A Worthy Cause...And A Nice Gift

Today I've turned 33. By far, this has been the roughest, worst year of my life, and I met the day with no sort of excitement at all. Perhaps I approached it with a little bit of anticipation, confident that the upcoming year cannot possibly be as bad as the year just finished. Final tally: 3 deaths in the family, a pending divorce, and the battle of my life to preserve my relationships with my kids and to remain an important part of their upbringing, while trying to keep them from being uprooted to a suburb of Los Angeles.

But I received a very nice birthday gift of sorts today. My office is rather generous with its employees at this time of year. This year we were given an option of Christmas gifts to choose from: a $100 credit card, an iPod Shuffle, or a jacket with our company logo on it. It took me almost no time at all to decide what I wanted: I asked for the $100, with the condition that it be donated to Kids Need Both Parents. You may have seen their bumper sticker on cars in the Portland area (perhaps you've seen my car!) or beyond. This is a very worthy cause that promotes children's needs for two active, involved, and equal parents wherever possible. I encourage you to click on the link to learn more about what they are all about.

As our gifts were distributed throughout the office today, my boss approached me with a handshake and commented on my generosity with my gift this year. It gave me a bit of a chill when I realized that the company had honored my request and donated to this cause. I never imagined I would be reaching out to resources such as this, but I'm glad I have. And it feels wonderful to be able to help support these people doing their best work for our children.

We Like Hikes

Awhile back, I wrote about the self-portraiture work I've undertaken recently with a 35mm camera. In addition to pointing the camera at myself, I've also included my shadow in certain pictures, where I think it makes a composition stronger. In this spirit, I've taken many pictures lately of my kids, with my shadow cast somewhere into the frame to indicate my presence. And my children are such an integral part of my life that I feel that when one sees them, one also sees me, to some extent. Several times when we've been out hiking, I've made duplicates of my 35mm pictures with our digital camera for quicker results. Here's one example of using my shadow to indicate my presence when photographing my son:

Troy, quick study that he is, has noticed me turning the camera on myself from time to time. He loves to mimic my actions, and he wanted to use the digital camera himself during this same hike. Here is one resulting picture. I love it.