Delivering Porch Portrait Books

I’ve been having fun the last week or so delivering copies of Surviving Quarantine to my neighbors here in Pine Lake, as well as to a few friends around the Decatur area. Pamela Poole was especially delighted to receive her copy.

My niece Kate commented that this photograph is very meta. I can’t wait until I have an outdoor gallery of photographs Pamela can pose in front of while holding her photo in the book. Meta meta. :)

The book is a collection of porch portraits of some of my Pine Lake neighbors (39 photos total) with commentaries about quarantine from those in the photos.

You can buy a book and have it shipped directly to you right here.

Thanks,
Cindy

COVID wedding change of venue to parent's backyard

Due to COVID 19 and the restrictions created to keep it from spreading, Daria and Josh revamped their wedding plans from a big celebration at the Dekalb History Center, into an intimate backyard ceremony and suburban-home reception.

The intimate ceremony, dinner and party to follow was filled with laughter, love, good food, good cake and a little bit (or maybe more) of champagne.

Daria got help with her dress from her Mom.

Josh’s best man adjusts Josh’s tie.

Daria makes Josh laugh during the ceremony.

The happy couple after they are wed.

A quiet moment after all the excitement.

The posed photo session included Gaston, an important member of the wedding party.

The wedding topper toppled.

Locking arms for the traditional champagne toast.

Daria’s bridesmaid makes Daria and Josh, and the rest of the guests, laugh.

Cheers!

What a wedding photographer does when there are no weddings

COVID-19 and the subsequent quarantine has left a lot of couples scrambling to reschedule their weddings. A few have decided to have a very small ceremony right away with a larger get together later. But many have simply postponed until they feel certain they’ll be able to celebrate with friends and family.

Wedding (and event) photographers, like myself, look at our calendars and see open dates from now until we don’t know when.

So, I decided to create my own assignment. Take porch portraits (lots of photographers are doing this) of Pine Lakers showing off something that has been helping them survive quarantine. I’ve been especially interested in photographing artists and musicians with their instruments, art work, journals, sculptures or paint brushes.

In addition, I’m asking each person to write a little something about what’s keeping them going while they’re hibernating.

Here’s a portrait of Amy Pence and a poem she has written about quarantine.

Amy Pence, Tree Side of the Lake

Ways to Stay Inside the Inside
by Amy Pence

[A softness, as if from everywhere, is touching the earth – Rilke]

Preempt your regular programming to go bullseye into the universe.

Love the muddled memories of your created earth.

By midnight, develop a routine--

--quickly dispense.

Travel down rabbit holes, but burrow lightly.

Enact two dozen varieties of flora—one that billows from your palm.

Make furious love to your shadow. Over a threshold, imagine a constellated real.

Piece together the rough details that cradled your birth.

Watch your fear, but protect the young in their thriving.

Experience one ecstasy a day:

-          the split apple’s tart future

-          the velvet anemones turned to sun

-          the masked fisherman

as he lets the fish go.

Make allowances for the composition of bread and other transcendent materials.

Forget the hands that may have disfigured you & remember the ones that

drew you to beauty.

If don’ts once hindered you, turn them into a softness.

Contemplate the highest ceiling—all the star charts—reconstructed from our rough

anatomies.

Initiate a different touch. Keep going -- 

See previous porch portraits

See next porch portraits