I'm Back in the Saddle

Not that you knew I was gone but I have been... gone, that is.

Last week, my just-turned-80 Mom went into the hospital for a fairly routine procedure: An angioplasty. Plus, they put some stints in her veins. (Shunts? Whatever they call them.)

Normally, this is performed as an out-patient procedure. Everything went well during the procedure but when she was in recovery, resting comfortably and chatting with her friend, she went into some kind of cardiac arrest as her vital signs suddenly plummeted into the basement. I'm told they did the whole Code Blue thing and the doctor had to punch her in the chest to get her heart going again. They kept her in the hospital for a day or so, in the Cardiac Intensive Care unit, and then released her.

My Mom lives on her own in a senior citizen's mobile home park near San Diego, California. She's quite active and enjoys a busy social life. But the doctors were concerned that she not be left alone for three or four days or so. As a result, my sister, my brother, and I each took a turn staying with her for a day plus an overnight. Naturally, my Mom doesn't have a computer much less internet access.

This was the first time in a very long time I spent any significant amount of extended, quality-time with my Mom; just her and I, that is. Usually, when I visit, there's always been other family members there. Turns out she wanted to know a lot about what it is I do. She already knew I made my living with cameras and she also knew about the subject matter of my work. But she wanted to hear about it in a bit more depth and, since there weren't, as usual, children around, I was able to elaborate a bit more about it.

Surprisingly, my Mom seemed most interested in the creative process that goes into shooting pretty girls. She wanted to know the differences in approach when shooting glamour, fashion, portraiture, and other genres. Who would'a known that kind of stuff would interest her? What made it even more interesting, at least to me, is the fact that my Mom isn't a particularly creative person, i.e., when it comes to artistic endeavors, and I was surprised to learn that she was more interested in the creative process than the results of that process. For instance, when I referred to fashion models as "coat hangers" she laughed but wanted a more detailed explanation. I explained that I didn't mean anything mean-spirited by that description and jumped into a discertation about fashion models "selling" an inanimate product versus glamour models who ARE the product. I thought she'd start exhibiting ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) behaviors when I launched into my explanations but that wasn't the case. Like I said, who would'a known?

I've posted a few more images of my shoot with Tera Patrick last week. I'll say it again: Models like Tera (and MUAs like Jennifer Corona who performed those duties) make the shooter's job so much easier. Images were all captured with a Canon 5D and an 85mm prime, ISO 100, apertures in and around f/5.6 and a shutter speed of 125. Lighting involved a 33.5" Mola beauty dish, a small, silver umbrella, and a 2' by 3' piece of white, foamcore.