Photography

The Trees I Planted

By / June 9, 2013 / 1 Comment


The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago. The next best time is today.

Fifteen years ago I dug a hole in the ground and planted that tree in the picture. It was a tiny little thing that I had to defend from the children and the potential ravages of weed whackers. There was one spring where aphids threatened to kill the entire tree, so we released legions of ladybugs on it. We planted many trees that first year in the house because we knew that someday we wanted to have shade. Life changed and shifted. We spent less energy landscaping and far more creating books. While we were not paying attention, the trees grew. They got big enough for Gleek to climb them. The shade spread to cover most of the lawn.

Yesterday I went in search of a hammock for Link. He’s wistfully asked for one more than once, and given his current doctor’s instructions to avoid sitting as much as possible, it seemed like a good time to add lounging space in the back garden. I’d seen the hammocks and stands at IKEA, they still had the hammocks, but not the stands. I brought the hammock home and strung it between a pair of trees. That tiny maple sapling now bears the weight of two kids without bending. The act of fifteen years ago blesses our lives today because I planted a tree in the right place.

Here at the Tayler house this summer represents a pause before things finish changing. All of our lives will look quite different ten years from now. I could drive myself crazy trying to figure out which things I should plant in our lives right now so that they’ll bless us later. I remember agonizing over where to plant the trees all those years ago. I pondered bush placement. I paced off expected shade radii. Some of the trees that we planted later died. Other trees I could wish in slightly different locations. It is hard to know what our lives will need ten years from now. Instead of trying to plan all of it, I just need to plant many things and see which ones flourish. Also I consult with the master gardener and listen to His instructions.

For now I’ll be out back in the hammock, breathing the scents of honeysuckle and mock orange, while swinging gently in the shade of my trees.

The Butterfly Dress Photos

By / May 9, 2013 / 6 Comments

I promised to let all of you see the photographer’s shots of Kiki wearing the butterfly dress. Here they are along with appropriate credit for those involved.

My original write up of the photo shoot can be found here. It has pictures that I took.
The butterfly dress was created by Rebekah McKinney
Kiki’s hair was done by Ashley of 9 Salon and Spa
Kiki’s make up was done by Sammie of 9 Salon and spa
The photography was done by Gary of Meaux Photography


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Kiki and the Photo Shoot

By / April 21, 2013 / 17 Comments

When someone says they are a model, it conjures images of a beautiful person who is dressed up fancy, gets a lot of attention, and sometimes fame or wealth as well. Those thoughts about modelling are products of the post-supermodel era that we live in. Prior to the supermodels of the 70’s, modelling was not about fame. Yesterday I accompanied my daughter Kiki on what turned out to be 8 hours of modelling work. It showed both of us that the real work of a model is not the be the center of attention and adulation, but to be a blank canvas or a mannequin upon which someone else hangs a concept. The shoot that Kiki posed for was an art shoot, so every step of the process aimed to create an effect. The final photographs are fascinating and compelling, but they do not in any way represent Kiki even though it is her face. The same is true of commercial shoots, where models are dressed in casual clothes and are smiling. Those models are still subsuming who they are to present an image that will attract buyers to purchase the item being advertised. Modelling is not about being the center of attention, which is not something I fully realized until yesterday.

Kiki was told to show up with no makeup and clean hair. The stylists needed a clean slate, a blank canvas.

The array of tools for make up was astonishing. I wish I’d gotten a shot of this table after the make up was applied. It was a complete jumbled mess which contrasted with the array in the picture.

The photo shoot was arranged by Rebekah McKinney who designed and made the dress that Kiki wore. Rebekah has become a friend of our family over the past year, enough so that Kiki felt comfortable asking to borrow the dress to wear for Prom, but once the dress was altered, everyone wanted to get some fun pictures of Kiki wearing it. So Beckie arranged for two stylists and a photographer. The stylists worked at 9 Salon and Spa. The photographer was Gary of Meaux Photography. I’ll have pictures from him to post later after he’s done processing. All the pictures in this post are ones that I took.

Every time Kiki and I thought things looked done, the stylists would add more: more hair, more sparkles, more eye liner, more lashes. I think the hair was Kiki’s biggest surprise. She has so much hair of her own that she was astonished that hair pieces could possibly be necessary. Before the stylists were done, they’d added a volume of hair approximately equal to a cat, in four colors.

There were some stages where the hair looked like something from an 80’s band.

After four hours of hair and make up, we paused long enough for Kiki to eat then made her sit down for another half hour of make up. Kiki was enjoying the process, though she confessed afterward that some stages of the hairdo made her wonder if anyone knew what they were doing. She also still has some sore spots on her head because the stylist pulled hard while braiding. Things got fun again at the photography studio.

We were extremely fortunate in our photographer. He coached Kiki, explaining to her that he was trying to create an S shape in each shot and how that was usually achieved using a human body. He also explained that she should make small moves when adjusting her body, because lots of small corrections would create the right effect.

My favorite moments were when the photographer said “relax” and then held the camera so Kiki could see the photo.

Kiki would melt out of her self-effaced art pose and become a girl who bounced from excitement. She would view the photo with her artist’s eye and see how a pose which felt awkward, yielded a highly effective image.

The photographer did not take any pictures of Kiki smiling. I did. Because I like her smiling, even if it ruins the artsy effect.

Also, sometimes she was a punk and made faces.

Yet I was impressed, even with Beckie and I poking fun at her, Kiki would quell her giggles and get back to striking the requested pose. One of the reasons this experience was so fun is that we were working with people who are very good at what they do, but who also don’t take themselves too seriously. The designer, stylists, and photographer were all fashion people who know that there is an element of the ridiculous involved with fashion. We all embraced the ridiculous and had fun.


I did have one concern about my daughter modelling. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking about how much value and emphasis US society puts on physical beauty, particularly for women. I feel it is very important that women know that beauty is not required to be a valued and valuable person. Kiki has always been beautiful, both physically in ways that are recognized by society, and in her mind and heart. This photo shoot showed Kiki her own beauty in a way that she had never seen it before. Seeing that changes her own mental image of herself, and I was concerned about the shape of that change.


We talked afterward, as I was carefully unpinning and untangling all the extra pieces of hair to separate them from her own. This experience has been completely positive for her. She sees and understands now how very constructed all those media images are, that they are creations of concept, not reflections of a reality to which we should aspire. She’ll look at catalogs and remember the ache in her back from when she leaned the same way. Because of this photo shoot she is more able to see the artifice and know that it isn’t sustainable for any length of time. She is best off being herself in clothes that are livable. That’s a pretty good lesson for a girl who is launching into adulthood on her next birthday only weeks from now.

This is my favorite shot from the day.

It is the moment when Kiki had to figure out how to fit all of that skirt into the seat of a car. I love it because it catches her smile and catches a moment when the very ridiculousness of the beauty made us all laugh.

The World is Big

By / April 2, 2013 / 2 Comments

Sometimes I am so focused on the happenings inside the walls of my house, the hearts of my people, that I forget how big the world is.

It is big and wondrous. Skies like these can absorb any stress I care to throw at them.

Of course, under skies like these and with such views to see, it is hard to remember any stresses at all. Two more days of vacation. I think some of my stresses are lost in those skies forever and I’m bringing home the memory of sky instead.

Small and Simple Things

By / March 5, 2013 / 1 Comment

I was standing at my kitchen window when I saw them, a spot of bright in a world of dead grass and gray sticks. They poked out from the grass that I failed to clear last fall, determined to be themselves despite their surroundings. Crocus are hope embodied. They are the first flowers each spring and I rejoice when I see them because, even if it is still cold, even if the sky is still gray, even if it snows, I know that winter is going away.

Seeing these small beauties was a gift today. Yesterday was flow, I was carried through things which could have shipwrecked me. Today I am not carried. I walk on my own feet, sorting, working, trudging my way forward. I am doing one necessary task at a time because I am too tired to hold more than one thing in my brain. Remarkably, I have not spent today rethinking all of yesterday’s decisions. Either I’m confident that I chose right or I’m too tired to fret. It doesn’t matter. There are crocuses blooming in my garden and we’re on the edge of things getting better.

Antelope Island Again

By / January 26, 2013

A week ago today I ran away to Antelope Island. When I got home I Gleek was very sad that I went without her. We talked it over and decided to have a special outing today. Unfortunately for us, the fog rolled in last night and it lingered this morning.

This was the view for much of our trip.

We thought that the day was going to be a disappointment, but the fog lifted in patches and we ventured out to walk in the snow. Every step crunched through a thin layer of ice and into the fluffy snow beneath. If we were walking down a slope then fragments of ice tobogganed down the surface with a skittering noise. It was a day for melancholy photography, but we felt happy.

We even manged to spot a herd of buffalo.

We stopped by Fielding Garr Ranch to say hello to the owls. I wanted to take a hike to go see the place where bald eagles congregate for the winter, but Gleek was feeling tired and wearing overlarge borrowed boots. A long hike would not have made her happy and this was her outing. Also there was the question of whether we’d even be able to see the eagles at the end or if they would be hidden in fog.

Instead I let her get a trinket from the visitor center gift shop and we stopped by the northern point of the island to bid it farewell before heading home. We have plans to come back in the spring when the island will be green again.

Running Away to Antelope Island

By / January 19, 2013

This afternoon I dropped all my responsibilities to go walk in knee-deep snow on Antelope Island. I have a good life full of good things, but sometimes I can’t see them as good until I run away from them for a little while. So my friend and I went to a place where the snow was covered in animal tracks and very few people tracks.

Even out at Fielding Garr Ranch, where there were people structures, most of the tracks were supplied by four legged critters. We walked out on the beach where all the sand was covered in snow. Some steps we walked along a crust on the top of the snow and it crunched under our feet. Other steps found us knee deep in fluffy flakes. We plowed our way through heading toward the water. It was only when I looked back at our tracks and they were wet that we realized we were already beyond the water’s edge. We’d walked out onto the ice.

The silence is something I always notice when out on the island. This time I only noticed it when I stood still. The rest of the time the crunching of snow and my own laughter filled my ears. It is hard not to laugh when trying to walk in the tracks left by a buffalo. His ambling steps required me to make over-long strides which probably would have qualified me for the Ministry of Silly Walks.

It was cold, a mere twenty degrees, but it did not feel cold at first. We were having too much fun exploring and making tracks. Later we felt cold, because our breaks in the car to warm up allowed the snow gathered on pant legs and socks to melt and make the fabric wet. Even then we did not mind. The cold was worth it to crunch through glittering snow, see a great horned owl roosting in a tree, see a barn owl out hunting, look at little mouse tracks across the snow, read in the circling tracks how a fox caught and ate a rabbit. We saw the fox himself later as he paused to make eye contact with a passing buffalo. There were other cars on the island, but we were the only ones to venture forth knee deep in snow.

When I close my eyes I can see the glittering snow, I feel the cold on my face, and I know I have to go back again.

Enter the Stray Rooster

By / October 22, 2012 / 1 Comment

Chickens were not on the schedule for today. Not anywhere, but roosters have their own ideas about how things should go. I saw him from the corner of my eye as I headed into the house with Gleek and Link.
“That’s a chicken.” I exclaimed without thinking.
I immediately had the full attention of both kids, particularly Gleek.

Sometime in the past year or so it has become fashionable for people in our neighborhood to keep chickens. There are half a dozen neighbors who have little coops and gather their own eggs. Gleek knows them all and sometimes visits the chickens. She has even earned the name Chicken Whisperer because she can catch the uncatchable hen and convince it to sit still while she pets it. So our first thought was to catch this interloper. He had different ideas.

He dodged and dove while Gleek tried to corner him. I went into the house and began calling all the known chicken owners. Their answers were the same: No it was not one of theirs, but was this the same chicken my next door neighbor had been calling about yesterday? Yes it is. I’d determined that if we managed to catch the bird, we would have no one to give it to. Obviously the best course of action was to not catch it and hope that it would go back home on its own. I was trying to explain this to Gleek when she succeeded in catching it.

Once caught, he was a well behaved bird. He held still in her arms, and when she sat down with him in her lap, he even dozed off to sleep. She decided his name was Harry. I again tried to explain to Gleek that we should just let him go. We had no cage for him, no food, no way to keep him safe. Gleek argued the case for pet chicken, but then asked if she could at least show it to her friend. So she carried the bird into our back yard. This was when Gleek remembered our walnut tree. It turns out that roosters like to eat walnuts quite a lot. Gleek had the rooster eating out of her hand. This was when our cat wandered up to see what was going on.

These animals are not likely to be friends.

I brought the cat into the house, not entirely sure who I was keeping safe from whom. Gleek finally released her hold on the rooster, but apparently being caught, petted, and fed convinced his little brain that Gleek was the source of all things good in the world. He followed her all over the yard. We all thought this was funny, and it was, particularly when Gleek when running across the yard and he ran-flapped to keep up. But then Gleek came inside and the rooster was convinced he should get to come in too.

He pecked at the door, jumped at the nearby windows, and kept trying his hardest to find a way inside. Fortunately it was dusk and we convinced him to roost by covering all the windows. Even without him pecking at the door, he was still a major distraction at homework time. The kids kept wanting to go peek at the chicken.

I will admit that a small part of me imagined Gleek with a devoted rooster friend in our backyard. The realities are more complicated than that pretty picture. The weather is getting colder. One chicken alone would not fare well against hard freezes. We have no pen nor safe place for him to roost. Also, the more he got used to our yard, the more he seemed to feel that he could peck at Gleek if she did something he didn’t like. Then there is the probability of crowing. Roosters are not really suburban neighborhood friendly. The argument which really convinced the kids that the rooster had to go was when we pointed out that he and our cat are likely to fight, and he is plenty big enough to seriously injure our cat. I don’t care how pretty the rooster is, we love our cat more.

Fortunately a friend with a large flock (far from our neighborhood) has offered to take this rooster and give him a new home. (Hurray for social media as a problem solving tool.) We’ve decided this is a happier option. Hopefully he will enjoy being the rooster for a flock of hens. The friend took him away in a box. This is happy. One evening full of rooster adventures is quite enough for me.