotionally handicapped, are delivered by former O.U.R. employee Buzz Murphy and his wife JoAnn, though neither are actual ministers.

State

The past three days have been full of State Championship football. 8-man teams or 10,000 + spectator crowds, the emotions were equally intense. Action was fundamentally the same, patterns are rules still apply, working the field feels the same. When the fourth quarter hits the five minute mark, the crowds, the cheering, body language, silence, and the score give a quick hit of adrenaline.

By the time the clock runs out and players and coaches overtake the field, you've allowed yourself anticipatory participation. By the time you follow the jumping, crying, screaming players on the fifty yard line, you've come back to calm, collected observation and make pictures. Even when all the bodies around you are in emotion up to their ears.

beginning in the middle

Inspired by other photographers' photoblogs, I've decided to start my own now, halfway through my internship here in the middle of the country.

What I want is a place to put my outtakes and mistakes, and in the process push myself to shoot more and see differently. Take chances. Share what I like. Stay in touch. Lots of reasons...

This weekend I shot the final portrait in a series I've been working on. It started as an email from a writer requesting the names of "wise elders" in the community, and I pitched the idea of a portrait series.

With the go ahead, I shot throughout the week, and arrived on Saturday to the last and oldest portrait subject. She's 106 years old and indulges every day in some Bailey's or rum and coke.

I've never been more humbled than to have some who has lived 106 years worth of experiences wake up at various times during the night to ask if it was time yet to have the photographer come. Also, to have her specify that her son make green jello and use the good dishes. This is all according to her son who lives with her and takes care of her with the help of a nurse. She anticipated the shoot as if it were a party.

Halfway through, she insisted that we all partake in some Bailey's. We poured her one and stayed sober.

Really, sobriety was an edge in that situation 'cause that old gal was sharp. Smart and witty. A former redhead. Nothing got by her and she had a mind of her own.

She wanted to know what I was all about. She watched me like a hawk. She wanted her son in the picture. I was faltering at holding a conversation by screaming in her ear.

I decided to tell a joke, in an attempt to keep her with me (she was sleepy from her night spent anticipating the photographer). Also I was nervous as hell.

Thinking I must be crazy, I leaned in and shouted each line of the joke about an adulterous man and his secretary. I got to the punchline and glanced at her son and nurse for a kind of go ahead. Seeing not discouragement, I said the punchline and sat back, timid, fidgeting with the shutter button, waiting.....

She was quiet for a half a minute, then rolled her head to look at me and grinned. "Oh you're a naughty girl."

That's when we gained each other's trust, and I found the interaction I was looking for all day.