Luckily, Lori had found out a bit about her and knew that her mother Paula worked at the Ferndale Post Office. Lori will strike up a conversation with any woman how has long hair, which mother and daughter both have. So through Paula we found out that Kellyanne would be interested in modeling, but she was only going to be in Humboldt for a bit longer as she was going to Switzerland in a few weeks.

So we scheduled a shoot for just after the holidays, but on the day of the shoot I wasn’t feeling like I should be outside of a 5 second perimeter of a bathroom. So I had to cancel. First time I had to flake on a model after having about a 50% record in the other direction. I felt bad, but really there was nothing I could do.

When I next ran into Paula at the Post Office I found out we still had a small window to shoot before Kellyanne departed for the land of chocolate, fine time keeping machinery and anonymous bank accounts.

On the day of the shoot we first dressed Kellyanne in some vintage lingerie and an Edwardian dress. She looked just perfect in that ensemble, and when I get some time I’ll add those photos to our vintage clothing website.

Next we had her try on an Edwardian costume that Lori made and it looked spectacular on Kellyanne. I’ll post more photos of the dress on Lori’s web site once it’s ready to go.

I’m looking forward to Kellyanne’s return from Switzerland and having her back in our studio again.

Ferndale’s Main Street is a beautiful sight year round, but at Christmas time it has a special glow about it, dominated by America’s tallest living Christmas Tree. I’ve taken photos of the tree every year we’ve been in Ferndale, and for this year’s photo I wanted to take a panoramic view of Main Street and the tree.

Cruising down Main Street I was lucky to find a parking spot right in front of Valley Grocery. This put me directly across from the Ferndale Emporium, one of the prettiest Victorian buildings on Main St. No sooner than I pulled out the camera, someone came and parked his truck right in front of the Ferndale Emporium. Somewhat disappointed, I figured he had every right to park there. But then he never even got out of his truck. I was tempted to ask him to move but I figured he’d eventually move. He didn’t.

So I started taking the photos and when it was apparent his truck wasn’t deserving to be the center of attention, I moved down the street a bit and started over. Taking a panoramic, especially at night is an extended process as have to take several exposures as you pan the camera around, in this case 180 degrees. I was just finishing up the last exposure when the fire siren went off, so I had to pack up and leave before the last exposure was done.

I figured I could always try again another night this year. But then we left to go out of town for Christmas and when I got back I came down with a flu that kept me a short distance from the bathroom for several days. By the time I was feeling better, the lights were off. So my grand plan for a Main Street Christmas pano never got realized. Which was really a shame because we had some great weather and some beautiful sunsets that would have made great pictures.

This year for Thanksgiving we were invited by our friends Greg & Penny to spend the weekend with them at Ripple Creek Cabins near the Trinity Alps.

Lori and I both had busy, stressful weeks, so having down time with friends was a great way to spend the holidays. Traveling there was a breeze, the Thanksgiving travel rush in that direction meant us and a couple of other cars.

When we arrived Thursday morning the turkey was still cooking so we took a walk around the area. We came across this lovely old barn with these wonderful hand forged hinges. The color of the aged wood reminded me of the bristlecone pines, so I believe the wood is some type of pine. Great texture and color that speaks to a time when things were built by hand.

This month’s POTM isn’t so much about the picture, as the camera that took it.

12 years ago I purchased my first digital camera, an Epson 850Z, that cost me just under $1000. What did I get for a grand? I got a 2 megapixel camera, that could take 20 pictures before the card filled up, or the batteries died. It did have a hot shoe though so I could use my studio lights with it.

My latest digital camera cost me $299, and it has four times the resolution as the Epson did. It also shoots 1080p HD video, let’s me check email, surf the web, play anything from my entire music collection, oh, and I can even make phone calls on it.

If I want to play James Kirk, I can even talk to my camera and command it do what I want.

What an amazing amount of progress in just 12 years. My new iPhone 4S is the best camera in the world, because it’s the one that’s with me.

It was with me when I ran out the door responding to the Ferndale Volunteer Fire Department for a traffic collision on Fernbridge. I had just purchased the camera a few days earlier so this is the first time I used the camera function.

Steve, you left us with an amazing piece of technology to play with.

For the last eight years, I’ve been taking photos of Laura East’s Ferndale Dance Academy productions and each year the production has gotten bigger and better. Now Laura is starting off on a new adventure, the Humboldt Dance Force, which will provide FDA dancers more opportunities to perform.

To kick off the first season of Humboldt Dance Force, the dancers, Laura, and I headed over to Fireman’s Park in Ferndale. First we did individual shots of all of the dancers posing on the playground equipment. Then we did one final group shot, that involved a lot of trial and error in poses to get everything to work. Thanks to the dedication and patience of the dancers, it all worked out into a dynamic and exciting group shot.

Because HDF will be known for their use of bright colors (see their web page for an example!) the saturation of this shot is boosted way beyond what I would normally do. But sometimes it’s fun to break out the box you construct for yourself.

On August 7th, Ferndale celebrated the 100th anniversary of Fernbridge. Rick Phillis, who chaired the celebration committee, went above and beyond the call of duty when he decided to light the bridge for it’s birthday party.

Rick borrowed several generator powered construction lights from Wendt Construction and placed them so each arch was lit.

I owe Greg Rumney for the use of his tripod, since I foolishly walked out of the studio without mine.

I took this shot by wading into the Eel River until I was waist deep in the water. I did remember to bring my waders!

In July we travelled back down to the Bay Area for Lori’s 2 year checkup for her cochlear implants (which went very well by the way). I wanted to use the opportunity to return to a location I used in our last visit, a culvert that runs under a road in the Santa Cruz hills.

The model of choice for this session goes by the name of Sakura Blossom. It was interesting working with her because she likes to keep her identity hidden in photos so each photo had to hide her face either in cropping, pose or lighting. Normally that restriction might make me choose another model, but Sakura Blossom had one advantage that was appealing. She is tiny. That comes in very handy for modeling Victorian clothes.

The camisole and drawers she is wearing have only been worn by one very tiny 16 year old girl so far, and the corset, well she was the first model tiny enough to wear it. The corset measures 18″ around the waist, and Sakura Blossom’s natural waist measurement was 21″ so it fit her pretty good. I had pretty much given up hope of getting this corset photographed on a model, and I am glad to finally ditch the photo of the pillow we had been using up to this point.

It was a pleasure working with Sakura Blossom, and she was the first model I’ve worked with that brought chocolate (and good chocolate at that!) to the shoot to share. Now that’s the way to make this photographer happy!

My favorite wild flower patch is on Route 1, which runs across the ridge of the South Fork Mountains, from Titlow Hill on Hwy. 299 to Mad River on Hwy. 36.

I first discovered this patch in 2004, and have made a point of returning each spring to see it in bloom. In 2005 I took one of my favorite models, Maria, to the patch.

Because this patch of wild flowers is at its prime for only a couple of weeks, I usually start heading up there the first weekend in June to check their progress. Usually by this time the road has been cleared of any remaining snow. Depending on the winter we had, the patch is usually at its best the 2nd or 3rd week in June.

This year I went up at the beginning of June on my Triumph Sprint ST. I started from the north side and only got about 10 miles up the road when I started having to pick my way through the tracks in the snow. When I got to this blockage, I decided to turn around, since the Triumph isn’t the kind of bike I wanted to be on at the moment.

I tried again a couple of weeks later, this time taking my KLR650 and tried it from the south side. Same story. Still too much snow. I figured by the time the road would be opened this year the flowers were going to be long gone. I really wasn’t expecting to be featuring snow in June’s Picture of the Month, but that’s what Mother Nature dealt.

This month’s POTM isn’t that special of a picture. It’s really just a snapshot, but I’m pretty proud of what’s in the picture.

Back in 2006 the foundation was poured for this fence in our front yard. Five years later I finally finished it. Budget, time and medical issues all conspired to make this a very long project. But now that it’s done I can sit back and watch the roses grow. (if I can ignore the other 101 items on my honey-do list)

March 3-4 was the big FRAY slot car race in Ferndale. My landlord at the studio, Rick Phillis, got me back into slot cars a couple of years ago and it was a great pastime to be involved with while I was recovering from the kidney donation surgery.

This year I used my own car to compete, one that Rick helped me build. It went pretty fast for a first time effort, although I have to admit my driving skills need to improve, especially on some of the more technical tracks. But I placed 46th out of 75, which I was quite happy with, given that most of the people there had multiple cars, pits filled with all kinds of specialty tools and hundreds of dollars if not thousands invested in their racing program.

After two full days of racing the rear tires were pretty shot, but I didn’t even have spares. I didn’t realize you could wear them out that fast.

After the racing was over we all took a break and then this month I started going through the car, cleaning it and replacing worn parts. But before I did that, I wanted a picture of the car in the post race condition.

Photographing real cars takes a large studio and huge light banks, but getting the same lighting effect on an HO scale t-jet is pretty simple. One softbox directly above, and a small reflector to highlight the front of the car was it.