My Father's Lips

These are my father's lips. For the first fourteen years of my life they were largely unknown to me. For a number of years A Van Dyke beard covered most of the lower section of his face; a mustache grew over his upper lip, and a goatee covered the extent of his chin, and before this a full beard decorated the expanse of his cheeks. 

One day he shave it all off. All of it. We pleaded in favor of the life of the Van Dyke, but my father simply said- It is time. And that was that; he never looked back. For myself, I was shocked. The fact that my father even had lips amazed me, and more so I was fascinated by the way they curled- and I still am today. Nobody has lips like my father, they seemed to curl with open joy, and yet they seem to enclose some greater wisdom. They bring me joy. 

Many people are like my Father's lips, they conceal themselves and their greatness. They remain hidden in perhaps some ornate decorated facade for some time, but eventually their desire to be revealed wins and they come forth, their natural simplicity made public. 

Nothing against my father's beard, it was more than epic in its own right, but there's just something about those lips. 

Milo Simons

Milo Simons is the newest member of my family. My sister-in-law, Rachael, asked me if I could take some photographs of the boy a couple months ago. I could not, for I was not available due to the great distance between us. But just last week my family rendezvoused in Milo's abode in Lehi and from there vacationed down to St. George, hence the distance gap between us lessened and so I became available to photograph the boy. I photogaphed Milo, and these are the results. 

I enjoy this look. I mellow the blacks and highlights, and add I certain tint with white balance adjustments. This one has a green tint. 

The delights of outsourcing my negative scanning– the scanners rarely get all the photos cropped correctly– notice the large vertical bar. Its these kind of things that make me love film photography. 

We drove down to a nearby nature park and sauntered down the trails till we found the appropriate spot. We chose a nice shady spot near the creek. It was a good spot, but it seems that it may have been too dark, or that I had my shutter speed down too low. I did what I could but they still have a lot of black in them, but I like the way they came out: the serendipitous delights of film. We changed location and the second set came out noticeably brighter. This is my first shoot focusing on a newborn, I hope you enjoy it. 

All of these captured by my Nikkormat FT through my 50mm prime 1.4 lens on 35mm Kodak Gold 200 film. 

Tandem

They Performed at Rockin to Keep Rollin: The Bicycle Revolution. They were the real deal.

I later heard that they would be broadcasted on a local radio show Monday Night. Joe and I tuned in. They sang La Dum (proper spelling maybe). They said that they planned to finally record some music over the Seven Week Break. I said, well, you're going to need some pictures to go along with it. They said, why not.

So that was that, and then we were in the back of this abandoned garden holding up old moldy frames and things, and I had mostly functioning cameras and things everywhere, and thats what we call a photo shoot.

Malorie and Michael

We ran into each other at the train tracks. They were walking together, talking about their romantic future, obviously; I was alone and capturing the aura of the tracks in my box. I took a few pictures of them. I had shot her and her roommates way back when. She asked me about engagements. I responded.

A few weeks later Michael proposed to Malorie at those same tracks.

When she asked me to shoot her engagements, I obliged.

These are the result.