More photos of people at the Valley of the Sunflowers :)
These first two young ladies are sisters, and I love following them on Instagram. Belen and Anel get up early (very early), they ride their bikes everywhere, and take awesome sunrise pics. Eventually, we are going to organize a soccer game in a park in Phoenix, so let me know if you want to join us!
Oh Baby! and his momma Stephanie!
Brian and Christina! Brian creates these pieces of art to wear- go here to see his Esty Store.
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I got to meet Carly and her daughter at the Valley of the Sunflowers Picnic and take photos of them. Carly has a restaurant: Carly's Bistro in Roosevelt Row in Phoenix. (128 E. Roosevelt) Have you been? I love the place, it's so chill and the food is sooooo beyond good.
You should definitely go!
One of my favorite memories is just killing time there one afternoon reading this book called Paris Noir, while I was waiting to go somewhere else. And another favorite memory is of going there with my friend Eddy - we led a discussion on Twitter about downtown Phoenix and it was cool to see the city skyline at night while we were discussing our city.
So go to Carly's!
And now on to the photos of Carly and her daughter at the Sunflower Picnic.
(If I have photos of you from the Sunflowers, I definitely have not forgotten - although I know it seems like it - and you will be getting your photos. If you think I might not have your email address, please email me at [email protected] - thanks!)
Giggly girls in summer dresses!
Running through a field of sunflowers! Don't you kind of wish that is what you were doing right now?
I use a photoshop plugin called Exposure 4 by Alien Skin to get these photos to have that look of film from the 1800's.
And she's off!
Thanks Carly! I had a blast taking photos of you and your girl.
Go HERE to see more images from the Valley of the Sunflowers.
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Eloise and her friends at the Valley of the Sunflowers.
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Sativa and her daughter at the Sunflower Picnic.
Go read Sativa's blog - she is a fantastic writer and I am so glad to have met her. We both go to Lux Central in Phoenix for coffee and to work - her on writing and me on editing photos. From reading pretty much every word of her blog I came to like her so very much (well from that and from talking to her).
I can't wait to read the book she is working on.
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The sunflowers at the Valley of the Sunflowers have started to bloom!
Which means it's time for a Sunflower Picnic.
Here's an image from my cell phone of the first blooms this Spring at the Valley of the Sunflowers. Can you tell how hot and hazy the day is just by looking at this pic? Hot in the hundreds and hazy from the fires around the state. I took this picture yesterday at the VOS. I was so excited to read that the sunflowers had started to bloom and I had to go see. Some of them are already so tall.
One of Hillary's cats. I always see him and his cat-friend hunting/lounging/wandering around the VOS.
I wanted to see what this photo would like if I processed it to look like a daguerrotype.
All of the photos below are from December 2011.
The ones of Hillary and me are from December 2nd and the others are from December 28th. (Not that I remember the dates - I just looked at the metadata.)
For some reason, I wasn't wearing shoes at the VOS. I have no idea why. I do remember it was pretty cold that day.
What I remember about taking photos with Hillary is that it rained for a while. And that Hillary waited patiently while I cleared photos of my kitten Kiki off of my completely full memory card, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to take pictures.
Hillary, you are so beautiful.
Thanks for taking photos of me! I always feel like I never have any photos of myself, because I am always the one taking the pictures.
Daguerrotype-style photos of Hillary and me.
The light that December day was amazing.
I like how you can see the Westward Ho to the west in this photo.
By the time I took the photos below it was SO very dark that the images did not come out all that well. I tried working with them in Photoshop, but wasn't really liking what I was getting, so I changed them to look like old daguerrotypes, which I think really makes them more readable and just kind of cool looking. If you know anyone in the photos, tell them to come see their pics. And if they are of you, please copy/save them to your computer.
Sean is in the middle of this image. He's one of the project managers.
Brendan.
Georgina the hen. She lives at the Growhouse. She didn't really care for me taking her picture.
She was like, Girl, why are you chasing me around with that toy camera? Don't you know news station camera crews with 50 K video cameras have been out to see me?!?
Kenny. One of the VOS project managers.
I kinda wish I could own this painting that is on the Growhouse wall.
I would love to get to see it everyday, first thing in the morning.
There's a work day at the VOS this Saturday if you want to come help out:
Copy and paste:
http://www.facebook.com/events/230830780365202/
or click HERE to sign up to attend.
And if you liked this post, click that LIKE button down there; it let's me know people actually read this!
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Instagram photo that my friend Stacey Champion took of me in the Valley of the Sunflower fields putting sunflower seeds into the soil. (That's her daughter walking behind me.)
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Work on the Valley of the Sunflowers for the spring started again today. I went to the fields and pulled weeds. The sunflower seeds go in the ground really soon. Which means I have to start planting my own sunflowers soon too. Here are a couple photos from my camera phone.
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{{{If you are in these photos, I will send you a copy of them, but probably not til this coming weekend. Feel free to copy/paste/keep if you like.}}}
I think I first heard of the Valley of the Sunflowers on Downtown Phoenix Journal and then tried to find VOS on facebook because I was absolutely going to be a part of it, if I could. The night before the first volunteer day, I was in my mom's hospital room, sleeping on my narrow little couch bed, and I could barely fall asleep. I! was! so! excited! that I would be going to plant sunflowers. Except, of course, on the first day we didn't plant anything. We went around cleaning up the vacant lot, sweeping the sidewalks, and painting and moving signs. It was super-summer-hot and I remember after a while it felt absolutely surreal - moving around in this extreme heat, underneath the intense Arizona sun - for a few hours.
This image is of Kenny from the dedication of the Valley of the Sunflowers. It was windy that day and it even rained a very little bit about an hour later and then later got really dark and cloudy and rained a bunch later on that day. (Why do I remember this random stuff?)
So all September I helped on Saturdays and some Wednesday evenings at the VOS and then things got crazy in October with my mom's bone marrow transplant and I don't think I helped very much.
By November I was helping again and sometime in November I read Sean Sweat's twitter message that there was one sunflower blooming and so I went to see. And when I got there, there really was only one I could find blooming. But the others were getting ready to bloom. And there were bees and ladybugs all over the place.
In December, we had a sunflower picnic. Everyone brought the besssst food. I had asked people to bring yellow, red or green food. Yellow and green for the sunflowers. Red for the ladybugs. And that is what people did. Except Ivonne brought gingerbread. Brown food in honor of the dirt/brown lot that the sunflowers grew in. And oh it was such tasty gingerbread! Someone brought guacamole with red pomegranate seeds. So beyond good.
I suggested everyone wear yellow, green or red. And quite a few people did wear some of those colors! I don't know if you can tell from the photos, but they did. :)
Heather and Jennifer. We went to high school together.
Stacey.
Brendan.
Keith.
Kenny and Sean, two of the creators of the Valley of the Sunflowers.
Mario.
Mario and Keith.
A bee walked on Mario's hands and then he gently put the bee back on one of the sunflowers. It was so dark at this point, so the photos are really noisy/grainy.
Meghanne.
Me.
Peter taking the photo I use on my facebook timeline. Thanks Peter!
See the blue building to the south of everyone taking pictures? That's the Bioscience High School. The kids who go to that school helped with the Valley of the Sunflowers during the school week. And some of them came to the Wednesday evening and Saturday morning volunteer days. And I got to talk to some of them. I would have loved to have gone to a science-focused high school as a high schooler. Wait, no, I probably would have wanted to go to an Arts high school. All the kids seemed to be pretty glad they could go to that high school.
Suzie.
I still have more photos to post of the VOS. And will post eventually!
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Do you see the honey bee?
Something that totally kind of amazed me was how the sunflowers got planted and nature just showed up. When the sunflowers were just starting to bloom, actually when there was only ONE sunflower blooming, I went to the Valley of the Sunflowers and wandered around. It had been a dirt lot before and now was covered with about-to-bloom sunflowers. And I was amazed at how there were all these bees and ladybugs in a place where there had been no bees or ladybugs at all. I guess I shouldn't be so amazed that nature would just show up, but I was. I kept marveling in my head about it: how did the bees find this place? where did the lady bugs come from? how did they all know to come here? and how far did they travel?
{Here's part of a poem I like by Emily Dickinson:
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee--
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few}
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Two of the creators of the Valley of the Sunflowers, Kenny and Sean. See Sean's shirt? It says Valley of the Sunflowers!
My bride and groom Heather and Joseph.
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