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After a long day trying to find an assembly man in Arizona who could immediately put together 3 new cribs for a woman with triplets (the babies needed to go down for a nap and had no place to sleep), I treated myself to an impulse buy.  As I headed down the escalator towards the underground world of BART I found the clarinet player who greets me every morning with a tune.  I thought to myself, “Self, this guy plays some really good old skool jazz and he gets your mornings started in such a positive way, why not buy a CD from him?  You could spend $15 towards the cover at a bar to listen to someone you don’t really care about or you could pay $15 bucks to someone who plays music for you every day.”  I rounded the corner to make sure I had a few dollars and bought a jazz CD from the BART entertainer.  Don Cunningham is his name and I believe he may be one of my new favorite characters.  I wanted to stay and talk to him and possibly give him a big bear hug, but I got shy and thought that maybe he wanted to get back to business playing his instrument, but he was the sweetest man I had met in such a long time.  He even signed my CD cover for me.  Perhaps tomorrow I will buy another and ask him to make it out to daddy bruce (my papa).   Thank you, Don Cunningham, for making my day and filling my apartment with some amazing melodies.    

To purchase a CD from Don Cunningham, or to sample his music, view the following link: http://cdbaby.com/cd/doncunningham

This is a little delayed, but now that I have a few minutes to myself and our laptop is free I get to post away.  Cooper and I have been back from our Oregon/Washington trip for a week now, but I am still soaking in all that happened.  We did lots with Cooper’s family, saw friends at a bbq at Katie Tolan’s apartment, had our yearly lunch in Portland with Connealy and Alex, then went to the main event in Hood River…Charlie and Katie’s wedding.  Do I have some photos to share!  As always, my photos below don’t do the wedding justice…if you want the good stuff you have to go to Cooper’s website.  We didn’t do a very good job of getting many photos of ourselves, and unfortunately all of the photos that I took of Cooper were out of focus, but at least we got good shots of the important people.  Katie and Charlie did an amazing job of planning their wedding.  The site itself was perfection…right at the base of Mt. Hood between pear orchards and vineyards, complete with a barn, horses, swings, gardens, and old trucks. Not to mention the owners of the bed and breakfast were such sweet people and know how to cook a darn good b-fast.  I want to relive the event!! 

The funniest footage on you tube I have seen yet (second to the inmates dancing to thriller, of course).  The first and last clips are my favorite.

Cooper’s feet in seaweed

Mud flats, Olympia, WA

Oh my.  Coming to Washington in the summer is like going to the most amazing dreamland when you thought you already had nice dreams.  Our time with Cooper’s family has included: hiking through the dense woods and eating our way through thanks to Cooper’s mom’s vast knowledge about botany, going to the local farmer’s market and picking prime produce for dinner, buying the forever wanted wool yarn so I can attempt to felt a handbag, eating good home cooked food, eating a picnic dinner while listening to seals bark at us, watching hundreds of bats leave their day spot at dusk, trekking through the mud flats during low tide and feeling the incredible sensation not only of the mud but the soft seaweed under my toes, lots of eating, more eating, good conversation, family, homebrew, and the list goes on.  I feel like a new woman after having spent so much time in clean air and beautiful surroundings.  Who knew you could eat the flowers from a fennel plant?  Oh, so good.

Tomorrow we plan to go to the Thurston County Fair then to Seattle to visit some SCU friends.  What started as a dinner with a friend and his gf has turned into a little SCU reunion bbq.  I can’t wait! 

Three more days until another friend ties the knot.  Whooo hoooo Charliemann!! Whoo hoo. 

photobooth action, 2007

I think the old saying, “You can’t help but love a photobooth” couldn’t be more true.   As a child my mom and I used to talk about the things we loved from each day before going to sleep and she would always remind me: “Assi, don’t forget, you love photobooths.”  Yes, mother, I always have and I always will.

None of the above is true except for the fact that people can’t help but love a photobooth.  Personally, I always get a bit shy when I see one.  I can hear it calling my name and I can sense it wanting me to come in and take a photo, but I get hesitant.  Until you sit in and close the curtain.  Then it is easy to become a different person and live in the limelight.

Notice how Cooper’s head looks like twice the size of mine.  We did another set in Color and I sat in front, but my little while head looks like a turtle so maybe I won’t post those.

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We are in Washington now.  Pierce Carsnon (our car) made the 12 hour trip very comfortable and speedy.  Our first stop along the way was at Burger King for breakfast, at which time I decided I needed to call my mom to report on what crap food I got to eat on the road trip.  Before we left BK we grabbed a crown which was deemed as our driving hat.  Too bad Cooper’s head is so big, the crown idea didn’t last too long on him.  The highlight in the crap food extravaganza: McDonalds in Oregon.  It was a luxury McDonalds complete with nice seating in front of a fireplace, a canoe on the ceiling, and a dessert bar!  We enjoyed a hot fudge sundae and dippin’ dots.  I put on 10 pounds in one day.  So it goes.   

Wedding season for the fall has begun…now it is full steam ahead!  This past weekend we shot a wedding in the south bay which had a stretch hummer limo, orange and red color theme, baby break dancing, Disney characters all around, and a good old fashioned photo booth.  At some point I’ll have to post the photos cooper and I took in the photo booth, but for now the above photos will have to do.

On Friday we are off to Washington/Oregon to see Cooper’s family and then shoot/attend the wedding of our friends Charlie and Katie next Friday.  I simply can’t gosh darn diddily wait. 

This is a few months old, but my sister just found this article online and reminded me that some of Cooper’s work in Puerto Vallarta was featured in Mexico in May!  The slideshow and photos are all his, but the video is from a local woman in PV.  If you look at the video you can see me in the lower right hand corner taking photos as Serena and Fabio walk down the aisle. This was the beach in Puerto Vallarta where we had to take a speed boat to access the site (and saw dolphins on the “commute” to work).  We will be going back down there in November to shoot a same sex wedding.

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The earthquake that rattled our area last night certainly got my sleeping heart a pumping, but nothing happened. If anything, we noticed a photo was askew in the morning.  It is funny how your body responds to something like your apartment shaking.  Cooper and I both jumped up and looked at each other in an odd way, then my first reaction was, “I can’t be wearing pajama pants during an earthquake! I need jeans on!”  Oh, Allison.

What do Cooper and Ali do when we have a few moments of spare time?  We look at pictures in magazines to try and figure out how the lighting is setup.  Yup, add one to the dorksimus maximus chart.  It is actually kind of fun and something I never even thought of before.  We look for whatever reflective pieces might be in the photo to see what sort of light boxes they use, where they are placed, where the photographer might be standing in relation to the light, etc.  If you look at a copy of the August 2007 Vanity Fair, you can see in the reflective space helmet the location of the photographer, his sidekicks, how the lighting is setup, what their vans look like, etc.  The main article of this cover story has an even better picture…five or six guys and they all have reflective helmets. 

Copyright Vanity Fair, August 2007

The magazine photos that really make me think are the close up portraits of an actor/actress where the only reflective surfaces are the eyes.  I never before had looked into the eyes of a celebrity as closely as I do now.  I always thought Cooper was just really into a certain celebrity and liked looking at her for hours, but really he was studying the photograph and how it was shot.  Then he showed me the secret.  In the eyes you can make out the shapes of the light boxes and where they are located.  Whenever I looked at the cover photos in the past I would read the tag lines, look at the celebrity, then dive into the magazine.  Now, (with Cooper’s guidance) I have a deeper appreciation for what is actually going on and try to imagine what might be on the other side of the cover girl/guy.  Ok, I suppose I have hit my geek level for the morning.  

This is a little late coming, but I finally got around to downloading my photos.  Last weekend I went home to celebrate my sista and bro’s birthdays…a double whammy.  Unfortunately, as the photos below describe, a lot of attention was dedicated towards some food and one special lady…

The trip to Solvang a few weekends prior induced a need for Abelskivers in the morning.

A not so sure about them, abelskiver eater

Glamour shots photo of Assi (age 12).  Don’t ask, but I know you are thinking “ohh la la” (or something)

Three household pets waiting to be let in

One of my best friends

Amelia and her dad enjoying a little air

Maybe she is learning from her aunt/grandmother…hide your face when a camera is nearby.

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This weekend was perhaps one of the last weekends Cooper and I will have before we dive deep into wedding after wedding after wedding.  Although it really has not been that long, I feel like it has been ages since we have shot a wedding.  Funny how just a couple of weeks feels like months.  I certainly can’t complain though…I would much rather be busy than not!

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I had a moment this morning.  I was in the shower thinking about how good baked beans sounded for breakfast (you know, in the hearty English breakfast sort of way), but I knew we didn’t have a can of the good stuff.  After many minutes searching for something to eat I attempted looking into our “reserves” (a cabinet full of canned good for those just in case emergency moments) and I found myself some baked beans.  I can’t tell you how excited I was to have beans for breakfast.  I guess I get excited a little too easily over very random things.   

Assi in Hawaii, age 4 or 5

Oh, to be a child.  No real stress, no need to “figure out your life,” no financial obligations.  All you do is eat, sleep, poop.  The only things that consume your day are the little details like who is watching you go down the slide, what music is playing and do you know the words to “ring around the rosie,” how many times can you turn a towel around without getting bored, etc.  People constantly surround you in an effort to protect you and your every move, or they do crazy movements and make ridiculous sounds in an attempt to entertain you (when really you entertain them).   As you can see from the photo above of me as a child, I loved to entertain, but the little details caused me to be a very sensitive and serious gal.

This weekend I have spent nearly all my time following my niece around and playing.  Whenever I come home now my family always asks, “What do you want to do while you are home?”  My answer: “Just stay home and play.” Without question, she is another soul mate in my life.  The day I arrived she fought taking a nap because she knew I was soon to drive up, then she greeted me with giggle after giggle after giggle (amazing for someone who is only 19 months old and have not seen in 16 weeks).  She can say my name and does a great job of calling me to play all the live long day.   I have taken pictures of my time home, but of course all 29387592375 of them are of her.  Yes, I am in love.

Tomorrow, back to reality and away from the dream world of childhood.  Oh, to be a child again.