though only a senior in college, stephen is already one of the flying karamazov brothers. more importantly he brings props to the shoot that light on fire. there are very few jobs i do that couldn’t be improved with something in the picture being on fire. or doused in liquid nitrogen, for that matter. i confess to seeking out liquid nitrogen every time i go to photograph someone at caltech.

i met stephen four years ago when he was a college freshman. at the time he was – as he is now – 6’4″ tall, and a juggler, and we were taking pictures in a room with an eight foot ceiling. no good. this time we reserved a room with the highest ceiling we could find, just to be safe – a theater on occidental’s campus. i saw this “KEEP CLEAR” sign backstage while we were loading in equipment, but we spent most of our time getting our standard juggling-bowling-pins action shots in front of the stage curtain. at the the very end of the shoot, just minutes before the stage managers were to come back and kick us out, stephen had the good sense to say “i have a torch“.

so did this shot really quickly, stephen squirting lighter fluid around with abandon, and trying not to get too close to the sprinklers. of course, he wanted to juggle the torch but i liked this better. maybe it’s the same reason i don’t like laughing pictures of comedians. too easy. he’s a really tall, kinda lanky and goofy, good-natured guy, and i like that he looks sort of badass in this shot.

well, as much of a badass as is possible, being a man in a skirt and bowtie.

the torch helps.

my thanks as always to cpl. bennett for his patient and knowledgeable assistance, and to dick anderson at oxy.

a couple weeks ago i was taking pictures of a number of the incoming freshmen at occidental college. as the day went on i started to feel increasingly old in a room full of kids and mentioned that feeling out loud, to this girl (above) named yelka. the dialogue went something like this:

college freshman: “how old are you?”

me: “thirty-five”

college freshman: “thirty-five isn’t that old. my mom is thirty-six!”

somehow this didn’t make me feel better. and, of course, corporal bennett starts laughing hysterically, and repeating the exchange to everyone else we see that day. the moral of the story seems to be that no matter how young you feel, you’re always going to be an old fart to a teenager.

i’m a photographer, and i’m from a secular jewish family. this means i love complaining. i love it, i was raised on it, and i excel at it. but every once in a while you meet someone that just shuts you up. the plain fact is that my life is pretty damn good and i don’t really have all that much to complain about. i’m reasonably healthy at this point, i get to take pictures for a living, i can occasionally do things that other people find helpful, i live in a great place, i have the world’s most awesome cat, and i’ve got a lot of good people around me.

erica murray, should she choose to exercise it, has every right to complain. but the thing is, she doesn’t. at least, she didn’t to me and i gave her every opportunity to vent. erica is in her mid twenties and is currently undergoing treatment for her second round of cancer (leukemia). she beat it into remission once, two years ago, and then it came back. these pictures were taken on tax day (even more of a reason to complain), and just a couple days before erica headed back into the hospital for a several-week stay of intense chemo and stem cell treatment. she was agreeable, funny, insightful, beautiful and gracious.

erica keeps a blog (with contributions from her friends and family) detailing the course of her treatment, and it’s a really engrossing thing. you can see her blog here. she’s out of the hospital now and seems to be recovering well.

thanks to dick anderson and jamie murphy for their help in setting up this shoot, and thanks to corporal bennett, as always, for assisting.

ah, why is it that it always seems like my favorite shot from any given shoot is the one that’s almost guaranteed never to get published? well, i guess that’s where the glorious internet comes in. thanks, internet.

ken berry is an awfully nice guy with a giant garage full of robots and robot parts. unfortunately due to the requirements of the shoot we weren’t really able to spend our time using the robots to photographic effect. but really, i can listen to a guy talk about robots all day long. ken is a professor at cal state northridge where he teaches people how to use robots (and other technological marvels) in the classroom.

this is from an in-class demo earlier in the week. i was trying to make a point to my students that portraits don’t necessarily have to be obvious or straightforward, and also that you can get more out of any given location than you might think. this is particularly difficult at cypress college, one of the ugliest places in northern orange county, which is already a spectacularly ugly place. many students think of portraiture in very narrow terms (think: sears) and rather than proving my point i likely just made them think i was weird and/or silly. both of which could be true.

(thanks to trevor for agreeing to be the guinea pig for this example)

i teach a portrait photography class at a college in orange county, california. very often students will neglect to turn in assignments. generally, the excuses are as wild and exotic as saying “uh. . . the printer was broken”, or “i don’t have a car” or simply staring blankly and sort of half-shrugging. none of these excuses make much of an impression, and frankly, then there’s less for me to grade. every once in a while, though, someone will have a really good excuse. i’m sorry to say this one didn’t happen to me, but to my buddy john thawley who teaches at santa monica college.

here’s the excuse (and accompanying pictures. it’s important to note that the student had the wherewithal not only to photograph the squirrel who attacked her, but also the resulting injury and treatment process. that gets an “A” in my book. (pictures related to the incident copyright by toni ciaravino, reprinted with permission):

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From: Toni
Date: 8 October 2007 6:25:30 PM
To: john thawley
Subject: absence from class tonight

i was feeding and photographing squirrels in the park today. this cute squirrel mistook my finger for a pecan. it chomped down so hard on my finger that it was pulling me. it would not let go. finally my husband scared it off. then we went to urgent care and i got a tetanus shot and antibiotics. we just got home and i am not going to make it to class–especially considering the pain i’m in right now.

i will not be bringing you my assignment. i am in a lot of pain and cannot drive. that tetanus shot really messed up my arm. maybe there’s not enough muscle or fat there. it’s pretty excruciating. truth be told, i was at the park finishing my assignment when the ferocious beast attacked. i didn’t even get to my homework shots, so it’s not even done. i would shoot it today but i can’t hold my camera and the finger that was bitten is my trigger finger.

i am an idiot.

please feel free to laugh and share this with the class.

toni ciaravino

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