Beautifully Abandoned

I have this great friend, who is also a photographer. She is my guide through some of this adventure.

I have this major pet peeve of littering. It instantly makes me crazy, and makes me want to punch whomever is doing it right in the teeth. But I have a fascination for abandoned garbage. I don't mean trash as in food wrappers, those kinds of things just make me angry. But the abandoned household items that so many people just drop on the side of the road, or into wooded areas, or beaches. These things intrigue me. I still hate every single bit of it, but there is something about each item, the way they are placed, and the items they are with that gives me a sense of story. What is the story of the items that got dropped? why aren't they wanted anymore? Who are these people who drop this stuff? and most importantly, why does it seem like it's always dropped in a potentially nice area? It's crazy to think that inanimate objects have feelings, but for a time it's like you can feel they've been rejected. Sometimes I think people get rid of their things in areas where they know there are homeless people, or tweakers so the abandoned items will no longer feel like rejects.
For my final I propose to show the kind of items these people throw away and the areas that surround them. My goal for this project is to make the public aware of how frequent these things happen, but then again how frequent these items get picked right back up and made into home materials once again, for those who don't necessarily have a home.

Here are some examples of some of my most recent work.

Day in the Life

Has anyone else had en extremely long week? I think it has to do with stupid daylight savings time. That whole idea should be done away with. Anyway. Onward.

After having a wonderful cancellation from Organic Pastures, I had nothing to fall back on. So I begged my best friend who is a mostly stay at home mom, but also works about 10 hours a week. Before she had her second darling Faerlene, (or as I like to call her, Faye, because it's much easier to spell) my best friend for years, Corby was a lactation consultant. Now, she still does this but mostly from home. Corby would meet with new moms and help them with their breast feeding infants. Women would go to her if they were having trouble with the baby latching, or even if they were thinking about feeding their baby formula because maybe it was better than mother's breast milk. (I can assure you, it is not.) In any case, she does a lot of phone consults which allows her to be a stay at home mom and still have a small income. Her partner Andy works for the City of Benicia full time and usually comes home to wind up the older of the two girls-Kailey, right before bed. So fun.
I decided to shoot them as a family on a week day, not too much going on at home with Corby and the kids, but what I got, I think shows a lot of what is unspoken. Of course, in some cases it's obvious.
It was hard for me to narrow them down, but I did my best to edit it to what the basics were throughout the day. Enjoy!


Faye gets changed about 63 times a day.


Kailey has some asthma and so she has to breath with this tube in the morning and in the night. She really really does not like doing it. It was a very unstaged moment when Faye reached out to comfort her. Amazing how well people can read each other sometimes.


Here Faye is starting to hold herself up, and while Corby is giving praise for a job well done, Kailey seeks attention. Even though she isn't neglected at all.


Kailey was having a bit of a pout day and she did not want to eat her zucchini.


Luckily Corby didn't have very many mom's who called her that day, so she was able to et done relatively quickly.


After working we all walked to the park-a daily activity for Corby and the girls if the weather is nice.


I had to add this one just because I thought it was a bit chaotic. I had a small handful of pictures where it looked like Corby was completely abusing her kids. You know, like dropping them on the floor, trying to break their neck, you get the idea. I can definitely assure you that that was not the case. Just the correct positioning of the camera at the right time. Besides, kids roll around, and they bounce back. No pun intended. :)


Andy arrives home and pretty quickly becomes parent. He loves doing it.


This is a normal kind of ritual each night. Play time, right before bed. The best part of this picture (even this moment) was that faye seemed to enjoy flying around the room chasing her sister. Kailey pretended not to love it, but she was more afraid of getting caught in the game of chase. I love this truncation of her head so much. I can't explain why, and sometimes we don't need an explanation for why we like what we do.

Corby & Co. (as I like to call it) is pretty much my second family and doing this project was rewarding to me. Even though she considers me her personal photographer (which is fine by me!), following her around for a day and really getting to see what goes on in the day in her 'mom' life was a learning experience in more ways than one.
Speaking of babies, there is an excellent documentary called, "The Business of Being Born" you should watch it if you plan on having any kids.