I feel like the axis of my life is moving south. Before, it was decidedly south, but now it has moved south. First I went to Chile. Then I returned to a place that I like immensely — the Cayman Islands.

On this trip, not only did I go south geographically but I actually went even further south. I went deep into the water. The Cayman Islands boast some of the most beautiful coral reefs anywhere in the world and I always go snorkeling on one of these reefs while I am here. This visit was no exception. I don’t know the names of anything I am looking at but it is just as beautiful as any cathedral or castle that one will ever visit in their lives. Let’s take a look:

Now in the life of an American child, there are fewer indignities that having to ride a school bus. A big yellow school bus full of screaming teenagers to be exact. I rode a school bus as a child and liked it. It meant we were going on a school trip. In high school, my views changed. It meant I didn’t have a ride home in an actual car to avoid having to take the yellow school bus.

I guess my feelings about flying are similar. I did used to like to fly as a kid, but as I got older, I got afraid of it and it became more uncomfortable. I generally dislike flying. I’ve taught myself not to be afraid of turbulence. Flying in general though — SUCKS. The plane is crowded, the space is small, the journey unbelievably boring most of the time.

But there is a small bright spot — hitting the ground. So in celebration of that, here are some photos I got today of Miami International Airport:

Oh, don’t I wish? No, there are people to be taught things, activities to be organized, linguistics papers to be written (and re-written) and generally life must go on. So I didn’t join the circus, but what a wonderful idea.

Like I mentioned in the previous entries, I got to see the Big Apple Circus a couple of days ago. I guess the circus is one of those things I never really formed an opinion on, whether or not I liked it, which is strange because I have strong opinions about pretty much everything.

I was sitting there watching it and I thought “yeah, this is pretty great.” What I love about watching really good performers is that they can reach the back row with their personalities and general ability to deliver in front of an audience. That’s when you really see why people love things like the circus. The circus kind of reminded me of when I went to see Stars on Ice (a FABULOUS SHOW). The performers reached the back row with their ability.

So, let’s get rolling with the photos. First, the acrobats. Now let me confess something. I’m home a lot of nights watching 1980s gymnastics competitions on YouTube. I have loved gymnastics since I was a little kid and did it for a while. It was what defined me for a long time and I still love the sport. Now I study old gymnastics routines to figure out the exact moment when to take a photo when someone is performing a gymnastics move. Believe me, it comes it handy when you are photographing marathons, street performers and the like. And of course, the circus which is filled with all sorts of jumping and flying around. All of which I faithfully photographed:

And now there was the ringmasters. There were two of them and they were both great. The sorts of guys that you could tell, they had always wanted to be in the circus and they obviously loved performing:

And then there were these great performers. There was a ninth generation circus family. I can only imagine what the conversations about their dinner table were like and there was a pair doing this insane dress changing trick. They delivered too:

You won me over, Big Apple Circus.

Tonight I had the unique pleasure of attending a performance of the Big Apple Circus. Now I drag my camera to the opening of an envelope, but here, here was something actually worth photographing. I did take a lot of photos of the other circus performers, but the trapeze artists really caught my eye.

I LOVE gymnastics and acrobatics and these guys of course combine all of that. When I was taking the photos, I was just hoping something good would come. Something.

I got what I think is some good stuff, but sometimes when I am unsure, I alter it a bit so it has that extra visual pop. These ones I started altering and they went kind of 1920s, so I just went with it:

I like Salem. Forget the whole thing about the witches, but the place is kind of off kilter and weird in a non-threatening way. People definitely march to the beat of their own drummer over there.

Case in point — a guy who has some kind of workshop of all kinds of re-worked metal stuff, I guess what some would call “junk.” Yesterday something that always happens on activities happened. Usually I take the students to the area with the junk and we see it from the outside. Yesterday the metal man was home and invited in to see the yard. We took photos, he thanked us for stopping by. I really wanted to get a look inside his house but we got the yard.

Anyway, I got some great stuff from that visit. Love you Salem, stay weird:

Well, today is my birthday. I’ve never actually written that on this blog that I’ve had now for eight years, but it is. It is my birthday.

I did something really interesting for my birthday this year and I guess this milestone should be matched up with another. I saw an exhibit by a photographer named Duane Michals. The name might not particularly ring any bells, but Duane Michals played a huge role in me even becoming a photographer.

In 1996, when I was a college freshman (so now everyone knows the age I turned today), I was taking a class called History of Photography with a man called Bill Yeager. Yeah, I remember his name. He had this ponytail and wore jeans to class and was generally my model for a man. (The actual one with a ponytail came later).

One day Bill (I tried to call him Professor Yeager once but it didn’t exactly work) told us that Duane Michals, some kind of photographer was coming to campus and that we could get a couple of extra credit points if we went.

I walked into the room and Duane Michals was talking rapidly and pointing at people in the audience and making fun of them. It was kind of hilarious. At the time, I had very long hair, nearly down to my waist and I had just washed it and it was raining so my hair was wet. This mildly crazy individual was speaking in front of an assembled group of college students and suddenly he picked me. Well, he picked on me for twirling my hair. He said “you with the hair twirling, stop it!!!” I felt kind of honored and not embarrassed at all. Really funny.

Duane spent the rest of the speech yelling at random people in the audience, but he did say some pretty profound things. He said one thing that I remember to this day, that in photography it is important to have a point of view, something to say, a feeling. Up until then, I thought that if I wanted to be a photographer, I’d have to know the technical side of photography and of course how to print. According to Duane, all I’d have to do is find my voice and my style and what I wanted to say.

From that point, I decided to become a photographer. It was great to see his exhibit today. There were so many photos in the exhibit that carry a lot of deep meaning for me.

Here is the first one:

This is a photograph that will break your heart. On it, it says that the father had promised the son to write him a special letter all of his life where he told him a secret. The letter was supposed to contain the love the father had never given to the son. The first time I ever saw it, I was in the class with Bill Yeager and Bill Yeager went right past the photo and said “I don’t read this one.” Deep inside of him, somehow there was some kind of unexpressed love that he had apparently never gotten from his father. It was a powerful and subtle moment that even now I have never forgotten.

Here’s the next one:

This is a picture of Sting that was featured in the Police album “Synchronicity.” I went out and bought the album right after I saw Duane Michals. Albums, CDs. Probably from a Sam Goody. Damn that was a long time ago. Anyway, I listened to that CD for the next year. I was listening to it when I went to Denmark about a year later and it was kind of the soundtrack for my life over there. Including the bit with the ponytail….

And finally there are photos I took of the exhibit. Now I have my own style, I can express what I want using a camera and it all kind of started from that rain stained day so long ago in an auditorium in upstate New York:

In 2009, two guys wearing Red Cups ran past me after the marathon. I instantly fell in love with Boston and the marathon and have made it of course one of the highlights of my entire year. So, yesterday, we came around full circle, I guess:

It was rainy and cold, so a bra was probably a good idea. Or I don’t know. But he had dollar bills stuffed in there for some reason. You know. Normal marathon type stuff.

Alternate titles:
Poncho Apocalypse
March of the Ponchos

So as I mentioned in the previous entry, the participants of the Boston marathon may have regretted picking this exact marathon to participate in because it was a touch cold today. Scratch that. We were just missing our snow piles. Otherwise, it may as well been the dead of winter.

Anyway, it seems that the marathon organizers anticipated this, so this year they gave our brave marathon running souls ponchos to wear after they completed their long journey. I talked to one of the poncho wearers and he told me that they usually gave him an aluminum piece of tape at the end of the thing so this year, the poncho was vital. A lot of them were shivering and most of them were on their way back to their cars in this cavalcade of ponchos (another alternate title!!!) and it all looked pretty interesting:

Like I mentioned in the previous entry, today was the Boston marathon. Now in that sentence, the emphasis should be on the word “Boston” in that it was in a place where the weather changes rapidly, or as I like to put it “if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.”

Well, today mother nature really tried to put a wrench in the proceedings but our brave marathon runners did not let that happen.

However, these people looked like they were in agony when they were running. I go so many photos with these scrunched up faces that could only indicate that not only had they been running for 25 miles, that they were entering their 26th mile and that the rest of their marathon was going to be run in 40 degree weather in rain.

Brave souls are ye: