Blake

This summer I was honored to meet the Stauffer family. I met Blake while on assignment for the Eric "Ricstar" Music Therapy Camp. I walked in - very sleepy - and sat in the corner of a room to observe for awhile. I was looking down, getting my camera out in preparation, when I see two skinny legs standing in front of me. I looked up, set my camera down, and met the eyes of a seven-year-old camp participant named Blake. He looked me dead in the eye for one moment, then flung his arms around my neck and collapsed into my lap. By and far, this was one of the most life-altering hugs I have ever recieved. And I love hugging. After embracing, he simply turned around, sitting crossed-legged on top of my crossed legs and seemed just content to sit in my lap and continue on with camp activities. Of course, counselors had to drag him off but that doesn't mean I didn't get to spend some quality time with him later on.

Basically, this family is amazing. Jennifer, Blake's mother, is a phenomenal, busy, beautiful lady. She and her husband home-school Blake themselves and are extremely active in the community, not to mention are also busy raising Sam, their foster (soon to be adopted) son who was born in November.

I did a audio slideshow story on the family which unfortunately due to time crunches and miscommunications didn't turn out as good as I would have liked, but I really liked the pictures themselves. Check it out at http://www.statenews.com/index.php
/multimedia/29028/5.

I think this post has more words in it than the rest of my entire blog combined, so here's some pictures.

glorious

pretty & happy couple.

Through the roof! And underground!

Last week I published the first part to my College Assistant Migrant Program (CAMP) project. It was probably the most work I've put into...anything...ever. Also probably the most difficult feat of photojournalism I've tried to tackle. And it's not very good, but that's okay. I'm going to continue working with it and publishing more.

Anyways, enough ranting. Here's the people you'll meet along the way of it (http://www.statenews.com/index.php/multimedia/28961/5) with pictures you couldn't see.












And when their own walls they will a-crumble,
And all the systems will be discumbumbled,
Around the stump of bigotry, our own

Through the roof! And underground!
Through the roof! Underground!

I had forgotten...

...what it felt like to be exhausted. Then I woke up yesterday morning and remembered.

Is it possible to live an eternal summer? If not, then I've only got one month before I wake up remembering every morning. It's time to play.


fancy pant's birthday. yeah, i know hannah blogged about it already.


super big moth/butterfly/unknown winged creature. for realz, yo.

man, i'm hungry.

Soldering

Yesterday, I learned how to spell solder. Today, I took pictures of it. Weird, huh?



Too tilted to publish, but I like it. Funky business.



Awesome to watch the melting. So pretty.

Completion

If someone held a gun to my head and told me to define myself, I'd pull out this picture.



Seriously? Sneaks AND maps? WITH MY NAME?!

On a side note, if I had $89, I would simply stick my foot out to said gunman since I would obviously be sporting my kicks. But I don't have $89. Rats.

because Lil' Jon ALWAYS tells the truth.

well, i got about 234,524,234 things to do now that i've got class again - so i'm blogging to avoid it, among other procrastination activities.

and because Nichole's so damn cute.

so here's Pride Fest. It was fun, despite the fact my story didn't work out yet for the Michigan Peace Team since no one protested. But I guess it was nice that no one showed up to be fuckin' idiots.

i'll caption later. after all, i do have an entire book to read by 9 a.m. tomorrow.

and i can't find my notebook...