67 years. Can you imagine? That means they got married during World War II. Not born, but MARRIED. Don is 88 and Helen is 87. He doesn’t hear too well, and her knees are pretty bad. I just hope my life looks like theirs in my late eighties. Still stealing kisses. Still sitting next to my sweetheart. We won’t all be so lucky.
Don & Helen, September 2011
Don and Helen live at The Sarah Community, a retirement home for senior Catholic sisters that also serves the public. I made these portraits for The Sarah Community’s “Chapel Campaign” after being hired by the unique talents at Almanac, who designed the print brochure (see below). Photographing the aged is something special – I actually really enjoy it. There’s so much accumulated experience there, so much life, I feel like maybe I can soak up some of the wisdom just by proximity. And they’re usually enthusiastic, grateful to be involved, patient.
Sister Joleen is 99 years old and she tells better jokes than you.
Sister Joleen
Sister Antonice was a school teacher for 59 years – she said she misses the kids every day.
Sister Antonice
Sister Sarah showed me a professional beauty shot she had done a few, or more likely kind of a lot of, years ago. Wowie.
Right, see, this is what I was talking about. My talented colleague and pal Bill Sawalich (here) fixed up the winter photograph from my last post. Much better, Bill, thanks. You really know how to bling it.
Now that we’re supposedly settling into the long haul of winter, and it’s 56 degrees and sunny outside right now, I thought I’d share this architectural shot I did for my best hospital client. (Mwah! You know who you are.) It’s tough to make a hospital look pretty, even when it has lovely landscaping, but this gets close. A little HDR action here (that’s High Dynamic Range: pulls detail back into shadows and highlights), which is atypical of my work, but I still do it manually, and very very sparingly. I want it to look like a photograph, rather than, you know, vomit.
A Nice Hospital, January 2011.
Humor me here, just do a quick Google Image search for “HDR”. See? Tell me about your favorites.
Some incredible photographs of Depression-era American life in color (!) on the Denver Post photography blog. Seeing historical photos in color makes it feel more immediate, like it could be happening right now.
Oh. Wait.
Faro and Doris Caudill, homesteaders. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Photo by Russell Lee.
