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EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
photography
I'll never be Herb Ritts. Or Ansel Adams or David Hamilton or Sally Mann. I simply don't have the talent or the time to invest in taking photography seriously. I'm a dabbler, and my dabbling is about as interesting as any common family album. But, heck, it's my website, so I thought I'd post a few of my favorite things here. This is, easily, the most self-indulgent section of the site. Flee while you can.
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liz
rodriguez
 I wasn't quite prepared for the mesmerizing
effect Liz's eyes have on you. Her eyes, a translucent, luminous
hazel, were bewitching and hypnotic and almost made you
forget what a handful this woman is. A fiery Latina, Liz was
capable of telling you off in several languages all at once. And
her spidery, Callista Flockhart figure belied her speed and strength: the
woman could knock you out and then proceed to stomp all over you,
as she cheekily did to Evan on occasion. My
attempts to shoot her completely fail to tell her true story: this
woman of great purpose and marvelous strength. I don't have even
one good shot of those incredible eyes. Maybe it was the jet lag,
maybe I'm just an idiot, but my at-bat with Liz yielded some
interesting shots that tell maybe half the story of who this
person is.
new
witness
 I was scared to death of
them. A half-dozen or so gawky teenagers, most of whom had literally ignored me for the year and a half I'd been visiting my friend Pastor Donald A. Frazier at Cornerstone Missionary Baptist Church of Fountain, CO. I really had not noticed them much more than they had noticed me. Yet, here we were, sitting in the same room, staring at each other. Wondering if this was going to work. I believe I made some brief inroads with them when, in the middle of my Lou Gossett Officer & A Gentleman rant,
"Putcha toes on the white
liiiine, you slimy worms!" I told them we'd eventually be doing fund raisers for the youth department, so the kids could go on ski trips or excursions to the amusement parks or, I dunno, buy themselves a big bag of weed-- whatever kids do these days. Instant connection.
Youth Coordinator Mildred Hayes, who had worked with me on my Riverside project some time before, once told me youth ministry is a lot like extending your hand to a child to help her walk, or to stand up after a fall. Only, with teenagers, you have to reach for them through a meat grinder.
jason
& milique
 It is difficult to say mundane things about an extraordinary life. Former NAACP Regional Youth President and Urban League of the Pike's Peak Region Youth Director Jason Gaulden is an extraordinary young man with an extraordinary life story, one that is best left to him to tell. An infinitely creative poet and musician, Jason's life has evolved from several extremes as he's matured into a college graduate and full-time dad. He is an easy man to admire and an easy subject for the camera. This shot, taken for Jason's 2000 Kwanzaa greeting card, was shot in Memorial Park in Colorado Springs in the early afternoon. We barely made it to the park before dusk, and I stood on a picnic table and shot close-in angles which I intended to matte into the full figures (see slide show). The afternoon sun lent the reddish hues and gave the composition a familial warmth and deep blacks in Jason's hair and jacket that provide real definition. I've composited the shots into a slide show created for an Urban League website demo.
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