photogrammatical

A Christmas video message to my Marines in Afghanistan.

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.

Sunday was Family Day for Alpha Company.  I rode down to Camp Pendleton with the man who was once my Platoon Commander.  Neither of us are in the unit anymore, but we still have strong ties to the men, and couldn’t let them go without seeing them off.  My father sent along a bottle of Ireland’s finest to be stowed for the journey.

Family Days precede every deployment.  This one had all the usual sights.  A bounce house for the little ones, parents seated at picnic tables in the sun, a hot dog station that was certain to run out of food.  A couple of LAVs were in the parking lot swarmed by kids, their mothers watching nervously, knowing full well that experienced crewman fall off of them all the time.

I was introduced to a whole squad of new wives and fiances, another familiar pre-deployment ritual.  Marines generally use last names when referring to each other, but when meeting a significant other, introductions are always made with first names.  If asked, any Marine would tell you it is to make themselves seem friendly and approachable, but I have a personal theory that it is also to disassociate one’s self from any indelicate stories that may have been told.  “Oh, you’re THAT Bennett.”

A couple of the old Black Sheep showed up, families in tow.  It was awfully good to see them.  Together, we inspected the new up-armor modifications that our vehicles have received since we last lived in them.  This led to criticisms like “Now where will the cooler go?”, and “That new turret shielding will make it kind of difficult to swing a Nerf Bat at the kids trying to steal your pack.”  Indeed, we are untapped resources when it comes to assault vehicle design.

On Monday morning I picked up the newly minted Staff Sergeant Vanderpol from his father’s machine shop in Newport Beach.  I’d offered to take him back down after he’d ditched his truck and the civilian gear he’d been keeping on base.  He was waiting for me out front, his two sea bags, pack, and carry-on stacked behind him. This is to be his fourth deployment, and his experience shows.  There were no last minute errands to run, everything was packed and ready.

When we arrived at the Battalion Area, word came down that their flight was to be a delayed until Wednesday, and that the Marines were to be released until then.  Wives and parents were there, happy of course to have their men for a few more days, but I’d seen those looks on my own family’s faces before.  It had taken a lot of emotional wind up just to get into the car that morning.  They’d only steeled themselves through mid-afternoon.

Vandy and I headed south to Sgt. Paul Acosta’s house in San Diego.  We hung out all afternoon, the three of us drinking beer and relaxing.  We ended the night with a sushi dinner and an old John Wayne favorite.

I woke up early Tuesday morning on Acosta’s couch, my jacket wrapped around my chest.  I lay there without moving for a long time.  The morning was very gray and very still.

Vandy was sleeping in the loft above me.  I didn’t even raise my voice.

“Are you awake?”, I said.

“Yeah, I’m up.”

I could tell by his voice he’d been awake for a while.  It occurred to me that whatever he’d been thinking about up there in silence was probably more than I’d had to worry about lately.

“Join me for a beer then?” , I said.

He answered back, “While I still can.”

When Acosta woke up, we three went out for coffee and some proper breakfast burritos.  When the meal was over, and everything that would be said was said, I shook the boys’ hands, got in my truck, and started driving north.  Back towards the decisions I’ve made.

Half the boys took off on Wednesday, the other half left just this afternoon.  Next stop Afghanistan.

There is more than a small part of me that wants terribly to catch up with them somewhere out there in the desert.  Unexpected, and good for morale.  Like a brother showing up to the big away game, camera in hand.

There are a few small logistical issues I’d have to figure out, but in the meantime;

Godspeed to you my fine Marines.  You make me so humble, so grateful, and so immeasurably proud.

Last night I attended the opening of A Tribute to the Life & Art of Jerry Burchfield at Biola University. Jerry was a teacher of mine from the very beginning of my interest in photography. He gave me my one and only gallery show. He taught me how to cut mattes and put the frames together for it. Really those are the least of the things he taught me, but I remember them strongest because we did them alone together. He lost his battle with colon cancer on Sept 11. His show, which was planned before his passing, went right ahead and opened as he would have wanted. But it was a somber event without him.

Anthony Morfa and I went to High School together. We were bass trombone players in the school’s marching band together. As alumni, we were two of the 2000 piece band in the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. A few months later I would head off to Boot Camp, he would head off to college.

Today, Dr. Anthony Morfa is part of a team of chemists at the Nanoscience Laboratory, Bio21 Institute at the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. During my recent visit, Anthony took me to work, introduced me to some of his colleagues, and together they tried to explain things to me that were a little beyond my comprehension, but they had great visual aids.

Dr. Anthony Morfa

Dr. Tich-Lam Nguyen

Dr. Matthias Karg

Aside from being surrounded by science-y awesomeness like bubbling beakers, spinning vials and a laser room, they are working with “nano-particles” and “quantum dots”, finding new ways of gathering and utilizing light and energy, and pushing the limits of current LED (light emitting diode) and solar cell technologies.

Some Science-y Awesomeness

What I did understand is that these ‘green sciences’ are being studied by young, energetic PhDs who are excited about the work they are doing and the possibilities that these nano-technologies can hold. They were excited enough to get me excited. Then we were all excited, then someone brought in a black light.

Dr. Karg

Dr. Nguyen and Blacklight in the Laser Room.

A big thanks to Prof. Paul Mulvaney for graciously allowing both myself and my camera into his lab, to the “Dr.’s 3″ who gave me both their time and a brief lesson in Really Tiny Awesome Science, and to the rest of the chemists in the Nanoscience Lab who did better than tolerate my presence in their workplace.

Dr. Anthony Morfa to be specific, but more on him later.

Our vacation Down Under was all we had hoped for and more.

Vacations have a tendency to be exhausting. While I’d admit to suffering the effects of jet lag over our first days home, this trip was a pleasant exception. We packed a lot into our two weeks, but we took it all in at a leisurely pace.

It is winter in Australia. Down in Melbourne, where we spent most of our trip, it was cold and raining off and on. We stayed bundled up a good deal of the time.

We walked around a lot, almost everywhere. To the farmer’s market, to the city center, to “our” local bar. It’s a shame that most of Southern California isn’t really laid out for walking. It was quite nice.

We wandered about the country a bit as well. A short flight here and there, but I logged a lot of miles (or kilometers in this case) driving on the other side of the road. Getting my equipment through airport security was relatively painless. Although, I did have to explain to one fellow what a softbox was and why I had metal poles in my carry-on. He also seemed troubled by the look of my speedlights in the x-ray machine, but I can’t say that I blamed him.

We were staying with a friend, a self sufficient bachelor, so I did most of the cooking for the three of us. I’d have a hot meal and a cocktail waiting for him when came home from work. On nights when it was raining too hard to venture out, we’d sit around drinking Shiraz and watching episodes of Mad Men. We joked that I had become his Betty Draper. I’d wager that Betty Draper never made Kangaroo Fried Rice.

I took a lot of pictures while we were there, of course. I’ve quite a bit of editing to do. Some of it I’ll post, but most of it I won’t. I was traveling for pleasure. I took plenty of travel snaps. A lot of pictures of buildings and bridges and beaches, and my girlfriend standing in front of said scenery. I won’t bore you with our vacation slide show.

Well… perhaps just a few.

The Twelve Apostles

Tara in Sydney

Tara and the Opera House at Night

I got the call today. Frank the Fish is dead. At nearly five years old he was the final survivor of the Fishbowl Gang, a motley crew of feeder fish I’d bought in the fall of 2004.

It was the first assignment in a photo class I was taking. Photograph one object 36 different ways. 36, of course, because everyone was still shooting film then. So I went to Walmart, spent under $10 and walked out with a large fishbowl containing five goldfish.

Tara and I were still newly dating. She dutifully held the fishbowl in the passenger seat as I tried unsuccessfully not to slosh the water onto her jeans. We drove all over town looking for places where the light seemed just right. At a park, at a bustop, in the center divider on a busy street. It took several hours, but I was happy with the results.

At the end of the day I suggested that we give the fish to the first kid we saw on the street, or else set them free in a local pond, but Tara would hear none of it. She’d named the two largest fish Frank and Fatty and she was determined to keep them for what we assumed was their short lifespan.

The three smaller fish did die almost immediately, and Fatty passed after several months. But Frank was a fighter. As the years passed his fins grew impossibly long like an old man’s whiskers, and he took to spending his days just sitting on the bottom, watching us.

Several times I mentioned that we could buy Frank a larger tank, perhaps a couple of friends, but Tara seemed to think that Frank was staying alive out of pure spite for his circumstance and that spending any additional money on him might be issuing him a death sentence.

And so Frank lived on in that same bowl, the regal lord of Tara’s parents’ kitchen. Always watching, only bothering to swim at meal times or when his possible demise had come into question.

But alas, old Frank’s number had finally come up.

Tara called this afternoon and said,

“Bad news, I just got to Mom’s house and Frank is dead.”

“Are you sure he’s not just resting?”, I said.

“Sorry honey.”

That was it. The undignified end of what was a remarkably long life for a lowly Walmart feeder fish who rose to prominence in the lives of a lucky few.

Frank will lay in state until tonight, when I can give him a proper burial.

Goodnight sweet prince.

Mark Smuts and I have been friends since we were 15. We went to high school together, we worked in a restaurant together, he took me to a bar at midnight on my 21st birthday.

When I was in Infantry School, Mark would get calls at 1am on Saturdays and he’d drive down to Camp Pendleton to pick me up.

The day I came back from the war it was just Mark and my girlfriend at the time who were there to take me home.

He’s a hell of a guy, and a hell of a friend.

Happy 29th Birthday Smuts.

Too bad you grew up to look like “The Commish“!