Canis Lupus Jakus

Today I was home for a while waiting for the window guy to bring our replacement glass and the dogs were safely in the basement. Coco emitted her usual annoying cacophony of shrieks and yips and whines.

But then, rising above the din came a most unholy sound. A very long and almost musical, unmistakably wolven howl that brought a chill to my spine and curdled my blood. For a brief moment I thought a wild animal may have broken into our basement.

Dogs diverged from the Gray Wolf over the last 100,000 years or so and have been domesticated for about the last 15,000 years. For a long time it was thought that dogs were a separate species from the wolf, but DNA testing has confirmed what many half-wolf, half-Malamute owners suspected: they are the same species. In 1993 the dog was removed from it's longstanding species taxonomy Canis familiarus and reclassified properly as a sub-species of the Gray Wolf, Canis lupus.

It was with these thoughts in the back of my mind that I realized this ancestral throwback, this hair-raising howl was coming from Jake. Somewhere buried deep in Jake's canine brain is etched the programming to howl, untouched by the last 100,000 years of divergence and breeding.

I guess you can't take the wolf out of the dog.

Carving

Check this out. You can now carve pumpkins the ultimate lazy-man way - with a powered pumpkin saw! We were introduced to this buzzing beauty at the Weiss' Halloween party last week.

Here is Zach, hacking a perfectly good pumpkin to death.

Perceptions

"Do not photograph a woman how she looks, but how she thinks she looks."

Ok, who's next? I have an open portrait slot next Thursday at 7pm.

DWP LLC

David Wild Photography it is! Simple, easy to remember, and I already own the domain name!

And Then There Were Nine

"First, I am. Second, I used to be. But Mouton does not change." - Baron Philippe de Rothschild, 1973


"Yesterday I had ten peeps, today I have only nine. But Dave does not change." - Me, today

Win some, lose some.

Happy Halloween!!

Haeng Un

Everyone wish Brian a safe and jet-lag-free trip to Korea. He leaves Sunday to go eat kimchi with the guys at Hyundai.

What's In A Name?

I've been agonizing over a new name for my photography business. It's not easy coming up with a name that is not already registered on the web and/or the state, and that doesn't make me sound like a tool.

This is probably why I chose David Wild Photography in the first place. But now that I am registering as an LLC and likely taking on one or more partners, I need a more neutral name.

I've been rifling through lists of do's and don'ts, trying to get that perfect name that nobody has ever used before. I might as well be trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle by throwing it in the air and hoping it will fall to the floor assembled.

The majority of my recent business has been weddings. So it should at least be "wedding-friendly".

Which kills the following otherwise completely acceptable names: Battle Axe Photography, Ball & Chain Media, Two-Bagger Studios, Clock Stopper, and of course, Kiss The Toad.

But seriously. Despite the blatant violation of "Rule #4: Don't use a committee to name your business" that this represents, please flood me with your suggestions. I have a few good ones which I will list below, along with my thoughts on them. By all means, give me your opinion. You'll have to carry the business card in your wallet or purse until the day I die, so give it a good thinking-about.

Natural Glow Photography - Evokes capturing the customer's natural look, in natural tones. We'll make you look good. Glowingly good. Like a pregnant woman. Of course, brides may feel a bit guilty.

Lightsmith - Like Blacksmith, but with photos.

Wonderlife - Evokes a good life, full of, well, wonder.

Simple Wonders - Simple implies less grief for the busy bride. Wonders is, well, wonderful.

Positive Proof Photography - Uses the photo-buzzword "proof", and also the positive image of the word "positive".

True Essence Photo - Reminds me a little of a scene in Dr. Strangelove, and not a pleasant one. It’s also hard to spell for the average public school grad.

Wild Wonders - Uses my last name

Wild River Photo - Uses my last name, and evokes the outdoors

Wildflowers - Cool name, a little feminine, maybe sounds like we are nature photogs?

Ok, have at it...

Pitch Perfect

Zach is musical. And I just realized the extent of it.

He's been playing the recorder at school, and every day he comes home with some tune to practice. He likes it. They are simple songs and he plays them well. No big deal.

But, on the way to school the other day, just for fun, I put a song on the stereo for him to play with.

Stairway to Heaven, that perennially cool 70's Led Zep song, features four harmonized recorders in the intro, playing along with Jimmy Page's classic arpeggiated acoustic guitar.

Zach homed in on those recorder parts like a cruise missile and started playing along. By the end of the intro, he had them nailed with an accuracy that amazed me. It suddenly hit me that he has a fantastic ear. This sense of pitch comes naturally too, he doesn't really have to try, it's just in him.

I played a bunch of non-recorder songs afterwards and he was always able to get right on key fast and came up with some interesting accompanying improvisations.

I was so proud of him. I don't think he realizes that he has something that is difficult or impossible to learn if you aren't born with it.

I asked him if he would like to learn guitar, which is his dad's hobby, and he said:

"Dad, I'm already involved in one instrument."

Ok, don't push. He'll gravitate to it, I know he will. He once blurted out:

"Dad, when I grow up, should I be an artist, or a rocker?"

Energy. Talent. Attitude. An almost preternatural hatred for homework.

He'd make a good rocker.

And Now For Something Completely Cute!

A Real Shellacking

When we moved in to our house we noticed and area of the wood floor that was damaged by some kind of acid or caustic substance. Probably something the cleaning lady did right before we moved in.

We didn't notice it for a couple weeks because we had the floor paper in place, protecting the floor from all the shuffling of heavy items.

When we did notice it, the builder sent the floor finisher out to patch it up. But the patch job looked terrible - the new area was far glossier than the satin floor, making it look like there was a puddle of water there.

So we got the finisher to come out again and redo his work. This time he brought what he said was the right finish, and it was flatter, but still not close to matching.

I called up the owner of the flooring company and told him to come out and have a look. He agreed that the finish didn't match, so he is going to call the builder and get permission to sand and refinish the ENTIRE wood floor of our house. This is every room on the ground floor except the office, laundry room, and pantry. That's huge. We have to move all the furniture to, um, somewhere else, and go through one heck of a major operation right in the middle of our already crazy lives.

I wonder if the builder is going to square off with the poor cleaning lady. This must be one of the more expensive floor cleanings he's ever paid for.

Castro Cutey

Maddie tries on Mary's truly stylish Castro Hat, and she loves it.

The Times, They Are Changed

What were you doing when you were nine? Probably not surfing the internet, I'll venture to guess.

Chop Sticking

Probably because California Rolls are Zach's favorite food, he has gotten really good at using chop sticks.

And Probably because Zach is her big brother, Maddie wants to be good at using them too.

I have no doubt she will be, and soon. Sushi is a powerful motivator in our household.

The Eisenhower Tunnel

There is an amazing tunnel that cuts right through a mountain while crossing the Continental Divide on I-70 near Denver. We drove through it on our way to Steamboat this summer.

While I am in the tunnel I like to think about how many tons of rock are directly above my head. The number must be truly astronomical.

It can really get inside your head if you let it.

Mini Jedi Master

The Silver Shooter

The Old Switcheroo

Dennis and I went out to Black Lotus for a couple cold ones last night. On the way home we stopped at McDonalds to pick something up for Heather and Maddie. We were greeted at the drive-though by a very nice sounding female voice asking us if we wished to try the latest pre-fab concoction they were hocking.

"No" Dennis said into the mic, "but we'd like a ...." and ordered the dinner Heather wanted.

"OK, ANYTHING ELSE?!?!?" boomed a very low and manly voice through the speaker.

We were taken aback by the radical change in sex of the voice. The guy laughed and told us the first voice we encountered was a recording, and we were stuck with him now.

So, unfortunately, the sweetest, nicest, and most intelligible voice at McDonalds these days is fake.

Ok, sorry Alisa, the second most.

Happy Birthday Carol Wild!!!

Miss June

Did I ever tell you I used to know a Playboy centerfold?

True story, yes.

I'm not going to say her name here because I don't want 34,675 hits from teenage boys and older married men on my blog, but she was Miss June 1999. Look her up.

Just not at work.

She's from Detroit, and when I met her she was working as a waitress at an Italian restaurant in Dearborn. Dennis and I used to go in there quite a bit for lunch in the early 2000's. It was a sort of crazy place, the wait staff would sing songs at night. During the day they were, strangely and thankfully, nonmusical.

So, Miss June was going through some really tough times. She had a bad boyfriend who was about as mature as a Hellboy fan at a comic-book convention. She had fallen hard after her big break with Heff, and we got to hear all about it. She waited on us almost every time we went in there. Our typical lunchtime conversation went something like this:


Me: "Hi, what's up?"

MJ99: "So, Playboy is flying me to California to do a DVD calendar!"

Me: "Really?! Wow, that's great!"

MJ99: "Well, actually it's me and 11 other girls"

Me: "Oh. Still...cool"


There were discussions on relationships, custody laws, and her experiences growing up in southwest Detroit and winning the Hawaiian Tropic contest. She signed a copy of her magazine for me which I use for evidence that I didn't make all this up.

It's interesting that her Wikipedia page actually lists that she worked at an Italian restaurant at Fairlane Mall. It's only a small leap from there to "...where she waited on Dave frequently...", and only a little larger jump to "...who she secretly had a crush on..."

Ok, I'm back.

Happy 7th Birthday, iPod!!!

You've given "music on the go" to untold millions of people around the world, and for that we thank you.

Most Esteemed And Curious

Without malicious intent, I would like to here post a photo-plate that I believe to be rather representative of the curious and inquisitive nature of our esteemed colleague, one Mr. McDowell, of Dearborn.

Mr. McDowell, having been schooled in the finer arts, and being of well-regarded character and reputation, is depicted here with a most interesting facial composition, akin to curious self-assuredness...this being an important part of his career as showman and oracle.

Please call upon Mr. McDowell when next he visits your town, as his schedule allows. You will be treated to a most delightful conversation, with tea and cakes afterwards served on the veranda.

Not Eating & Not Sleeping

I found the bassinet yesterday. That was my big contribution to modern society for the day. It wasn't easy, I had to go through the entire garage before I realized it was in the basement.

The dogs of course think you're crazy when you do any kind of manual activity, such as walking around going through boxes. They just sit there wondering and wondering, smoke rising from their little skulls, why anyone would do something not related to sleeping or eating.

So now we have a place to put our little baby when she decides to poke her head out, which will be soon enough.

I took the rest of the evening off.

Three

Heather,

Happy Anniversary, you sexy redhead! Can you believe it was three years ago today that you strolled down the aisle to me? My how time flies, we have expanded our little family by one and almost two kids since then! And we're up by one puppy too. We have a new house, and you have a different job. We've gone on hikes and reunions and sipped cider and flown thousands of miles together in these last three years.

We've gone through a lot, and had some difficult times, but also some really great ones that more than make up the difference in my book.

And we're good for each other. Case in point: You eat sushi now! And I know all about scrapbooks. :)

In the past few years you've discovered your talent for motherhood, and you are wonderful at it.

And I've discovered how good a wife you are. Over and over again.

Happy Anniversary, Heatherbaby!

I Love You

Dave

My Most Insignificant Blog Post Yet

I'm bored.

Preying In The Dark

Ok, I've been asked to recount this story from the dark days of sharing a basement bedroom with Brian.

Brian used to have very bizarre nightmares, or I guess you could call them night visions. This was possibly the result of us sleeping in a dank dungeon of a basement, or perhaps it was due to our late-night habit of watching The Three Stooges, The Young Ones and Benny Hill for hours just before we drifted off to sleep.

Anyhow, one especially restless night, my sleep was shattered by Brian yelling and screaming that there was a panther in the room. Being sleepy as I was, the ludicrous suggestion actually slipped right past the plausibility sensors in my cerebral cortex and made it down to my brain stem, where it caused a general alarm. No matter that the only panther either one of us had ever seen was pink, and on TV. This was not a drill.

I sat up like a dart, and silently waited in the darkness like a statue, senses bristling, probing the room for some sign of a large stalking cat about to pounce on us. My heart was beating like a West-African kpanlogo drum.

Then, suddenly and without warning, out of the darkness sprang, not a cat, but Brian, grappling my neck with his hands and trying for all he was worth to snuff my life out.

In his version of the story, he says he thought I was a bear, and he was simply "raining blows down upon me" to subdue me, but I think I felt icy fingers around my neck.

In The Bottle Line

Zach and I were at Meijer's yesterday morning, grocery shopping. We're standing in line at the bottle return in anticipation of an aluminum and plastic feed-fest with an 800-lb eating machine.

I felt air blowing on my head. Hmm. Maybe I just imagined it.

Again.

I looked up, there was a vent right above my head. Ok, a vent, I get it.

Then it happened again, more from behind me.

Zach looked up and whispered to me "What's HE doing here?"

I turned around to see Brian there, standing behind me blowing on the back of my head.

I guess I didn't consider that possibility.

Cosmo

This is one of my very favorite pictures of a dog, ever. I love the personality that comes shining right through the blurriness, undiminished. Cosmo is a Jack Russell, and full of spunky "terrierness". Every time I read the Frandle blog, this little furry face greets me and makes me smile.

Thanks for sending, Brandy!

Something Yellow

Heather fell asleep fast last night.

I reached out and touched her hair.

She woke up shocked. "What was that?"

"It was me, sorry, I just touched your hair."

"No, it wasn't that. It was something yellow."

Dennis The Hopper, Throwing One Back

Vows And Wows

I shot a wedding on Saturday, with Heather's help. It was one of those events that provided ample fodder for good candid shots. There were several very drunk people stalking about, including a guy who looked like a displaced Scottish lord, complete with outrageous accent, young lady radar, and flaming red nose. The pair of underage teenage girls who had been contracted to provide the music kept him very alert, and busy.

I got my usual herd of amateur photogs with questions about my gear and shooting techniques. If they only knew that I make it up as I go :)

Redheads In Bars

Did you know Heather owns a bar in Chicago? Me either.

Fuzzy Donut

Good news: Jake and Coco have both taken a liking to their new dog bed. In fact, they often squeeze into it together.

Here, Jake takes it for a spin.

Happy Friday, Family Hominidae!!!

We've come sliding into to the end of another week, all spunky and bristling for adventure. I want you to go outside this weekend and do something fun, something that you will still be buzzing from on Monday.

Something that will cause a rash, concussion or scar.

Mommit

Heather's birthday dinner at Maggiano's was excellent. We all had a wonderful time, right up until the vomiting started.

Maddie, sitting on Heather's lap (otherwise known as Brooke), suddenly produced a most quizzical expression, and then let loose all over my poor birthday redhead.

Only Maddie's cute rendition of the word made up for what she did:

Mommit.

Vintage Pentax, In The Wild

Film: it's not extinct yet.

Passed On By

How did we NOT go inside and have a beer while steeping our souls in blues?

Bri, Dennis, what were we thinking???

I wonder if Dan Aykroyd was there.

Scabbooking

Heather saves all kinds of miscellaneous ticket stubs and map fragments to use in her scrapbooks. She and I have a running joke where I am always asking her to scrapbook strange things like wine corks and shirts.

The other day the scab from my "thingy" fell of and I had it in my hand and looked up at her.

She said "NO, I am NOT scrapbooking that!"

Love Ya Heatherbaby!

Happy Birthday to my smart, beautiful, spunky redhead!!!

You make everything more fun

You make everyone smile and laugh

You make all the seasons special

You make life worth living

Love Ya, Heatherbaby.

Wish You Were Here

Maddie (to Heather): "Mommy, where daddy?"

HB: "Chicago"

M: "Congo?"

A Bus!

I am posting my blogs from a bus today. A bus!

Hugh

Walking the streets of downtown Chicago today on our way back to the hotel from lunch at Frontera Grill, we were suddenly confronted by a rare and bizarre individual. Walking towards us was a short and very scraggly man, hunched over, limping, and talking to himself. While this is a common sight in most downtown areas, this guy, who looked much like Rasputin, was anything but common. In fact, he apparently shares more than outward appearance with the Mad Monk.

Bulging massively out from this his dirty shorts, nearly tearing through, was an enormous semi-erect penis, or a close prosthetic approximation of one, we still can't decide. Whatever it was, it was huge.

This guy was causing quite a stir as he hobbled on, as you can imagine. Everyone was giving him a wide berth. After he passed by, we turned around and watched as he walked past two young women behind us. They forced themselves to look straight ahead until he walked by and then they shot astonished glances back at him. In no time they were both on their phones calling people to tell them about Hugh.

That's what we call him now. Hugh Mongous.

The Bus Boys

7:39PM, Somewhere on I-94

As I type this I am speeding west towards the Windy City, in relative comfort on the upper deck of a Mega Bus. Dennis is here next to me, but Brian is not so lucky. We picked up a veritable river of new riders in Ann Arbor and suddenly he finds himself trapped in a window seat next to a very talkative college boy with a very high opinion of himself. And this guy is painfully macking the chick in the seat in front of him. It's really embarrassing, he's an amateur and the girl is trying to claw her way free of him like a kitten being squeezed by a toddler.

The WiFi on the bus is not working (yes they have WiFi on busses now), and rather than rip the driver away from his more pressing duties of not getting us killed, I'll just have to wait and post this when we reach Chicago. And that should be sometime in the next 3-8 hours, depending on how many "Personal Maintenance" breaks this driver decides he needs.

Ok, I am going to go back to looking out the windows and pretending I am flying...

From Days Of Film And Famine

We've been working on getting the office done lately. Here's my new photography book shelf. Note the over-braced design that bores into four separate wall studs. Books are very heavy, I didn't want to take chances.

I had enough room to put some of my old camera collection on display. They are, from left to right: Argus C3 Rangefinder (1950-ish), Brownie Six-20 (also 1950-ish) Kodak 35 (on tripod), Brownie Six-16 (1930's), and a Kodak Hawkeye used in World War I.

Because, you know, old stuff is cool.

Cold And Dark

Simon Marsden is one of my favorite photographers. He shoots gothic scenes on infrared film, which gives an ethereal, almost ghost-like glow to his images. Green vegetation is alive with IR and prints as soft-white, while the deep blacks of cold stone and sky appear crushed-down and dramatic. He often constricts the view with vignetting, inciting claustrophobia.

Truly haunting.

He travels around Europe and photographs old castles and statues and manor houses and ruins where ghost legends abound. This kind of photography requires vision, planning, and a laser-like focus on the mood that the final image will convey. I think Simon succeeds very well in this, his images are horrifyingly effective at telling ghost stories without a single word.

Blu Ray Blues

So, I got a couple of Blu-Ray movies. In case you don't read Gizmodo as often as I do, Blu-Ray is the proposed replacement for DVD. It's got brilliant 1080p high-definition video and up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio. It is to DVD just about what DVD was to VHS, a giant leap ahead in terms of quality.

But...you may be wondering why I ordered movies for a player I don't have, and probably won't have anytime soon. Well, I had CDs well before I owned a CD player. I also possessed several DVDs before I got my first DVD player.

I guess I don't want to come home the day I finally get the device and not have anything to watch :)

I only buy the flicks I really love and want to watch over and over. Movies like The Seven Samurai, and Unforgiven and The Big Lebowski. And I'll only buy a movie on Blu-Ray of it is significantly superior to the DVD version.

Yesterday I saw a sale on Amazon and ordered one of our favorite "Holiday" movies, The Nightmare Before Christmas, on Blu. My trusted reviewer at Digital Bits says it looks incredible. And also the brand-spanking-new digital restoration of Sleeping Beauty, which by all accounts looks better than the original prints shown in theaters in 1959. The 6-million dollar movie that Walt himself was most proud of.

So, one day when we do get the player, we'll be ready to go.

Until then...well...um...they'll just sit here looking shiny and cool and inert.

Moments Captured

I have dipped my feet into the river of wedding photography. It's something I never had any inclination to do, but it's one place you can make money doing photography so I gave it a chance. And now that I have gotten myself into it, I want to produce the best work I can.

Which to me means giving my customers more than just a book full of shiny posed photos. I want to tell the story of their wedding. I want my finished product to be a living fairy tale, filled with moments, funny and intimate and honest, all driven on by the narrative of the event.

Forget starchy posed pictures of the forced-smiling couple leaning over a huge wedding cake trying to look comfortable. I want to capture that moment they have when they think nobody is looking. Whether it's a glance or a conversation, it's real, and that matters to me. And the fact that I froze it in time will matter to them too, maybe not right away, but it will.

I want to capture the essence of what happened that day so that when the couple looks back years on down the road, the whole thing will come to life again in their minds. And what they will see when they look into their album are the real moments, not nice neat rows of relatives in fig-leaf poses.

When I tell couples about this kind of "photojournalistic" photography they instantly love it, and they all want it.

But then they get a really strange look on their faces and ask "Can we get SOME posed pictures? You know, for Grandma."

Slipping Through The Crack

We have an ordinance in effect that levies a $500 fine on any pet owner who fails to clean up their animal's poop while on city property.

While walking the dogs today in the park, I detected $10,500 in uncollected city revenue steaming in piles along the pathway.

Pressing Matters

I use olive oil in almost everything I make, so I go through a rather large amount of it. The best stuff I have found that I can get in large amounts that won't make us broke is at New Yazmeen Bakery. It's from Lebanon, and it's fantastic. Way better than the tasteless generic Costco stuff, this "oil of the gods" is brimming with green fruitiness and just the right amount of "bite".

They sell it in several sizes, but I get the 1.5L size because it perfectly spaces out my trips to New Yaz. You see, whenever I go there to get my olive oil fix, I also get dinner for the family.

And that's always a happy day, filled with excitement and salivating.

Apples & Penguins

In other news, we went with the Weiss' and Zach's mom Sheri to a huge apple orchard/cider mill on Sunday, along with at least 45% of the population of southeast Michigan.

Parking was about like playing musical chairs with three thousand people. When at last we found our little patch of grass and parked, we were ready for adventure!

After paying our dues waiting the appropriate number of hours in line, we got our apple bag and went into the corn maze (maize maze?) in search of hidden symbols. Eventually we found all six and received the prize of a coupon for a free donut and glass of cider each
Next we hitched a ride on a tractor trailer and were driven out into the orchard to pick apples. I tried my usual trick of eating more apples than I picked, and nearly accomplished it.


There is one "Empire" apple tree that is stripped of all life because of me. I had misjudged the time we had left and just before the last tractor came I noticed my bag was only half full. So I went into action like an apple picking machine and filled that thing up pronto. That tree is still wondering what hit it.

Incidentally, when they listed the apple varieties we would be picking, Empire, Mutsu, etc, I couldn't help but think they sounded like a list of Penguin species. But maybe that's just me.

After our migrant worker duties were complete, and when we had just about breathed our fill of diesel smoke, we returned to the barn to get our cider and donuts.

We all went home tired and sore, but it was really great to get outdoors.

So...anyone want any apples?

Chilling Out

We went to see one of Zach's favorite authors at the library this weekend. Jonathan Rand writes a series of children's books called "Michigan Chillers", which he has recently expanded to include other states under the name "American Chillers".

He gave an animated talk about how he became an author, how much reading has changed his life, and he really got everyone all fired-up to go write something. He then signed books for the kids.

He was born in Pontiac, MI and now lives in Indian River, up north. He's one of Michigan's most published authors, with over 50 books in print. He has an amazing amount of energy and you can tell he loves what he does.

He said that a young boy once came up to him and asked "How old do you need to be" to be a writer. He asked the boy his age.

"Seven", the boy said.

So he told the boy you need to be seven to be a writer.