Miss Kayla Evarts

Tags

Evarts, face, girl, GMVFX, GreaseMonkey Photo, Kayla, portrait

In nearly a decade of marriage, I had never met my brother-in-law nor his daughters, my nieces. Over the Christmas holiday, I finally got to meet them all. Now, I might not have gotten to have spent as much time getting to know them all as I did were it not for the fact that my brother-in-law became jealous of my other brother-in-law’s Christmas photos from last year which I shot. A conversation ensued, a call was made, I cleared my morning, and we had a regular family reunion with my wife, her two brothers, and their families. For them, it was all about catching up. For me, it was all about recording some new memories of being together for them.

This is the photo of my niece, Kayla.

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Merry Christmas!

My wife and I just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a wonderful holiday. May you be able to celebrate this Christmas richly, enjoy it deeply, and remember it fondly all your days to come!

The Story

Photo From My License in 1996.

Actual Scan of My License in 1996. (Note: 'SEX: F')

These will be the single most important photos that I will ever post on this photoblog. I have kept this story to myself for some time now out of a sense of either shame or embarrassment, or out of fear of how people would perceive me because of it. That was very stupid of me, because my story is the story of the power of God to change an individual life and that is the most important story that we can tell. When critics of the faith sneer at us and challenge us to show them some kind of proof of our claims that there is a God in Heaven and that he is interested in the affairs of man and that he loves us and works in our lives and world for good, we have our stories to speak on his behalf. -Emilio Espinosa

The story of how we became awakened to God is not for us, it is for others.

There Is A Light

The Image

This is my wife, Mia, and me. I made the photos just this past weekend (September 12, 2009).

Wish You Were Here

Fotomat Memory

I intended to fill the week here posting photos from the disposable Quickshot cameras from the dollar store. Unfortunately for my plan I don’t have anymore really good images from the Quickshots to share. But, to stay on the topic of 35mm film, I am presenting here another of my restoration efforts with old family photos. This time I have an undated photo of my mother at a park made by my father.

While I don’t remember the details surrounding this photo, I do remember that when it was processed my mother jokingly chided my dad for capturing an image of her yawning. My dad liked to catch her in natural, unposed, and sometimes awkward moments. This particularly infuriated my mom because these were the days when all photos were processed at some kind of lab and the lab workers would see everything you photographed. My dad would have many of his pictures developed at a local Fotomat.

If you’re not old enough, or didn’t live in an area with a Fotomat, these were little drive-thru shacks in shopping mall parking lots where you would drop off your film and have it developed. Fotomat provided next-day service, a real advantage in the days before photo-processing machines that get your photo to you in an hour. The service was convenient, processing was good, and the shacks were popular for developing snapshots. I have actually seen many of the old shacks still in various lots often re-purposed as other kinds of drive-thru businesses like coffee on-the-go places. But, I still remember riding with my father to either drop off a roll or pick up some prints, paying close attention to the receipt that told us what time the finished prints would be ready on the pickup day. And I remember my mother’s agitation over what might be in the prints envelope this time.

You can find out more about Fotomats here.

The restoration process for this photo included a scan from the original print as the negative is not available to me at this time. Then I did a basic auto color adjustment in Photoshop followed by an extensive clean up with the various healing tools to remove dust and other garbage from the image. The paper the photo is printed on has a screen embossing all over which comes through when scanned giving the image a sort of moire look. I did a pass with Noise Ninja in Photoshop that seems to have reduced it a fair amount, then I applied a very careful high-pass soft light layer for sharpening while trying not to re-introduce the screening. I corrected levels, vibrance, and saturation, and then I used a layer mask and a re-balanced levels layer to reduce the darkness in the shadows over my mom’s face and right arm. Lastly, a slight crop after a subtle vignette was applied before saving to JPEG and posting.

US Army Private

I want to break away from the Quickshot photos to present a special project I’m working on. This is a military portrait of my father, Emilio Ramirez Espinosa, Jr., taken when he was in the US Army.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the standard photo taken of all service members during the latter part of their basic training. I recall him telling me that he was wearing his working fatigues under the jacket, shirt, and tie. This would have made him the rank of Private and the year 1962 as he was 17 when he enlisted (with a special permission written for him by my grandparents).

I do not have the original photo in my possession. The original is badly damaged and the only copy I have is a photographic copy (made by taking a photo of the original photo) that I scanned and have presented here on the left. On the right, quite clearly, is the current state of the restoration that I have done in Photoshop. While some of the damage is still discernible in the restoration and the levels are a bit too heavy on the blacks, the current state is by far a great improvement over the print that is currently the only copy of this image in my hands. I plan to continue working on this image until I am satisfied with it, but this is the first time that I have felt that I have a copy worthy of sharing. My goal is to restore the print substantially so that it can be printed on proper photographic paper at a print lab and then to frame it to present it to my mother.

Dignity

The first casualty of wrong decisions is our sense of personal dignity. We know that we are the only ones to blame for our own actions and we think that others can see our foolishness on our faces. We think that others can see our failure and we feel worthless and ashamed. Even when we are victims, we can’t escape the feeling that we are somehow to blame. We know we are failed creatures and we can’t escape that fact. It haunts us in every waking moment and it robs us. Dignity is therefore the first quality that we must seek to restore to those whom we intend to reach with the message of hope.

Companion

Mia

My wife and me are huge fans of Doctor Who. I watched it as a kid in the Tom Baker era and my wife and me began watching together in 2005 when the show returned with Chris Eccleston and Billie Piper. The one theme that keeps coming around in the Doctor’s story is loneliness. Not only is the Doctor able to travel through time, he has lived for hundreds of years and can re-generate and live many lifetimes. The Doctor fills the centuries by bringing along friends he makes along his journeys. The friends are always referred to as his companions.

I probably won’t live for hundreds of years, and I almost certainly won’t ever be able to travel in time and space, but I have known the deep pain of loneliness. I travelled Europe as a young man in the Navy, and lamented that while I had seen great wonders and amazing places, my only companion in that experience was the old pair of Army boots on my feet. Moving out on my own, I remember laying in the dark silence of my bedroom, so alone that my jaw would tremble until it was sore from trembling. I would curl up in a corner and shut my eyes, unable to sleep and unable to rise, not even sure if I cried, sobbed, or just lay their in quiet depression. Even after placing my life in God’s hands, I walked with him alone. I remember the long nights of longing for him to provide me a partner, a helper, someone to share the life that Christ restored to me and who would share their life and work with me. At times, I cried out for the creator to take his breath of life out of me if he was just going to leave me by myself when my heart so longed for a companion.

I was like the Doctor travelling in his TARDIS, with a huge world hidden within the comparatively small vessel of my person. While it was only 30 years, I experienced it as 300, a journey of centuries in the short span of my life. Then, one day, I didn’t meet the companion I longed for.

I knew Mia for almost six years. We were friends, but not what you’d call close. We enjoyed similar interests and we would talk about the things we enjoyed. She had a little more money than I did and that made a difference when you were working where we did. I had a car and I could invite her to dinner and she would usually pitch in with paying for the meal and maybe a few bucks for gas. We did together, the things we enjoyed alone and didn’t think anything more about it because we weren’t looking for eachother. Then, it was an epiphany, a revelation, an unexpected opening of my eyes – we had built the foundation of something that we realized could last a lifetime. A little over 6 months later we were married.

There isn’t any loneliness now. I have my companion. We’ve been together nearly 6-1/2 years though I’ve aged about 10 while she has managed to only age about 3 or 4. I was actually a little younger than her at first and now I am somehow much older. Today is her birthday, so I posted a favorite photo of her here.

Fanatics

Looking Out the Door

I thought I’d have a little fun on facebook (www.facebook.com/godmedia) and I started a fan page for myself. It was strictly silliness, but I have to admit that I was just a little bit hurt when no one became a fan.