It's A Winter Wonderland

Cheryl & Her Lover

It's a winter wonderland. I keep telling myself, "It's a winter wonderland". Keeps me from driving my snow plow through the side of the house and moving to New Mexico. "It's a winter wonderland."

The deeper lakes around here (100 feet or better) remain open, whereas the shallower ones have frozen over. I noted some kids ice skating this last Saturday on one and some ice fishermen out on a couple yesterday. Tis the season.
Best to send the model out ahead of you to test the ice however. Make sure she leaves her clothes on shore where she will be able to slip into something dry should she fall through. Also make sure she stomps her feet to test for weak spots you should avoid when you venture out.

Erin ~ Blonde

Of course I am kidding. Erin is very intelligent. She just happens to be a redhead these days so I can get away with this now.
She did go out and stomp on the ice however while I remained safely on shore.

Up and running

Cheryl

It is not often I shoot fashion but when Cheryl wanted to climb around on my studio ladder in that dress....who the hell was I to tell her, no.
And she is so dang cute in there.

Crawled under Golden Hooves and banged on the solenoid that locks in the transfer case. Nothing! Noticed another set of wires going to it and began to investigate. One hot, one not. But the not was also not a ground. Grrrrrr! Decided to pull a garage mechanic trick and disconnected the battery terminal and then re-attached it. Walla! 4 wheel drive now works again. Something in the computer crud had gone haywire. Disconnecting the battery terminal clears the computer problem and you are good to go once again. Of course a garage mechanic would have charged you $450.00 for that fix, claiming you needed a new brain box.
I hate cars built after 1964, and garage mechanics more.

There is a gal who lives far away from me that I'm missing very much.

There is a moose in southern California

Cheryl

I slept through the night last night. That may seem normal for most of you but it is very odd for me. So odd in fact I'm not sure it felt good. My body is still assessing the situation.

It has been a week now and I miss my Moose. I'm having Cheryl withdrawals and discussing with the wife the feasibility of me making a southern California run for a week or so. She lives just outside Joshuah Tree and that would give me ample backgrounds to work with.
I have not been in that part of California and it should be fun to explore it with someone who grew up there.

But for right now I need to concentrate on the winter storm that is going to hit this evening. I will no doubt be out all night plowing.

I can't find my warranty either

Cheryl ~ No Lemon

I can't get Golden Hooves to go into 4 wheel drive. It is an electric over vacuum system and I have traced it down to a solenoid valve that should operate when I push the button to direct the vacuum to an actuator on the transfer case. The electric is fine to the solenoid but it is not operating.
I hate working on cars that were built after 1964.
I think it has moisture in it and is frozen. Tomorrow I will heat it up and see if she will go, and if it does I will leave her in 4 wheel drive for the remainder of the winter.
Arrrrrggggggg!
Only 317,000 miles and she is falling apart already.

Sunday

Cheryl ~ The Kiss

A wonderful day it is.

Like, Tinkerbell

Cheryl

Every once in awhile you get some magical light that shows up when you are working with studio lights.You can plot and plan, spend hours re adjusting the lights and model and you just can't get it to show up. Then, bam!, there it is for a fleeting nano second.
You either capture it in that brief moment or it disappears never to return. You will pull out your hair (why I look like I do) trying to get it back. After all, she is still in that position and the lights are still in that position, it must be close. But alas you can't find it.
If you were able to trip the shutter at that special moment you may not even have seen it yourself, and once sitting at the computer editing images you stumble across an image that truly must have been created by Odin and his daughters.
Such is the image above. I knew I was getting close. I could feel it. But, I didn't see it go by. Not until today when working on that set. The one before it and the one after are very nice but they do not possess that magical, fleeting light.

On top of it, it snowed again

Cheryl

I've been reminded that I'm acting like a curmudgeon once again so I will attempt to write without talking about our Government and the sheep, or religion.

Spent a goodly portion of the day doing projects for the in-laws that were a waste of money and time, but they are leaving for Minneapolis for the next few months starting Sunday and I will no longer be a little slave boy. But tomorrow I am afraid I will be stuck there draining all the water pipes in their house so it can bee closed down. It is not a big project and only takes five times as long as it needs to because he wants to help.
Every year he gets a calendar from the Farm Service Bureau. Every day of his life he write on his calendar. So today I had to take him over to the Farm Service Bureau to get his new calendar. On the way there he started to think about what he would do if they were out of calendars. His life would be thrown into a tail spin. He began to cry in the car.
When you are in the condition he is in little things like that are big issues. I didn't even bring up the idea of using a different calendar, I knew it would not be what he wanted to hear.
He walked out with two calendars and a big grin on his face. Life was good once again.

Somebody is happy

Bah, bah, bah

Cheryl

So this sorry ass Government of ours is attempting to discredit WikiLeaks by telling people the owner is some sex fiend and that the company is posing a threat to national security.
What they are really doing is screaming because people will find out what this sorry ass Government is really up to.
We see it every day in the news. Governments in other nations controlling what the people of that country hear and see. Do you think it doesn't happen here?
If you have followed my blog for any amount of time you know that I think this Government of ours is one of the worst. It is run by people who don't give a rat's ass about the people and do not let them in on anything important because they believe the American people are a bunch of sheep.
I have to agree with them on that one, but still this is not the Government this country was based upon. It has grown to be something of a monster that no longer can be controlled by the people.
National security? Shouldn't we know something about that? Shouldn't we control that?
No longer it seems. People we don't even know control that, and they don't want us to know what they are doing.
I'm not sure that is what Thomas Jefferson had in mind.
It is not going to get any better until people have had enough and take this country back from this sorry ass Government. And yes, that mean over throwing it. Trouble is we are many years too late and this Government has safeguards built in now that prevent any such attempt.
A revolution every now and then is a good thing.
It remains to be seen if this country is able to pull it off.
I don't think it can without major casualties. I'm talking major casualties. I'm talking millions of Americans dying to take back our country from this runaway Government.
And it will happen. The question is when. When will the American people say, "Enough".
Then you can post your sob stories in emails that you want passed on about people dying for this country. Those will be the people who actually will die for America and our rights.
Those will be the people who stand up and say something important.
The rest of you....you are just sheep.

Six bloody months till May

Cheryl

Here it is November 25th and I am already snow plowed out. I think this is going to be a long winter for me in more ways than one.

Stop already

Cheryl

OK, everybody have it out of your system now?
Last presidential election was about whether we were going to have a black president or a female vice president. It was not about what the person could do for this country. Strictly a minority election and by god we were going to have one whether we needed it or not.
We had a junior senator from Illinois and a female with the IQ of a grapefruit. Didn't matter, we were going to have a minority in the White House. The time had come.
We learned that the woman was a joke early on and opted for the junior senator from a state who has five of its last six Governors in prison. Not a sparkling reputation to draw from. Still, it was the lesser of the evils.
The junior senator has shown us that he should have remained a junior senator for several more years and that he doesn't have a clue what he is doing.
I am hopeful that the American public has this minority thing out of their system come next election and will concentrate on finding someone who knows what they are doing to once again take control of things and get this country started in the right direction. It will be an awful big hole to try and crawl out of after the Bush years followed by the fellow who devalued the dollar to an all time low.
"Hey look! Gold is $1,300. an ounce!"
"Yeah, but your $1,300. is only worth $450., stupid."
So let's get our heads out from our assholes and find someone who has the ability to run this country for our next presidential election and leave the minority for the sake of minority loosers out of it.

Totally Silly Agency

Cheryl

Sooner or later the right people will ask the right question. Is the TSA really needed?
The answer of course is, NO. A useless, money wasting branch of Government that only scans for previous known threats and not new ones that would be employed if a serious attempt were made to do damage to an aircraft, or via an aircraft. TSA could easily pack up and go home and the world would be much better off. Heck, I might even fly then. As it stands you couldn't get me on an airplane with this stupid colored light program and IDIOT, I mean IDIOT TSA employees fanning out my 4X5 exposed sheet film. No thank you. Ruin an entire photo trips worth of film and shame on you. Do it again and shame on me for getting on another airplane.
I'll drive, take a train, bus, walk or boat. Never again will I board an airplane while we have TSA involved.

The lake is trying hard to skim over with ice. If the wind remains calm I do believe I will wake to a frozen over body of water in the morning.
I never got around to putting out the whitefish net so it looks as though I may have to wait until I can walk on the ice and then put it out. Netting through the ice is a pain in the ass but if I want pickled whitefish I will have to.

A couple of AARP members playing in the studio.

Ouch!

Cheryl

I'm having post Cheryl depression.
Between the snow plowing and shoveling I have not had time to work on the images we created and I am feeling a bit lost. She certainly was my highlight of 2010.
Just before I dropped her off at the airport we stopped for lunch. We both ordered from the senior citizens menu. It was somewhat humorous and painful all at the same time.

Isn't it beautiful?

Cheryl ~ Sunflower

November 22: We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the Whole World? Shoveled for the first time this year and felt like a boy again. This afternoon the snow plow came along and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life.

November 24: Snow, lovely snow! 8" last night. The temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I really don't want to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn't huff and puff so.

November 25: 20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife's car and 2 extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly. We aren't in Alaska, after all.

November 26: Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife laughed for an hour, which I think was very cruel.

November 27: Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity was off for 5 hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her. Guess I should've bought a wood stove, but won't admit it to her. God I hate it when she's right. I can't believe I'm freezing to death in my own living room.

November 29: Electricity's back on, but had another 14" of the damn stuff last night. More shoveling. Took all day. Goddamn snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they're too busy playing hockey. I think they're lying. Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow blower and they're out. Might have another shipment in March. I think they're lying.

December 1: 13 more inches of the white shit fell today, and it's so cold it probably won't melt till August. Took me 45 minutes to get all dressed up to go out to shovel and then I had to piss. By the time I got undressed, pissed and dressed again. I was too tired to shovel. Tried to hire Bob who has a plow on his truck for the rest of the winter; but he says he's too busy. I think the asshole is lying.

December 2: Only 2" of snow today. And it warmed up to zero. The wife wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning. What is she...nuts??? Why didn't she tell me to do that a month ago? She says she did but I think she's damn well lying.

December 4: 6". Snow packed so hard by snowplow, l broke the shovel. Thought I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch the son of a bitch who drives that snowplow, I'll drag him through the snow by his balls. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shoveling and then he comes down the street at a 100 miles an hour and throws snow all over where I've just been! Tonight the wife wanted me to sing Christmas carols with her but I was busy watching for the goddamn snowplow.

December 5: 20 more inches of the #$%ing slop tonight. Snowed in. The idea of shoveling makes my blood boil. God I hate the snow! Then the snowplow driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel.

December 6: Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever move here? It was all HER idea. She's really getting on my nerves.

December 8: Warmed up to -40. Still snowed in. THE BITCH is driving me crazy!!!

December 9: 10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel the roof or it could cave in. That's the silliest thing I ever heard. How dumb does he think I am?

December 12: Roof caved in. The snow plow driver is suing me for a million dollars for the bump on his head. The wife went home to her mother. 9" predicted.

December 14: Set fire to what's left of the house.

January 8: I feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me.

Why am I tied to the bed?

A long and painful parting

Cheryl

Well that was a trip and a half. Eleven hours of driving white knuckled from Marcell to Minneapolis and back to Marcell in freezing rain and snow. CNN reports 370 crashes in Minneapolis due to the ice last night. Fortunately I was not one of them.
It was a sad moment for both Cheryl and I when she disappeared into that TSA check point.
We did solidify plans to be working together again, although several months down the road. I am going to do my best to make that happen sooner if at all possible.

Ode to Heather Favell

Cheryl

When you read this I will be returning Cheryl to Minneapolis airport for her journey home to southern California. She has been just a joy to have around these last five days, helping out with dishes and just being a regular person that made her feel like family. She has a wonderful sense of humor that seems to get everybody laughing.
I do believe she has discovered that I am not the curmudgeon I make out to be however, and that has worked for me and against me during this visit. Barking orders looses some of the magic when they don't pay any attention to you.
It will be a sad moment when she walks through the TSA checkpoint and I am left behind. A long ride home to follow.
For those of you who would care to follow Cheryl a bit more, I have added her new blog over there on the right.

Cold ass day

Cheryl

The high today hit 15 degrees. It was about 10 when these shots were taken and we worked outside most of the morning.

This evening we will work in the studio and relax as it is her last night to be with us.

One more day

Cheryl

We finished up day three of working hard with this series on a neighbor's dock. 25 degrees and the wind was nasty.
We shot an entire set and scrambled back to the house to thaw her out. That was when
I discovered I did not have a memory card in the camera. When I broke the news to her it got me a the bird from both hands. Then she told me to grab my camera because we were going back out there and do it again.
But a nice dinner of grilled salmon with home made pesto sauce seems to have calmed her down. Actually she is a real treat to work with and we laughed several times about the incident.
I have not done that since I gave up using 35mm film. I was known to shoot a few sets without putting film in the cameras.
Tomorrow will be my last day of this trip to work with her as Sunday I will need to take her back to Minneapolis to catch her plane. It will be a sad moment when I drop her off.

The void has been filled

Cheryl

Well she is a lot more graceful in this contraption than I was.
If you have a hankering to work with a near perfect (she doesn't like anchovies), 55 year old model that can blow away the majority of 20 and 30 year old models, this is the one.
I picked her up at the airport in Minneapolis on Tuesday and have the pleasure of her company until I have to bring her back on Sunday.
We worked in the studio as long as I was able to and then I dragged her ass outside. 28 degree rocks are not comfortable to lay on for long periods of time but she has not whined once.

I am already planning future shoots with her because I will not be able to satisfy my craving to have her in front of my lens with just four days worth of shooting.
I have found her. I have found my new Moose.

It had to happen

Sarah Jean

Snow. Started snowing around noon today and will continue throughout the night. They are calling for about five inches on the ground by morning in this neck of the woods.

FotoWeek DC is using such a similar photo to promote this years event as The Center For Fine Art Photography's call for entry for portraits that it is spooky. Too damn coincidental if you ask me. But then I think both organizations need to get their acts together and quit praying on weak minded photographers.

Another one from my cactus series where a naked woman stepped right in front of my camera just as the shutter was going off.

At 40 degrees you have 4 minutes

Jesse Cotton ~ POE

Time to start keeping the fire going in the studio. We had been building a fire just on the weekends out there when we knew we would be spending long hours working, but now the temps have gone down far enough that it is time to keep the fire going unless we know we won't be working in there for several days.
Because I have a model coming in on Tuesday that will be with me for several days I will keep it going.

This was a spring time shoot with Jesse Cotton on Lake Superior. Water temp about 40 degrees. She spent the better part of an hour in the lake in order for me to get what I wanted so I don't buy the hypothermia charts one bit. Maybe if you can't move around they mean something. She reported feeling numb but ready to get back in if I needed her to.

It can't get much worse than this

So I was playing with my fabric sling I have rigged to the studio ceiling for the arrival of my muse next week. I was hanging this way and that way, spinning in circles and dangling upside down. At one point I had the fabric on one side wrapped around my arm and the fabric on the other side wrapped around my ankle and I was suspended between in a nice horizontal plane. Had I been a good looking female model it would have made a grand image. Then the trouble started. The weight of my body was pulling the material wrapped around my ankle tighter and tighter and I could not take the weight off. My ankle was stuck six feet off the ground and my arms were getting very tired from holding the top half of my body up. I was in deep doo-doo.
Fortunately the wife came by to give me a hand getting my leg free.
When the camera fired this shot my arms were about to give out. I had been hanging there for quite some time.
It is not a pretty sight but one I thought you all might enjoy. I know I would be laughing my ass off if it had happened to one of you.

Laughable Minnesota politics

Abigail

This was from one of my light painting sessions a few years ago. Sometimes simple is best.

Well Minnesota has done it once again. We are without a Governor until the election crap is over with, sometime around March I recon. Recounts and more recounts, court battles and more court battles.
Nine thousand votes is not that close. Call it good and let's get on with it.
Who ever came up with recounts anyway. Probably some football fan.
Count it once and what you got, you got.

Played in the studio last night, hanging from the fabric sling I have hooked to the ceiling. The fabric is shinny stuff that is rather slippery and I was having some troubles.
I think I will throw a mattress on the floor under it just in case my new muse goes face first.

Me

Cut the top of my head off. Ouch!

Black Studio

Kat ~ "S"

A rather nippy 14 degrees this morning.

Yesterday I finally got around to painting the floor in the studio black. I have been wanting to do that for years and just never got around to it. I have black walls and if you keep the subject ten feet or further from them you don't need backdrops. I like a black background. With the floor unpainted I always needed to elevate the model so the floor was not in the image via a modeling table or such. Now I will be able to utilize poses on the floor which will allow more latitude.
As soon as it dries I will give it some test shooting. Today I will give it a touch up with the paint as I'm sure I missed a few specks here and there.
The only problem I foresee is that it is going to show foot prints very easily so I will have to make sure the models (and I) wipe off the bottoms of our feet very well before walking out onto the black section. And I will have to keep it mopped clean, but the end results should be worth the effort.

Kat from our first shoot on the north shore of Lake Superior (Temperance River).

Non nude day

...for this blog. Me? I'm naked as usual.

I know most of you come to this blog for the images, certainly not to listen to me rant. Today there will be no nude photo. I'm sorry. Tomorrow I will return you to regular scheduled broadcasts but today is pottery day. I have been photographing hundreds of ceramic items of the wife's so she can build a web site. Glazed pottery and sculptures are damn hard to photograph because of the reflections off the glazed surfaces. Sort akin to photographing glassware, only with glassware you want a hint of reflection to make it sparkle.
I may try and build myself a giant light tent with white bed sheets. So far I am at best getting results like this one above and I am not very happy with it.

The good news is..... Oberstar lost!!!!!!!!!
Senator from Minnesota that has done more damage to Minnesota than all other politicians in the history of this planet. Minnesota will never recover from the destruction he caused.
The rest of the political races I don't give a rat's ass about.

Lack of material

Abigail ~ Little Red

Nothing going on today worth complaining about.
Enjoy the image.

Teen Sex

Olivia

Well we certainly had an interesting day yesterday.
Oral sex for teens on CNN, and Ron Howard's statement in his new movie, "electric cars are gay".
For some reason certain people are taking offense to that line. But then, they are not normal human beings. Certainly the gay people don't have an issue with it, just the gay rights people who are pretending to back the gay people. Pretenders are the worst. Most of them are parents of a gay (or wannabe gay) child and get carried away.
The fact that people get upset over Ron Howard's line is stupid. Beyond stupid.
I'm for oral sex for the teens. Go for it with all the gusto you have. You are only that age once in life and you might as well get as much out of it as you can.
And regular sex is not a bad thing either. Actually it makes for a nice way to pass an evening.

I dislike most photographers because most of them are crappy and their reason for being a photographer is suspicious.
You see them on Model Mayhem all the time. The first twelve people listed as friends on a new model's portfolio. These are the ones.

Yepper, I'm for oral sex whenever possible. Gets the job done.

Last of the fall projects to finish

Erin ~ November Gales

It is that time of year when the Big Lake gets to churning up some mighty strong waves. The gales of November. Many a ships have gone down on Superior in Novembers gone by. Hundreds.
Odin willing and the river don't rise I will be shooting on Superior's shoreline in about two weeks with a model that I am very excited about working with.

Today I will attempt to recover the boat that is under water down on my shoreline. It had been up on dry land with the drain plug pulled, but the damn beavers have raised the level of the lake so much that it now sits in about two feet of water. So I will have to get the drain plug in it and pump the water out so it floats before I can move it.
But not until it warms up a bit more later today.