Vivian Maier Project

Every semester I have my Harding Comm Department photography class do a project based on Vivian Maier.  Vivian Maier shot her everyday life.  That is the idea of this project and I always do this project as well.  Here is my album for the fall of 2020.   
 

Jimmy Allen

This is the first photo I could find that I took of Jimmy Allen.

It was from a Bible Department faculty photo shoot.  I had just come back from a Santa Fe Photo workshop in 1994 where I had taken a studio lighting class.  I had a Speedotron Blackline pack with two lights.  I remember setting this background up in the classroom across from the Bible offices and everyone came for photos. 

 

 I went and to Dr. Allen's funeral on Tuesday and it was a wonderful service.  This photo shows his daughter Cindy making remarks about his life.  Her brothers also made comments along with former Harding Bible dept chair Jerry Jones.

I never took a Jimmy Allen bible class.  I did always enjoy when he would preach at College Church.  He and Neale Pryor would switch between who took the spring meeting and who took the fall meeting.

I remember taking a conditioning class with Coach Richmond in the spring of 1990 and we would run laps on the indoor track at the Ganus Athletic Center.  Dr. Allen would usually be there playing basketball with the HSBS ( Harding School of Biblical Studies) students.  

I loved running into him on campus.  I remember seeing him at the post office and he was trying to convince Virginia Bradley that he got a preachers discount on postage.  Once while going somewhere with Tom and one of the girls in the office I saw him leaving the post office and stopped abruptly holding out my arms and said alert, alert....dinasour spotted.  Tom froze like something terrible was about to happen.  Dr. Allen grabbed me and acted like he was roughing me up all the time talking about how tough I was running my mouth.  

The above photo was from his retirement reception.  It always struck me how he would call Dr. Ganus by his first name.  There was no disrespect, they were next-door neighbors and friends for many years. Still, when I think about it I don't know many people who called Dr. Ganus, Cliff.  

I get the same feelings when I accidentally call Dr. McLarty, Bruce.  The McLartys moved to Searcy in 1991 to preach at College Church.  That was the same year I started working for Harding.  He was my preacher and I learned his name and appropriately called him by his first name.  When he was announced as the next HU President following Dr.Burks, I remember thinking out loud in a meeting what we should call him and Mr. Crouch immediately said " you should call him Dr. McLarty." Still, Bruce slips out sometimes.  This past Wednesday night at the Elders meeting Dr. McLarty was doing the devotional for the meeting. During the pre-meeting minutes as everyone was getting connected to the Zoom meeting, Dr. McLarty was talking about how the internet was down at his house and his office and he had finally gotten connected with his wife's phone. He then said something about putting us to sleep with his Devo and I piped in and said "Bruce, you have been putting the Montgomery kids to sleep at church for years."  It slipped out, I called him Bruce.  No offense was meant or taken but again there was that uncomfortable feeling of calling him Bruce. 

This was the last photo I took of Jimmy Allen.  It was during the 2014 Lectureship.  He was given a Lifetime Preaching Award.

I would occasionally see him walking across the lawn where the Old Married or East Married apartments used to be.  He was taking care of Mrs. Allen and he would just need a break to get out and walk.  Anytime I saw him I would go and walk with him.  He always had something on his mind or would tell me who he had talked to on the phone that day and about the work they were doing somewhere.  Whenever we parted ways he would always stop and look me in the eye and say "Son, I know about the work you are doing in the jail.  I am proud of you and I am praying for you."  Those are words that have kept me going at times when things at the jail were hard.

I just pulled his book Re-Baptism off my shelf.  I have never read it before and I decided this week would be a good time.

Another family memory for me was taking this photo of Mike Allen playing club football.  It was in the fall of 1988.  I was a freshman  photographer working for Leslie Downs at the Petit Jean.  I vividly remember getting this photo.  Back in those days of manual focus, I was really happy to see that I got it in focus.  I didn't have many photos in that yearbook but I sure was proud of this one.

Three Jimmy Allen Sermons from YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRTq2wB8vwA&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuPwhtZDDZg&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-vkFCXTNqI&feature=youtu.be

Road Trip

Since March, I have been using my Fuji X100s to document my life through the Covid-19 pandemic.  During this time I have watched lots of YouTube videos and I really liked the #StayHomeWithLeica series.

Well known Leica photographers talked about their images.  Some of the discussion was about cameras and lenses but really it was about the work.  I have always thought having a Leica would be amazing but they are way too rich for my blood and I have the Fuji that looks like a Leica.  I have enjoyed the process.

This past Sunday we did a road trip to Memphis to see Linda and also to visit Jenna and Colby.  Linda needed some things done and of course, the boys have to use the lawnmowers.  We had a good visit.

We went on to see Jenna and Colby.  We met at Jenna's school and got to see her new classroom.  We stopped by their house and got to see Poppy and Luna.  Luna is Oliva and Thomas Stafford's dog.  Jenna and Colby were keeping Luna while Oliva and Thomas were in Alabama visiting Aaron and his new baby.

I like doing this kind of everyday work.  If you looked at my social media you would think I only shot flowers and that is just not true.

For this trip I used the optical viewfinder to really try to appreciate the Leica experience.  I hope you enjoy the photos.

 

Jalen’s Graduation Practice

Jalen and Mr. Simmons

James Simmons the Superintendent 

Mr. Breedlove the high school principal. 

Social distancing with masks because of the Coronavirus.

Inside the Benson auditorium. 

Hailey Pruitt, English teacher and class sponsor. 

Craig Jones, Choir Director

Blake, the HU Public Safety crossing guard stopping traffic for the senior drive by parade. 

Jalen driving through the high school parking lot one last time. 

All photos were shot with Nikon D750 with 50 mm lens. 

Self Portrait

The light was nice and I had a 50mm on my Nikon D750. Over the Covid-19 pandemic  I have watched a lot of 

Photography on YouTube and many of the ones I have enjoyed have been Leica shooters. Shooting with prime lenses and monochrome cameras is something that is appealing to me.  The Nikon 750 and my prime lenses are kind of my summer project. 

Pretty in a parking lot

Julie and Jamie were running into Mardel to get some boxes of cards. I was driving around the giant empty closed down shopping center and spied a little triangle of  tall grass prairie in a sea of asphalt. I had my Fuji X100s camera with me and it has a wonderful macro mode that let me capture these wonderful details. Last night, when I was ready to Instagram them I found the perfect quote from my favorite photo quotes.com web page. 

I love this life. I feel like I am always catching my breath and saying, ‘Oh! Will you look at that?’ Photography has been my way of bearing witness to the joy I find in seeing the extraordinary in ordinary life. You don’t look for pictures. Your pictures are looking for you. - Harold Feinstein

Bike Ride Photos

Today, I went on a bike ride. I was inspired by David Alan Harvey on the Leica YouTube Channel. 

David Alan Harvey on the Leica YouTube Channel. 

I went out and took my Fuji X100s which is my most Leica like camera. I found some cool things. 

My favorite Jay Maisel quote bore true once again. 

                   “ If you go out things will happen, if you don’t go out you will just hear about it.”

A Magnolia bloom taken on Magnolia St. 

Marc Feager cooking burgers.

Wild flowers behind Legacy Park.

The court building. I had jury duty from January through April. The jury pool got released in the middle of March

due to Covid-19.  I had a bunch of friends in the jury pool : Amy Koch, Nika Hastings, Mike Wood, Martha Hodges, and David Collins.


Mike Keese working on a compost bin.

White hydrangeas in front of Dr. and Mrs England’s house. I took this photo because lately I have seen several photos that were beautiful but didn’t really have a subject. I feel like this is a good scene but no real subject. I would never let my students get away with that but I am trying it out. Sure you could say the flowers were the subject but I don’t want my students to be lazy. I really want a stronger subject.

Black-eyed Susans

Below is a photo of Josie masked up going to Walgreens. 

Vivian Maier Project- COVID-19 edition

2020 Spring Vivian Maier Album

This semester is like nothing I have ever experienced.  Covid-19 (coronavirus) took away the second half of the semester.  We went to online learning. That was not a huge hurdle for me as my classes have been using Google Photos and Google Classroom for years.  I did have to figure out Zoom meetings and how to lecture to a video camera.  Zoom classes are a poor substitution to the real thing.  In the spring semester, because of the winter weather, I lecture pretty heavy until March and then we start doing class photo walks.  We did one class photo walk the week before spring break.  My class did the rest of their assignments by themselves at home in quarantine.  They did a good job but it was not the same. You run out of stuff to photograph at home.  You run out of people to photograph.  Every year one of the main assignments is the Vivian Maier project where they have to take 600 photos of just everyday life.  Then they have to pull out their 100 best photos.  This year I dropped the number to 450 and then dropped it to 300.  I made them pick out their 75 best photos to caption.  It is strange to look at my VM project.  The first half is pretty straightforward but after spring break you can tell something happened.   Lots more photos from home and way too many flower photos.  It is just what I had to work with.  I actually made a Covid-19 photo folder for these times and I also made a Covid-19 email folder that I kept all the school announcements in and other strange emails that I want to use to remember this time.  I am glad that we did what we needed to do to stay safe.  I am really sorry that I didn't get to know my Spring class as well as I normally would.  I am praying that things will be better and that we will have a much more normal fall semester.

I was inspired to blog again by a Kathy Dillion blog post on the HU Center for Teaching and Learning blog.  For the last year or so I have been writing in a journal and I really have enjoyed that.  I really like this format but it seems to take more time and effort and I don't really enjoy the layout parts of the blogging process.  However, I have blogged off and on for a really long time to I guess I need to pick it up again and see if I can make it a habit again.  I am thankful for Kathy's inspiration and I am thankful for the journey I had with my Spring 2020 class of photographers.