DUCKtoday

So, we heard that the shelter in Springfield ran out of food. The shelter near our apartment in Greenfield isn’t doing so badly but could always use some of everything. Whaddaya need? Juice, oil, towels, etc. So, we brought them the above and three pizza and some soda. Got thanks we didn’t deserve. Thank you for the chance to meet and talk.

You gotta believe how hard it is to get a job that offers some future. People don’t choose to live in these group homes. Getting out of them is a challenge.

Some days you do and some days you don’t. Cannot predict what the shoots entail or how you feel about them or yourself when you finish. Different subjects create different emotions and require different skills. One in a studio. One on the street. One in a store.

Not so easy to shoot a portrait of a family in their residence. People have stuff to do. Dad has to hay. Kids have to play. And Mom, who has a responsible job outside the home, has to drive the kids to Brattleboro so the grandparents can take them to Connecticut for a short vacation. Cannot stay too long. Have to keep the camera and the models focused. Rearrange the furniture. Set up the lights. Meter. Color card. Shoot. And get out. It always helps if the family wants to be photographed and if they are sweethearts. You can see from the expressions they like to be together and that they are a family.

So, you go to a class expecting some instruction. Heisler appears with a raft of cameras. He plays with them. Shows you some of his work and then dares you to go out and shoot to kill, just like he does.

“I won’t keep this a secret,” he says. Someone taught him, mentored him and opened doors to the universe of photography that he gleefully walked through.

They be his babies. He shoots with them; fixes and repairs them; and loves them for what they should and could do.

Metalsmiths shape metal by hitting it after it has been heated in a furnace. An ancient art, it has probably been around since the Hittites, a 14th century bce group that hung out in an area which is now Turkey. Without metalsmiths, there may not have been wars, agribusiness or beauty accessories. The Morrell family, Dad Leigh and Son Justin, practice the craft, today, at Morrell Metalsmiths, relying on the same skills and knowledge as the first people with hammers to produce high quality decorations for home and office.

Farmers have smarts. They need to be vets, businessmen, and dedicated. Milk the cows in the morning. Milk the cows in the evening. Feed them. Keep them healthy. No days off. And they have to relate to cows, some of the dumbest animals God put on earth, but without whom we would not have chocolate milk or porterhouse steaks.

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Doctors told her that she had a better chance of winning the lottery than having a baby. She kept trying, despite the challenge of a rebelling body and an uncooperative mind. The baby came, requiring her to make choices. She has her idea of what a kid should be. He reflects her care and love.

I never shot a baby before. Lot of work. They don’t know what photographers require of them and they don’t care.

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Photographers create beauty. To take beautiful pictures, a photographer needs a beautiful person. When the person loves herself and lets the camera see it, beauty reflects. The camera facilitates the observation, but without the committment of the model to sharing, it don’t happen.