fotoNovella: FunFest 2010
Hermiston, OR. Oh, the life in a small town! Blocking-off downtown, american-flag shirts & suspenders, big red baloons, cowboy hats, local artists, running into your neighbor, iconic watermelon. Oh, the character of a small-town! I took these pictures for the Hermiston Chamber of Commerce during the Hermiston FunFest last summer. A few bright colors to help you forget about the snowflakes of this morning!
fotoNovella: small town summer
Hermiston Chamber of Commerce, FunFest July 2010
And that last image was my graphic designer extraordinaire, Katie & her little one Casen. We met years ago in this small town. Funny how life & small towns bring us together again 
Valentine’s Day fotoNovelette: Cookies & Kisses
I heart Valentine’s Day! Remember when we were in elementary and we got to pick-out our mini valentine’s to put in each of our friends hand-decorated, paper sack mailboxes? Did you have barbie valentine’s? Superman? Strawberry Shortcake? Well then you were cool!
But you see…I kept giving Valentine’s in high school…way past cool barbie valentine’s stage. The 13th I would stay up until 1 or 2 the morning making handmade valentine’s with kiss candies attached to what I thought were ‘witty’ captions. Yeah. Just ask anyone who knows me…I haven’t gotten much wittier 
Or there was the year I hand-frosted hundreds of heart-shaped cookies. Yes I must have handed them out to every student in all 7 periods of my high school schedule. I heart Valentine’s day that much
This year is going to look a lot like that! Only, I’m looking for a few cute kids to help me out We’re going to be hanging-out in a super rad vintage-style kitchen and cut-out cookie dough, frost & sprinkle hearts cookies…
& perhaps even taste-test a few!
familyNovella: Julie’s birthday
A antidote to winter? I have a little glimpse back to summer for you!
I hid just back behind the garden arbor. Tom tended to to the meat on the grill, cooking dinner for his wife & their friends. Janci chased the little kids around, entertaining them and keeping them out of trouble in Grandma & Grandpa’s garden. Amanda chatted it up with the guests while grandma put the salads out on the table.
The woman of the hour came around the corner & the extra cars, two dozen friends & paparazzi-style photographer welcomed her! Surprise! Happy 40th birthday, Julie!
The rest of the evening was family, friends, great BBQ (Cookin Spoo Style is Tom’s catering business…yummy yummy BBQ!), and lots and lots of laughter.
Oh summer, come back quickly! 
fotoNovella: day 37,345
Pictures start dialogues.
In May I was invited to share a personal project at the Kennewick Art Walk. Hosted by Essence Photography Co., I enjoyed an evening of conversation with appreciators of art. People are fascinated by age. Especially as we mature, we start to see the process of growing older, not as wrinkles or unsteady feet, but as beauty. A beauty that is wisdom, character, strength, and story. It was this beauty that drew me to capture a day in the life of Marie: to be exact, day 37,345. What I didn’t think about, was that Marie had become a figure of Historic Downtown Kennewick. She had lived in the little pink house on Fruitland for years. Her husband had a barbershop downtown. So one by one as the locals would step into the studio, I’d hear: It’s Grandma Keller! How is she? and then they would share Grandma Keller stories with me. One gentleman shared with me:
I was running the farmer’s market at the time. One afternoon I returned and one of my employees told me that we had a watermelon to deliver. “We don’t do deliveries,” I said. The employee didn’t think that we delivered either, but the woman insisted we would. When he showed me the address, I said, “Oh, of course…for Mrs. Keller…we deliver ”
Everyone who attended received a letter at the door:
This last image was the favorite image of the evening. I also entered it in an art show at the Pendleton Center for the Arts. Later, the curator called and asked if I would be willing to donate it for their annual auction, since they had been enjoying it in their office.
shannon’sNovella: best of 2010
Everyone in the photography world seems to be using this first week of the year to look back and pick-out their favorite images of 2010. I’ve been inspired to think about my own work of 2010.
I’ve thought about my own gigabytes upon gigabytes of work that I’ve done over the last year. Or really, the majority of which was in the last 6 months since I went full time in June, and there are two images that stand forefront in my mind. I have favorites from each of my sessions (which you will see in individual blog posts over the next two months…if I can hold myself to my New Year’s Resolution , but when I think about my works as a whole, these two images come to mind.
Perhaps it’s because I’m picky. Perhaps it’s because I’m perpetually critical of my own work. Perhaps it’s because one of these images is intimately personal to my family and the other was thanks only to a lot of hard work by a number of talented people. Perhaps it’s because I’m seldom entirely happy with a single shot. Perhaps it’s because I never feel settled with one shot for very long.
Or perhaps I just have a bad memory
Whatever the reason, here are the two images that are most iconic in my mind from the past year.
Here’s to 2011!
shannon’sNovella: giving.
Giving can be stressful.
We love the people in our lives! We appreciate them, but no, we don’t always show them how MUCH we appreciate them. Luckily there are landmarks throughout the year that give us an extra chance to show them: “I appreciate you. I’m so glad you’re in my life.”
And so in the weeks leading up to the gift-giving, we search and search for just the right gift. Because getting just the right gift means something. “It means I care. It means I care especially about you.”
We listen for any hints of what the receiver of the gift might want. But even when they drop mention of something, we wonder if they really really want it, or if it was just a passing thought. Maybe we even drop suggestions on the sly just to gage their response Santa’s got it figured out with wishlists, doesn’t he!?
& so…when we actually hand over the carefully wrapped gift it’s with butterflies. Butterflies that say: your joy is important to me! We watch with as much anticipation as the hands ripping off the ribbon & it’s when the paper is pulled aside that we know whether or not the gift is perfect. If your gift brings a giddy-happy-as-a-child-on-christmas-morning smile, then no matter how old the reciever is…you’ve chosen well.
Yesterday, I made someone smile like a child on christmas morning & when I opened this gift, I was giddy-happy!
May you enjoy your weekend of giving!
This piece is called ‘seasonal workers’ and is the work of the local artist Cameron Mills. You can check-out more of his work at the Kennewick Coffee Co. which he and his wife Katie own in Historic Downtown Kennewick. Tell Katie & Cameron you saw his piece here!
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