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An outtake from yesterday when my brother asked me to take his passport photo.  I’d think twice before letting this guy into my country.

Last Friday, I went down to Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego to attend my cousin Randy’s Boot Camp graduation.

It was a little surreal for me, I hadn’t been back since my own graduation almost exactly nine years ago.

It still smells the same, sounds the same, and continues to be a place I’m happy to depart from.

After 10 days at home, Randy will report to the School of Infantry, followed by Light Armored Vehicle Crewman’s Course, just as I did.

In fact, Randy will have the exact same job and be assigned to my old unit when they return.

When I heard Randy had decided to join the Marines, I wouldn’t agree to talk him out of it.

But I did do what I could to ensure he would be surrounded by the finest Marines I know.

The family is very proud of Private First Class Alexander, especially me.

My cousin Randy left home for Marine Corps Boot Camp early this morning.

These next three months will be long and rough on him.  But I’m confident he’ll find his way through.

It won’t be easy, and not everyone will make it, but I’m pretty sure that is still a selling point.

It was for me.

If you’ve watched my video message to the boys you know it’s been an emotional holiday season at my house.  My old Marine unit is in Afghanistan on their first deployment without me. Now I’ve gotten a taste of what it’s like to be on the other side of separation, and it turns out that neither side is easy. I have so many Google Alerts set that every time they hit the news wire I know about it. Anytime casualties are reported, I hold my breath until I know it wasn’t one of mine. Even then there is a measure of loss involved, but between two tragedies you have to hope for the one you can bear.

When I joined the Marine Corps I knew what I was getting into when I signed my name on the dotted line. I was as mentally prepared as I could be and I figured out the rest along the way. What I didn’t realize at the time, and perhaps am only appreciating now, is that I’d signed my family up behind me for everything but the fighting and dying. Maybe a little of that too, sometimes.

While I have no regrets about having been a Marine, I’ve started to understand what it takes to care about one (or many). And that is no small thing when normal life continues on around you.

I’ve been seeing a lot of that quiet strength recently, as I’ve been driving all over Southern California photographing the wives, girlfriends, and families of my Marines overseas. It started as a Christmas present for them, but it is fast becoming an intensely personal, personal project for me. One that I plan on continuing until their return.

Traveling from home to home photographing the boys’ families has allowed me to continue to feel connected to them while they are away. I’ve been allowed a peek behind the curtain, into the personal lives of men who seem to be as gentle and caring at home as they are stoic and steadfast in uniform. Reconciling these versions of them for myself has only made them more dear to me.

I’ve decided to name the project after a song my father recorded for me when I was in Iraq, at a time when he was grappling with some of the same feelings I have now, plus some I may never know.

My Heart Across the Ocean (Click to Listen)
©2003 Bob Bennett

You can read more about the song here.  Stay tuned for more on the project.

Happy New Year!

Last month my father, singer/song writer Bob Bennett, released his 9th album Christmastide.  Check it out on iTunes here.

Yours Truly did all the photography on this one.  (It’s about time, right?)

My siblings and I spend every Christmas Eve at our father’s house.  Even now as adults, Dad still plays and sings for us, reads aloud The Littlest Angel and tucks us in under the Christmas Tree.

He put the same care and tenderness into this album.  I hope you can hear it as plainly as I can.

"Then all the reindeer loved him..."

This was towards the end of the shoot for Mom’s Christmas card. We were just hitting the fourth verse of our own a cappella version of The California Raisins’ Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.

You know, we aren’t that bad.  But I won’t be quitting my day job.

Madison Nease is kid sister to my buddy/housemate, Wes Nease.  She recently flew out from exotic Virginia for two weeks’ visit, here in the land of Damn Good Mexican Food and Legal Heroin.

She is a Lettuce Farmer by trade.  (That is to say, she works on a lettuce farm.)  During her stay she helped spruce up our vegetable garden, which seems to know no winter.  She also spearheaded the clean up of our “bomb shelter”, an open-air subterranean concrete room in the backyard. Once decorated with white twinkle lights, it became the dance floor at Colin/Kate’s Epic Joint Birthday/Maddy’s Going Home Party.

The following evening after the house had been picked up and the remaining guests had been wheelbarrowed to the curb.  We made a few images down on the dance floor while enduring weather in the low 50s, or what I like to call Southern California Freezing.

Thanks to Maddy for helping to straighten up our man cave, adding more vegetables to our bachelor’s diet, and for generally cheering up the joint.  Come back soon, the Goose misses you.

Madison and Wes Nease in The Bomb Shelter

My three year old Goddaughter, Katarina, had her first visit to the ocean yesterday.

She insisted on wearing her Little Mermaid dress for the occasion.

I received this letter from my sister a little over a month before my first Veteran’s Day. I found it while thumbing through my journal this afternoon. Shared here with her permission.

Kate and the Marine Corps shared a birthday yesterday.

I was happy to spend it with her.

I was in Laguna early yesterday morning to shoot engagement photos for my cousin Dave and soon-to-be-cousin-in-law, Jenny. Being a family affair, I brought Tara and Kate along as Assistants/Wave Watchers (as in “Watch out, a wave is coming.”)

The water was fairly calm and the overcast skies held all morning, so I left the lights in their cases and didn’t even require the reflector.  This left the girls without much to do except hold the bag of lenses, and again, warn me of oncoming waves.

After an almost heartbreaking swell came a little too close to comfort, I gave Kate my iPhone, lest I lose two of my favorite things at once.  This morning I discovered a dozen or so choice iPhonotypes they’d made whilst I was busy.  A few of me shooting, but mostly it was them pointing at hermit crabs and dancing “all crazy” behind me.  These are just a few of the hits.

Tara surveys tide pools with reflector.

Tara points at a hermit crab.

Kate breaks it down.

A big thanks to my lovely and talented Assistants, and to Dave and Jenny, who took the waves in stride and the crew out to lunch.