What’s up, Hive? It’s 2:00a.m. I’m just winding down after quite a day. My house has come under inspection requirements all because I didn’t have a handrail on our steps […I haven’t for 13 years and it wasn’t a problem until now], but after months of delaying the inspection deadline, next Monday is my final warning. @ghostfish, bless his soul, came over after work and we took a trip to the hardware store. We ran into some complications, but in the end, the railing was installed and I should be good for next week. Afterwards, @ghostfish and I celebrated with pho just before he had a date with Chelsea Wolfe at the Varsity Theater. Grateful for friends like him.
I have new photography to share with my longtime friend Zee. We’ve known each other for a decade now and we’ve been through a lot together. We sent a week at Standing Rock during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. I met her when she hired me for her college graduation photos after getting her degree at the University of Minnesota and we’ve continued to collaborate and shoot together since. She’s featured in my book, Dark Pinup by @wcpublishing and she recently inquired about a promotional set of photos to celebrate her Marxist communist enthusiasm. Zee’s been to St. Petersburg several times and Russian studies was her focus before teaching.
She has copious amounts of communist books, rare first editions, flags, banners and paraphernalia which made for a rich backdrop to this concept. If you aren’t familiar with the leftists of Minneapolis or other progressive cities, she is a perfect representation of the demographic. She was active in many protests during the George Floyd protests in the Twin Cities during 2020 and she’s a certified paramedic. She’s a complex person and that is a quality I love in a friend. It’s difficult to put her in a box and this shoot was just another example of the depths of her sophisticated make up as a person.
The process of revisiting these shoots has been a healing exercise that’s bringing me back in touch with the years of my life that we’re so chaotic and busy, they just feel like a blur. Tomorrow night, I’ll be driving @guthrie to a small tiny home that I booked one night for us just as a get away and to disrupt the routine. I’ll be bringing a few HD’s and exploring these shoots seeing if I missed any gems from the first time or two I’ve reviewed the photos. We’re going to have to pick a movie to keep our horror movie streak going and of course, make time for s’mores at the campfire outside. Looking forward to a break in the monotony. Thanks for reading!
