photography, random thought, travel, writing

despues de la lluvia

bilbao in spring. it rains almost every day for a few hours. but after the rain stops… la luz.

barrika cliffs.

sopelana beach cliffs.

we took a day trip to san juan de luz in france.

it became apparent that the light had a different quality in san juan de luz. saint john of light. john must have been a photographer.

i decided to take a bike ride in gordexola one morning. headphones in, innocence mission on the frequency, one hand on the handlebar, and a giant camera in the other hand, i set off on a wobbly course.

geese angrily greeted me. they seemed even more unhappy that i stopped. and nearly incensed that i took their picture…

beautiful old homes lined the long, narrow streets. it’s a mostly rural village, so i eventually passed many sheep pastures.

today was the day of the photoshoot. instead of a wedding, Elaine and Mikel decided to have an all day portrait session all over el pais vasco. i am so pleased with the resulting images… and so are they.

these kids thought we were crazy. a guy in a tux, a girl in a bridal gown, and two photographers chasing them around on the beach.

the guggenheim! i never actually went inside. the outside was enough for me. and besides, i heard that the inside is less than impressive anyway.

bilbao at night.

laga beach, unesco urdaibai reserve. i could’ve spent weeks here.

txaber and his auntie teba. cute little guy. might be in competition with my nephews…

txaber and his dad, xerjio. txaber’s mom didn’t like this activity.

maidercon con un abuelito. that’s what the spanish call a dandelion. it literally means “little grandfather”. makes sense i guess.

all images © andrew r. slaton | photographer 2009

family, photography, random thought, travel

bilbao, y mas

teba picked me up and took me straight to the little park in artxanda mountain that overlooks bilbao.

wow. what a view.

my first look at the bay of biscay. really, my first time in the ocean in a long while. sopelana was incredibly beautiful.

i stayed in gordexola, outside of bilbao. the trevinos were incredibly hospitable.

rock bakio.

bakio.

cuevas del soplao.

oh yes… i was quite impressed with myself for driving in spain – not sure why. but i did enjoy.

lunch in san vicente d la barquera.

teba, the hand model.

gaudi house in comillas. the colors. the textures. i’m a fan of this gaudi character…

gaudi, the man. immortalized in bronze.

all images © andrew r. slaton | photographer 2009

random thought, travel, writing

chasing sunrise

today, the sun came up seven hours early.

the plane was shaking. i don’t much like it when planes that i happen to be riding in shake.

quite impersonally, a man hands me a water in an in-flight plastic tumbler. one ice cube. that’s the first thing i noticed… the second thing i noticed was a nearly microscopic speck floating dangerously close to my one ice cube.

“i’d better get a closer look,” i thought to myself. “what if it were someone that was accidentally shrunk, like in honey, i shrunk the kids?”

for whatever reason, since i was a little kid, i’ve had the gift of empathy. i could always put myself in other’s shoes, and very eerily feel close to how they felt. at times, a great gift. others, a curse.

i recall watching honey, i shrunk the kids and understanding completely how those shrunken kids felt. just wanting to be noticed. needing someone to notice. before they were squashed by a tennis shoe, or perhaps crushed in the mandibles of a hungry cricket. or worse yet… sipped into oblivion while floating in some aloof schmuck’s in-flight beverage.

so i leaned in to check the speck. oh… just some dirt.

suddenly the plane stopped shaking.

and as i looked out the window, we slid unnoticed through the fading night.

chasing sunrise.

family, photography, random thought, travel, writing

the old country

as i’ve been preparing for my trip to spain and lebanon, i’ve been thinking a lot about my grandfather, Casey Cohlmia.

papa passed away in 2004 unexpectedly. i felt it was too early. we always had many passions and gifts in common, but i felt like we were just starting to connect on a deeper, more mature level. but who am i to question the One who gives and takes?

one passion we shared was for “the old country”, as he used to call it – lebanon. he and nana visited back in the ’70’s, but as far as i know, no one in our immediate family has been back since.

so… off i go. i don’t know what i expect to see, or experience. maybe understanding. of where humanity evolved. where hatred grew, and continues to grow. where Love incarnate transfigured, and walked this cursed soil, and died. appropriate meditations on Easter.

papa used to have some awesome letterhead that he printed everything on; business correspondence, graduation letters, birthday notes, etc. it was a caricature of his enormous bald head, smiling, with an unlit cigar protruding from the side of his mouth… in front of a typewriter (as he often was in real life… after all, he was a journalist, author, and marketing genius).

family members have always said that i favor his looks. so i had the thought the other day to compose a portrait of myself as Kenneth (Casey) Cohlmia.

i must say, i really like the result. but i’m pretty sure papa would not approve. he was way too clean shaven to ever look that raggedy…

photography, random thought, travel, writing

give reviving

mexico is one of those places that is inspiring and heartbreaking at the same time.

i had the unique opportunity to visit monterrey last week to shoot for my church and mission to the world (mtw). it certainly was not what i expected. but then again, i’m not completely sure what i expected.

honestly, my thoughts are still pretty jumbled, and i have yet to produce a cohesive story for this trip… but people keep bugging me for pics, so here are a small fraction of the photographs taken!! more thoughts to come…