Philadelphia

Just got back from visiting Ellie and her intended, Jacob Fenton, in charming, snowy, Philadelphia.

They got access to the Penn printmaking studio to print their wedding invitations.









I won't put in any pictures of the final print, since that is E and J's business.

I can't tell you how great it was to have ink on my hands, though they did all of the actual type setting and printing. It brought back memories of printing our own invitations more than 30 years ago.

In less than four days we also saw the extraordinary Frida Kahlo show at the Philadelphia Art Museum. This painting just blew me (as we say in my country) away. I've always been so conscious of her imagery that I never realized what a good painter she is:



and a show of contemporary puppets and puppetry at the Institute of Contemporary Art:



I got to see our old friend Steve, who introduced me to Young way back when, in the print studio, our natural stomping grounds. And I saw the new deck Ellie and Jacob installed on their house, which was quite beautiful covered with snow.

Happy New Year & Valentine's Day

Haps

I'm fresh out of words, but here are some pictures of what's been going on:

Matt's friend Jenn came up from UCLA to spend her birthday weekend:





Tammy took me out to the bluff over Montara beach to try out a new photo-technique she's working on. It involved me standing very still in the cold for six very slow exposures for every pose, but the light really is amazing:



And here are two pictures from a December visit with Ellie's long-time friend Jessica and her new family. Jess is the first of my kid's close friends, the kids I watched grow up, to have a baby.







Jacob really liked holding him.

An experiment:

I really like Reuters Editor's Choice Photo page, where hey have a blog of the best pictures of the week or whatever. Here is an attempt to link to them. I don't know if the addresses are permanent or if they take things down the following week - so let me know if the link is bad.



The caption says:

"Swimmers compete in the Water Performance section of the of the 2008 Cold Water Winter Swimming Championships at the Tooting Bec Lido in London, February 10, 2008. It is the first time that the competition, which has attracted almost 700 competitors from all over Europe, has been held outside Finland.

REUTERS/Kieran Doherty"