My mom would have been 88 years old today.

We had our differences.

She wanted me to be a linguist. I wanted to be a fighter pilot. I ended up studying engineering, and then becoming a photographer.

She made me take piano lessons and practice classical music. I wanted to play rock on an electric guitar.

She wanted me to read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. I wanted to read Spider Man and Batman, the action adventures of Mack Bolan and Sam Fisher and Drizzt Do’Urden, the writings of Buckminster Fuller and Carl Sagan, and the science and technology behind the moon landing. (I never could get her to read Lord of the Rings. Or Atlas Shrugged.)

She dragged me through the Louvre, when I wanted to visit Auto Museum Hillers. (Credit where credit is due, though … we DID end up vising both … multiple times.) Because of her, I’ve seen the desk where Goethe wrote Faust, the door to which Martin Luther allegedly nailed his Ninety Five Theses, and traced the path of Siegfried down the Rhein.

It scared her half to death, but in the summer of my 17th year she paid for me to take lessons and get my pilot’s license.

That’s how she was. Regardless of what her dreams for me were, she always supported my dreams, and was always proud of my accomplishments.

She taught me to love learning, and to love life. She taught me how to laugh at myself, and cry for others. She taught me to be skeptical, to think and reason, to speak my mind and to stand up for what I believe in.

Without her, I would not be who I am today.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I miss you.

Coming this Fall, to Newmarket and Rochester, NH

A workshop for Moms, Dads, and Scrapbookers of All Ages!

Dates and Times To Be Announced. (I need at least 4 interested people before I can schedule a session.)

Express your interest at BookBumz in Rochester, at Crackskulls Coffee & Books in Newmarket, or by contacting Rich.

My work is featured on the Let The Kids Dress Themselves blog this weekend!

Check out my new listings on Thumbtack.com, an online service that makes it easier than ever to find, compare, and get bids from LOCAL providers of everything from administrative support for your business, to daycare for your kids; from auto detailing to foreign language translation …

Celebrating Childhood in Photographs Want to improve your photography? Take lessons!

I’m currently building a body of work about children: Who they are, how they define themselves and how they see and make their place in the world.

I’m looking for young people, ranging in age from around six or seven to around 12 or 13, who have discovered an aptitude for, and developed a dedication to, a self-expressive endeavour.

Examples might include a sport like gymnastics or figure skating; the playing of a musical instrument; craftsmanship in something like carpentry or woodcarving or jewelry making; artistry in painting or drawing, architecture or sculpture; etc.

If your child has embarked upon the path to mastery, or if you teach, coach, or mentor such a young person, I would love to chat with you and them about participating in this project.

This is a relatively long-term project. I would like to photograph participants three to four times per year for the next two to three years. The “finished product” will be a series of character studies for gallery exhibition and publication as a monograph (book).

As a “thank you”, participants will receive one 8×10 inch finished photograph from their first session, a discount on additional enlargements, a digital copy of the image for personal use (e.g. email to the grandparents, share with FaceBook friends, etc.) and, at the end of the project, a CD with an assortment of images from all of their sessions.

If you’re interested in participating, or finding out more, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you for your time,

RichD

As many of you already know, after over 3 years of faithful, non-stop, heavy usage, my main computer finally gave up the ghost. (Shut it down one evening, everything running perfectly fine, go to turn it on the next morning … Nuthin’. Even the pro techs at MacEdge and Apple are stumped.) As is so common in this day and age, that machine had my entire business on it – LightRoom, PhotoShop, email, contacts, calendar, everything.

Fortunately, thanks to 30 years of experience working with electronic equipment, I have a backup of all my data, image files, and even a backup machine that can (just barely) run LightRoom – so I’m not completely dead in the water.

To get back up to full production capacity, however, I need to replace the dead equipment. To do that I need money … to do that I need to sell some stuff … and to do that … I need your help.

I have 20 silver gelatin prints, selenium toned, mounted, matted and framed – ready to hang on the wall. The images range in size from 11×11 inches to 11×14 inches (approximately 16×16 to 16×20 inches including the mats and frames). These are “artist proofs” – I made them specifically for me so that I could see what particular images look like completely finished – from various bodies of work that I am building for eventual gallery representation and publication. Normally I wouldn’t just sell these off, but through 31 March 2011 I’m willing to part with them for just $175- each. (Normally I ask $250- for 11 inch prints without frames.)

I also have a number of smaller prints from those same bodies of work. I usually offer these for sale when I do a trade fair or farmer’s market booth. They are pigment-on-paper prints on papers sized either 8.5×11 inches or 5×7 inches. Regularly I ask $60- for the 8.5x11s and $30- for the 5x7s. Again, my price reduction, good through 31 Mar 2011, puts these at $40- and $20-, respectively.

Further, for anyone wanting to book custom-made portraits of your kids, I’m slashing my creation fee (regularly $300-) in half – that’s only $150- if you book and pay before 31 Mar 2011. As an added incentive, I’ll also knock 50% off the regular fee for the first image you order from your session.

In summary:

	Regularly	Until 31 Mar 2011
11×11/11×14 silver prints	$250-	$175-
8.5×11 pigment-on-paper prints	$60-	$40-
5×7 pigment-on-paper prints	$30-	$20-
Photo session for your family	$300-	$150-
First finished photograph from your session: 8-inch 11-inch 16-inch 20-inch	$125- $250- $500 $1000-	$60- $125- $250- $500-

The following images are available as framed silver prints, $175- each through 31 March 2011:

These are available as pigment-on-paper at 8.5×11 and 5×7 sizes, $40- and $20-, respectively, through 31 Mar 2011:

These I only have as 5×7 pigment-on-paper, $20- each through 31 Mar 2011:
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“In this country we encourage ‘creativity’ among the mediocre, but real bursting creativity appalls us. We put it down as undisciplined, as somehow ‘too much’.” – Pauline Kael

I was reminded of this quote by this incisive (and insightful) video from Stephen Fry:

Some insight into what he’s talking about is also available in the Jargon File, in Chapter 4. Jargon Construction, in the section on Overgeneralization. The last paragraph reads:

This is not ‘poor grammar’, as hackers are generally quite well aware of what they are doing when they distort the language. It is grammatical creativity, a form of playfulness. It is done not to impress but to amuse, and never at the expense of clarity.

A little further on, in the section on Comparatives:

Coinages for describing lossage seem to call forth the very finest in hackish linguistic inventiveness; it has been truly said that hackers have even more words for equipment failures than Yiddish has for obnoxious people.

It’s so good to come across people like Mr. Fry, who still have an appreciation for playfulness in language.

Ten years after we first made photographs together, her vibrance, spirit and beauty still captivate and inspire me.

Here are some quick snapshots from August, that I’ve finally gotten around to processing.

It’s wonderful to have clients who love my work so much that they want seconds (or thirds, as the case may be). Some of my favorite clients have asked me to come back, all the way from New Hampshire, to make some more photographs for them.

Consequently I am pleased to announce that I will be in the Salt Lake City, Utah area from the 19th of August through the 24th of August. I currently have sessions scheduled for the 20th, the 21st and the 23rd. I can still take on 2 more sessions while I’m out there, if anyone is interested.

Spent the day at the 30th Annual Somersworth International Children’s Festival yesterday.

Let me preface this post by saying that “event photography” is not exactly my forté. Especially at events like this one, the backgrounds are busy no matter which way you turn, there’s next to no control over lighting situations (it’s not like you can ask them to move their entire booth over here where there’s nice open shade …), and if you blinked you missed it. Nevertheless I think I got some interesting photographs.

Here they are setting up in the morning:

The people came and looked:

The Humane Society had a booth where the kids could visit with dogs that need adopting:

There were ‘train’ rides:

A parade with Chinese dragons:

and clowns:

and this guy:

The Cub Scouts were there with a Pinewood Derby track:

Wipeout!

There were booths with face painting:

Clowns doing balloon sculptures:

“Make your own Princess Crown” kits:

Here the kids (and their parents) could learn about Pakistan:

This little leopard is checking out spices from the rainforests of Belize:

At another table there were traditional toys from eastern Europe:

Over here they could see marvels made by modern technology:

This young lady was displaying her paintings (can you believe she’s an EIGHTH GRADER!?!?!? What talent!):

In the “It’s a Small World” department, these kids ran into their favorite teacher:

Among all the other interesting people was this little diva, who just HAD to stop and pose for the camera:

and of course there was music:

and magic … gotta love Audience Participation performers!

All in all it was a great day! I didn’t even get sunburned!

I look forward to seeing you at next year’s event!