Portrait of Bryan-2

In this picture, Bryan, the showroom manager, at California Tile Supply, in Lancaster, California, USA, sits in a beautiful shower that was made from tiles he had on stock. Bryan designed this shower and.you could imagine, with gorgeous fixtures, this shower would be absolutely luxurious.

Bryan got into the tiles business because he knew someone. He had been doing this job for 20 years. At the time of this posting, he was in the Lancaster, California, USA store for twelve years. Prior to that, he was in the store at Canyon Country,California, USA for nine years, and prior to that, was in Lancaster.

Bryan loved to listen to all kinds of music. He also played the drums with his worship team and produced sound for his church, he hadn’t been playing for a while because he usually did the sound production.

Bryan had been married nineteen years and didn’t have any children.He had an interesting tattoo on his arm (see below) of the Holy Spirit Dove.

Image Credits: Bat-Ami Gordin © 2017 all rights reserved. Credit if you use it, please.

Holy Spirit Dove

Portrait of Alexis-2

So far you’ve only seen me post pictures of people in their own environment or where I happen to meet them. Surprise! I can also shoot in studio.

My first studio portrait is of Alexis who loved children so much that she volunteered at the Antelope Valley Partners for Health (AVPH) and at the Child Care Resource Center (CCRC). She loved anything that had to do with children, and professionally, wanted to be a photographer of children. She also liked to take pictures of nature and landscapes.

At AVPH and CCRC, Alexis helped children find schools and mitigated cases of child abuse. She volunteered with children from the ages of 0 to 5 and helped them by talking to their parents and teaching the parents how to treat their children and how they must behave to prevent abuse. Alexis was trained at AVPH and CCRC.

Alexis was born and raised in Lancaster, California, USA and went to Quartz Hill High School. You can also find her on Instagram on @lexiie_noel.

Image Credits: Bat-Ami Gordin ©2017 all rights reserved. Credit if you use it, please.

Posted on:

Portrait of Daniel

Daniel, a happy 26 year old, originally from Lancaster, California, USA, went to Quartz Hill High School and then did did grocery stocking. His parents were long time friends of the Hemme Hay & Feed owners and he used to hang around the store. That led to getting the job driving a forklift to help customers get their hay and feed onto their pickup trucks.

Daniel loves  “messing around with hay all day” and has been doing it for little over a year now.

As I spoke with Daniel, something interesting happened. I showed him some of my portraits, but when I got to the first portrait, the Portrait of Ido, posted on Jan 1, 2017, Daniel asked for his name and said he looked familiar; he thought he knew him from when he did Motocross, before he was injured and forced to sell his bike and discontinue participation in this exciting sport.

I guess it’s not unexpected that my portrait people will know each other, but it was a pleasant surprise when it happened for the first time.

Image Credits: Bat-Ami Gordin © 2017 all rights reserved. Credit if you use it, please.

Hay Supply at Hemme Hay & Feed

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F for Ferry

Portrait of SparrowRayne

I was driving by American Heroes Park, in Lancaster, California, USA, when I noticed a group of people taking pictures (see below.) They were actually a troupe of filmmakers, making a short about a Fairy who strayed and had to be brought back to the fold. The name of the film is #huniepop.

I figured this could be an opportunity to get some portraits, and luckily, these filmmaking gamers had no problem with having their pictures taken.

SparrowRayne is a Lyric Coloratura Soprano, who quit her studies because her teacher was essentially intolerable. Instead of going about the old fashioned way of put forth her performing art, she established a YouTube channel, SparrowRayne, and can be heard by thousands of people world wide.

Image Credits: Bat-Ami Gordin © 2017 all rights reserved. Credit if you use it, please.

Posted on:

Q= qualify

Also posted on:

Ahh… Ahhhh… Achoo!!

Portrait of Arteasha

This portrait is of Arteasia, who I had known previously from my local Lancaster Costco  in Lancaster, CA, USA. She worked for CDS (Club Demonstration Services) Costco Food Demonstrator as one of the sample ladies, everyone’s favorite people at Costco. She had been working at this position for four years and loved the job. She believed Costco employees were fun and the customers were terrific. What she enjoyed the most about her job was meeting and speaking with people, “a lot, all day long.”

Arteasia’s favorite item to serve were sweets, “everyone tends to like sweets so I get all the customers when I have sweet things.” Arteasia found that the customers “stuck around” and talked to her more because they wanted more and more sweets. In other words, on sweets day, she was able to talk to even more people.

I took this portrait with the point and shoot. I used Costco overhead lighting, but because of the shadow on her face caused by her cap, I looked for a box with a white bottom. You know all those empty boxes in Costco? Well I didn’t use one of those. I emptied out a box full of chocolate covered some non-GMO fruit.I had Arteasia stand under a light, had her hold the box, at her waist, like a tray, pointing up, and it reflected the light into her face to give her even lighting. I darkened up the background with Photoshop.

This was a fun shoot not only because Arteasia was tickled from being chosen to be in my project, and because she is so “sweet” (pun intended) in the first place, but because I enjoyed being creative about improving the available light.

Image Credits: Bat-Ami Gordin © 2017 all rights reserved. Credit if you use it, please.

Popsicle on a Stick

Lancaster Municipal Stadium with F-18 on a Stick

I live in Antelope Valley, which is more than one city, but the Valley has one theme in common and that is Aerospace. The City of Lancaster has an Aerospace Walk of Honor, and for a monument, you can see an old F-4, mounted. The Air Force community calls this static display a Popsicle on a stick.

There are Popsicles on Sticks all over Antelope Valley, even in front of our farm team stadium. So that is what I decided to write this poem about. I threw in some imagry on baseball, food, smells, Popsicles and sticks.

Popsicle on a Stick

don’t drink
much at home
but at the
stadium
it’s delicious

first glance
cute
not-world class
but good enough
in any language

salon du chocolate
it is not
but someone got
taken out
for a dog or two

diesel overpower
rosin scent, over
ash, hickory, maple
and beer that smells
like stinky cheese

Popsicle
pop tail
wind tail
wind pipe
it’s on a stick

on a stick
with a bat
club on strike
whack a mole
thwack it back

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Hear this on Sound Cloud

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Written for:

City Songs for Poetics

Today, I wrote the poem for D’verse Poetry prompt by Gabriella to write about a city. But the City I live by is Lancaster, CA so I chose to write about the closest thing to a square, the display in front of the stadium.

Image credits: The Hangar, home of the Lancaster JetHawks Lancaster, California

Desert Canopy

Autumn Trees on Newgrove

sparse hidden life
shaded from tormenting sun
crawling, hovering and hopping
in the early dawn and night

  air clean
  air clear
air oh so dry

in town
man-made oasis
filters radiance

dense canopy
deciduous color

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Written for:

I Saw Sunday – Week 62

Also posted on:

Tina’s picstory   –  highlight sunday # 10

Also posted on:

Gooseberry Garden – Poetry Picnic Week 15 :

November, Winter, Change, and Hope

Also posted on: Winter and summer: which will win?

Photo Credit: Mine (c) 2011 all rights reserved, credit if you use it, please.