Family
By Scott Shephard
You may have noticed a few photos of "Wandering Star" in this blog. Well, here's another one. There is nothing particularly photogenic about the boat on the trailer, though my wife, Deb, does add significantly. We took the boat off the water this past weekend and it now sits in my driveway waiting for the final clean-up before we store it for the winter. It was a good summer but as people around here are inclined to say in early September: "Where did the time go?"
How are Deb and I celebrating? I'm in Minnesota at the PGA tournament with my son Brian and Deb's in Sioux Falls. How's that for romance? But she is special and I am lucky. And we will no doubt celebrate our anniversary on Friday. Will I give her an opal, which is the gift you give on your 34th? I doubt it.
Happy anniversary, Deb. You are still beautiful.
(PS: Can you see the shadowy figure reflected in her eyes? He looks alot like this guy.)
Canon 5D 1/320s f/8.0 ISO400 105mm
It would appear that I'm trying to score points with my in-laws in this blog over the last few days. But of all the photos I took in Alaska, this is one of my favorites. When we walked by the cut-out on the streets of Sitka, Alaska, my mother-in-law agreed to pose. But she didn't agree to be the "Picture of the Day." I guessing I'm out of the will. Again.
Canon 5DII 1/60s f/5.6 ISO100 28mm
Our son Jon has a way of getting work that allows him to get paid to do things that others might do just for the fun of it. This summer he is in Sitka, Alaska, taking tourists on thrilling (and occasionally bone-jarring) rides in the waters around Sitka. The boat is a high-performance Zodiac-like vessel that Jon says will do 60 mph on smooth water.
In this photo Jon is giving us our instructions before we board the boat. Reassuringly, he tells his passengers that the orange suits they are wearing will keep them afloat if they should fall overboard. No one fell off - not even my 70+ mother-in-law. (And NO, I wasn't wishing she would. I love my mother-in-law. :-) )
Several years ago our oldest son Brian gave a concert and part of his Senior Project at the University of South Dakota. As I was looking for photos to post to this blog, I came across the pictures I had taken for Brian. There wasn't much light in the room other than that lighting the stage. This photo has a gritty look to it - in part because of the black and white process I applied but also because I was shooting at high ISO.
This is what I look like when I travel. I think this is a flattering view! Behind me is the little grocery store that was just down the road from the hotel my wife and stayed at while visiting Corfu, Greece, in 2006. The store had a little bit of everything but was so small that three or four customers would have challenged its aisle space. But the store owner was friendly and thought big: on the awning the store proudly announces itself as a "Super Market" (in English)!
Canon 5D 1/125s f/7.1 ISO500 50mm
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License
By Scott Shephard
I posted a photo a couple weeks ago that elicited several responses amongst my facebook friends. It was called "Memories for Sale." Today I am posting two photos taken back in the late 1960s by an anonymous photographer that captures my mom and dad in great form.
In looking for photos to decorate my mom's new room in the nursing home she has moved to, my sister found these and stuck them up on the bulletin board. When I visited my mom this past weekend, they were one of the first things I noticed. I didn't have access to a scanner so I simple took photos of the photos. Thus, the quality isn't all that great. But to me, the great subjects make up for that.
Forgive the self-portrait, but since I posted my cat Mac yesterday, I thought I owed it to my dog Polly's memory to post one of her.
This is the last photo taken of Polly. She had been struggling with bladder cancer and had already had 1/3 of her bladder removed when symptoms of her problem recurred. On the day we took her to the vet to have her put to sleep, she and I went out to my studio for one last official portrait. I set the camera up on a tripod and hooked up a self-timer and took four shots. This is my favorite.
People who see this picture comment on the adoring way she seems to be staring at me and the way her paw seems to be posed on my bare foot. The adoring look really comes from Polly's eagerness for another treat, which I am holding in my hand. And the paw just happened to rest on my foot - it wasn't posed there.
They say that we should try to be the kind of person our dogs think we are. Even though Polly has been gone for over five years, I still try to keep that saying in mind. Are we too crazy about our pets?
By Scott Shephard
This one showed up in a folder of film scans I hadn't looked at in a long time. Mac is fairly young in the picture and looks a little suspicious - he's probably afraid of my camera.
By Scott Shephard
After my father died and my mother decided to move to an assisted living center a few years later, she sold the house in which I had grown up and held an auction for its contents. I was present at the auction and although I wasn't sad that day, I am saddened now when I look at the photos I took. If you could imagine all of the things that decorated the walls and stood on the shelves being boxed and then, with any luck, sold for a dollar or two, maybe you can understand my sadness.
This box of bowling trophies won by my mom and dad was one of three that was up for auction. No one even bid on them and I suppose they were thrown away. I guess there is no market for old bowling trophies. But when I look at these, there are so many things that I recall about the bowling leagues my parents participated in, the times I hung out at the bowling alley and the friends my parents knew through bowling.
For me, this picture is the most personal and powerful photo I have posted in this blog. I'm guessing most of you will look at it and wonder what the big deal is. . . .
So far I am responsible for taking the pictures posted on my "Photo A Day" blog. But this photo isn't my doing - it was taken by a woman named Leah DeGeest. The subject is my wife, Debra and Leah was Deb's grandmother. The setting for the photo is the DeGeest farm south of Miller, SD, and it was taken in the late 1950's.
What is little Debbie up to? Some kind of chores, I'd guess. What a great moment and great photo! I think it has a kind of Dorothea Lange look, though during the late '50s, spending time on her grandparent's farm was a near-perfect existence for a city child like Deb.
Camera and settings unknown. This is a scan from our family photo archive.
Here's another one with high sentimental value. I was asked by my recently-engaged son, Brian, to take engagement photos of him and his fiancée, Katie. Of course I said, "Yes." But I was nervous - partly because I hadn't done any studio portraiture in months and partly because I had never done any real formal portraiture of my own family. But both subjects were relaxed and easy to work with. And they were photogenic. (How could a father and future father-in-law say anything else?!)
Brian has been the subject of another post to this blog - Take A Leap (02). Some might argue that delving into a relationship and ultimately into marriage constitutes a sort of a leap of faith, as well. But as I observe Katie and Brian, I don't think this about them. Their relationship seems like the perfect mix of reason and emotion - but it's not a leap of faith.
Canon 5DII f/8.0 1/100 Canon 24-105 4.0L 88mm ISO 100
