Inessential Stuff

Another Christmas, another trip to Southern California, where my folks live. My sister Laura and her family joined us.  We opened presents, and we did the bi-annual trip to Disneyland (where Conlan disappeared for a few terrifying minutes), but we also mixed it up a bit with a trip to Legoland, which was new for all of us.  There are plenty of photographs here, and, if you look really carefully and fast, some tiny little captions at the bottom-left corner of the images.

I loved, loved, loved the snow this Thanksgiving weekend. I loved sitting around the living room with my family and watching the snow fall. And fall. And fall.  So beautiful. Of course, snow is good for more than just watching, so we all went over to Manito Park and did some sledding. “We” is Marcus, Bonnie, my sister Laura, her husband MacLeod, and their two kids, Conlan and Akian. Then after sledding, it was home for a friendly snowman competition (or snow woman). You can see some of the fun at this gallery.

I did another fashion photo shoot with the featuring the designs of the talented Ronnie Kimball Ryno of Glamarita and Kadra Evans of Assassin Apparel. We used the art studio of Ryno’s mother on a fairly cold November day.  Then we went out back and shot a bit more in the alley.  Great locations, with bright colors.  Lots of fun.  Here is a wee small gallery of some of the images.

Thanks to the generosity of a friend, Marcus and I had the chance to take a private grand tour of the Spokane Veteran Memorial Arena. During Chiefs season, no less. So Marcus got on his hockey shirt and away we went. Here’s a small gallery of photographs of our tour of Spokane Arena. Watch for the itty bitty captions at the bottom left. And thank you to Tye for making it possible.

I shoot a lot of weddings outside of Spokane, maybe down in Pullman, or up in Sandpoint, or all the way over on the Peninsula. And the thing about those weddings is, I really enjoy the drive. Though new roads are the best, even drives over familiar roads are rewarding, with the right music, and maybe some clouds.

I shot a wedding on Priest Lake this last weekend.  The wedding itself was great, and that makes the drive home more rewarding, too. But so did the scenery. The clouds, the autumn trees, the grass, wet from rain. I kept stopping and taking pictures until I ran out of light, probably adding an hour to my drive, and I didn’t mind it at all. Not at all.

My mycophobia is well-documented. Seriously, mushrooms freak me out. But when I saw these in a park, under a tree, in Lynnwood, I knew I wanted to get a picture. So I ran back to the car, got my camera, and took a few shots.

Strange little things, mushrooms. Still, these I found unusually beautiful.

Marcus and I visited my sister and her family in Lynnwood this past weekend, and we spent some time at the pumpkin patch. There were plenty of barnyard animals, which Marcus was intent on photographing. Then we went to where the pumpkins were, where Marcus found one that he particularly liked (and “liked” may be not quite an intense enough word).

Which he dutifully carried around on his head.

Eventually, he wanted to pose for some pictures, and for some reason, he thinks posing for pictures means laying down on one elbow:

Good times had by all. And I’ll conclude with a picture of my sister, Laura.