Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I wish I could publish my photos much larger than blogger allows, in this case to see the tears streaming down Emily's cheeks.
Have a fabulous holiday season, ya'all! 

Never Ever

Here's Marlee, 2, sitting in the captain's seat aboard the Baja after the sun set yesterday. I like the lines of the boat, in addition to the color. When you're watching the light and attempting to shoot the day's last light for its softness on a subject, but arrive at the beach late so that the sun drops out of sight less than a minute after feeding coins into the parking meter, there's nothing to do but gasp something to the effect of "I'll never get anything now!"

Heartbreak

The high school volleyball team I cover played in the semi finals for the California state championship last night. They played a team that had beaten them twice before. The match went into a fifth and final set. The Sea Hawks were serving for match point, but ended up losing the next three points, and the match.

The players are really sweet girls. I took my 6-year-old niece to a game earlier in the season, and we arrived very late (my fault), so we only saw the last point of the last set. My niece was so disappointed, as it was her very first high school sporting event to attend. But then a few of the players spoke with her, and now my niece still talks about meeting the players on one of the best teams in the state.

I took this photo after last night's match. It's a little artsy the way I framed it. Honestly, my first inclination was to shoot the moment straight because it's such a tremendously strong moment, with Hannah seeking the comfort of her father Don in the stands after coming so close to playing for the state title.

The reality of getting this shot was I was in a crowd of people, and I shot from where I was standing before trying to move any closer. Moments are truly fleeting, especially while attempting to capture them. I couldn't help shooting another parent checking her cell phone in the right side of the frame, and I had to crop her out. That's really when I noticed the lines on the wall.

Here's the photo gallery of last night's match if anyone is interested.

Anthem

In the photo, water polo players stand for the national anthem before the game. It's strange to me the national anthem is played before a high school sporting event. I remember my uncles, all of whom served in World War II, telling me there was no national anthem played before major league ball games in the 1950s. The umpire said "play ball" and that's how they started the game. I find myself thinking of that often while I stand through the anthem.
Have a good holiday, friends.

Champs

I've been shooting a lot of prep sports lately, especially playoffs. I took this one Friday, after the Mustangs won the game and the league title. When I snapped the shot, the game clock had just expired and the team was gathering to shake hands at midfield with the other team. 

After not finding work for so long, I'm very grateful for the work I'm doing. And when I can get a good image, it's so damn fun.

Hope you have a great week.

Costume and Winning

Hi. I took a couple shots i really like: Natalie, dressed as a nun strolling along Hermosa Beach on Halloween, and Skylar, after her school's volleyball team upset a cross town rival last night and won a share of first place for the first time since 1987.

Stumbling

I thought I was stumbling.

I had no idea I was really whirling and

twirling.

It’s a little embarrassing, the truth is.

Sometimes.

Lots of times:)

I finally saw myself as I truly was, moving so sure-footed through these dark woods. I thought I was flailing across this moving water. But I saw myself as I really was, with that goofy smile pasted across my face, skipping over this crocodile-infested river. I thought those crocs were snapping at me. I had no idea they were really hollering encouragements as I danced from head to head.

I looked for you around every ancient tree trunk for so long I gave up.

Who knew the magic words were Leave Me Alone.

Only when I abandoned all hope and expectation did I discover.

For I was lost in these woods

And now I am found.

Tough days lie ahead. There’s no doubt. It is the nature of this world. We’re all walking a plank in this place. Just wait until we are all living on this earth with full knowledge of all of our lifetimes.

This is not written in any of the great books, only in the greatest book of all, the one inside each of us.

Search

What is your hope for this thing called life?

Heaven on earth, my friends.

As you know, what we have here is no heaven on earth. The crimes against the poor are too many to mention, the crimes against our animals too horrifying to describe, the crimes against this planet too institutionalized to bother documenting.

Once upon a time, your roots curled around mine in the winter. You licked my face in the tall grass every afternoon. You gave me bread in the alley.

The Great Awakening is just beginning to color our sky.

I smell rain.

Our time is what it is here.

Then we shall see ourselves as we truly are

and return home

to us.

Big Pops

I spent most of Saturday covering Pop Warner football games. Here's the photo essay, if anyone's interested. It's funny how ideas sometimes come to us later. The photo essay I did was a day of football, from 7-year-old flag footballers to 13-year-olds, some of whom were bigger and stronger than I am. But I couldn't help noticing the head injuries a few kids sustained during the games.

Concussions are a big issue in pro football, with medical staffs now prohibiting players from re-entering games. There's also talk about protecting high school football players. I'm attempting to spend some time with the medical staff at the Pop Warner games in the next few weeks to learn more about head injuries to 9- and 10-year-olds.

Kids see the ESPN highlight reels of vicious helmet-to-helmet blows and go out head hunting in their own games as a result. Maybe my hunch is wrong and there's no concussion issue at all at that level. There's also no guarantee I'll get to hang out with any medical personnel and nail down a story of some kind, but I'll keep ya posted on my progress.   

Wind Sails

Once upon a time there was a boy. And something happened to this boy so that he understood clearly he could no longer trust other human beings.

He told God sincerely one evening when the sky was pink and majestic that he didn’t want to be a part of this world anymore.

The Old Woman took mercy on this boy. She gave him a special gift. The Old Woman presented him with a set of magic wind sails.

The sails were larger than any sails in this world. Imagine the largest set of 12 sails for a ship you’ve ever seen. Now triple the size of those sails, and we’re getting close to what began to steer the boy’s spiritual ship through this world.

The sails were going to be the boy’s flypaper, his spider’s web, but he wasn’t going to catch bugs on his sails. He was going to catch energy, other people’s energy, and even the movement of energy among the people.

The sails were constructed by a legion of angels. The top sail was the most special. The master angel craftsman himself threaded together the top sail, and the green and gold goddess of telepathy calibrated it perfectly to hypersensitivity.

If someone was angry or annoyed at the boy, he would find a splotch of red energy on that top-most sail. In fact, the very first day the Old Woman presented the boy with his new sails, he shimmied up forty stories at the speed of thought and found a nice-sized blood stain on that top sail. That top sail didn’t miss anything. It was built to catch the tiniest speck of dark, dangerous energy.

The boy relied on that top sail to catch those dreaded red and black splotches quickly— very quickly. Those red and black splotches meant Watch Out! The boy’s life relied on that top sail more times than fingers he had on one hand. And it never failed him.

None of his sails did.

Were any of the boy’s sails ever wrong? No. But energy gets jumbled sometimes, and his interpretation was sometimes off. Sometimes people were unaware of the energy they put out and didn't like to be told what they were emitting, as they were not ready to own their actions yet. The boy learned these things.

The boy also learned other things, like what a yellow splotch on his sail meant.

Before anyone told the boy they were pleased with him, he might hear and later see a big splotch of yellow and green hit his sails. If someone was open and transparent with him, then he’d find the colors on his bottom sail, easily accessible. If the person lived with defenses up, as most do, including the boy, then he’d find the energy higher along his mast.

Of course, the boy’s sails worked best if they were all facing someone sitting directly across the table from him, so the boy could view body language as well. But they worked just fine receiving splotches from long distances. As he grew older and became a teenager, the boy began picking up energy from miles and miles away.

After a few years, the boy didn’t even have to look at the canvass anymore. He could tell what sort of energy was coming by the sound it made when it struck the canvass. The boy could tell where the energy came from by which way the winds were blowing in his life and how high or low on his sails the splotch landed.

The boy liked nothing more than finding a big pink splotch on my bottom-most sail. That meant someone was enamored with him, and she was coming. What fun!

As the boy grew to be a man, his sails became like extensions of his own limbs. He figured that was the gift of the sails: Learning how to operate them better and better and better, truly as an expert. He figured he’d take his place in the pantheon of souls who have operated and relied upon magic wind sails to catch energy and thus guide them through this tricky world.

Instead, something strange hit his sails one day. It sounded like something he had never heard before. He snapped his head up at the noise, then shimmied to the top sail and found nothing, which was really strange because, based on sound, the man hadn’t been wrong about the location of a splotch landing in years. He found the mystery splotch much lower, near the lowest sail, in fact.

It was a color he had never seen before. Truth be told, the man recoiled at first because new things are frightening. But he quickly became interested because new things are also fascinating. And this color was the loveliest color he had ever seen. He studied this splotch for days, even tasted it, something he hadn’t done in many years. The man had heard rumors of this sort of energy, but had never seen evidence of it, not on his sails.

Something wonderful was just over the horizon.

And so all his sails were pointed in the direction from which the new and exciting splotches were arriving. The man watched the winds like he hadn’t done in years. The crow’s nest became his home for the first time since he was a boy with a magic new gift. The man scoured the landscape for weeks. He set sail in the direction of the exciting new energy, but found nothing.

He did not understand. As an expert with his sails, he knew exactly where this amazing alien energy was coming from, but he found nothing when his ship arrived. He picked up more new energy, and again found nothing over the horizon. This went on for weeks.

Finally, the man began to understand he was not meant to find the source of this energy. We simply cannot have everything we desire in this world.

One evening, when the sky blushed a deep peach, the man felt a loneliness he hadn’t felt since he was a boy. The Old Woman paid him a visit for the second time in his life.

Do you want to sail in unknown waters? There is only one way.

Our most effective defenses are usually not cinder block castle walls. They are often much prettier and much more difficult to come out from behind, since they become a part of ourselves over the years.

The man spent a few days feeling the fabric of the canvasses, remembering when the first bit of purple arrived, the first touch of gray, and how different his life would have been without that top sail.

He was still the same boy he was, only in a man’s body, with the same fears and hopes.

On the fourth night since the Old Woman’s visit, the man sailed out into the desert, docked next to an enormous orange sand dune and abandoned ship. He thought he would kiss that top sail goodbye when the time came, but instead he only flashed the peace sign as he walked away, headed out into the great unknown.

Danger was waiting over the horizon, inevitably. And something wonderful, too. That was the Old Woman’s second gift to the boy: The chance to find out.