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Disclaimer: I was asked to do a hard task. The grandmother pulled me aside and asked me to film some shots of the baby so they could make some necklaces to remember her. To have her photo, all dolled up. I am going to post some of them because I am proud to have had her in my life as long as I did. Some might find it "morbid" that I was asked to do this, or that I'm even posting shots of her and other random things from the day (a cross, the setup), but this is my way of coping. There is nothing bad about them really but I know some might not want to see her. Later as everyone was leaving Marla knew something was up because I was still there cleaning up with her mom and she said "You're going to take photos aren't you?". I told her yes that Anne Marie had asked me and as she went to hug me she said, I'd never want any other photographer on this entire earth to photograph my baby than my best friend, thank you and i love you". She walked out and that was that. There I sat all alone to photograph this angel. In my life I separate my art time from my pain and struggle it is my release. This was the first time I truly had my art and lens cause pain. I cried the entire time I was taking these photos. I've not stopped crying almost all day.
How the day went:
Stumbled to the phone stubbing my toe, I had finally fallen into an almost impermeable slubmer. Faces of angels and cries alike flowing through my lobes and I felt sullen. Sullen girl, still looking back and living in the now like you strive to. Running from now. I could not scope the gravity of my sadness. My daughter was everywhere, my best friend was in pain and there was energy from her angel to. Saying works in a foreign language to stop the pain in my toe I was told "The viewing/funeral is at 4-9pm today. I was also given the OK to come regardless of exposure more every single person had the chicken pox and from what we have gathered last night not two days from now is the last day of worry for exposure. My mom looked in her diary to when she first saw bumps appear to when the pain actually started. Maybe she said that but Marla and family said they didn't care if I was doused in them they wanted me there. My mom was in to much pain to go and very sick. Big man was left home with her to get her drinks and stuff when she needed. Only thing she had to do was get her own medicine.
Little man dressed in his best outfit, pressed khakis and a dress shirt, we got his hair cut yesterday (free woo!) and he looked sharp. I remember fixing the knot on his tie and thinking. One day I will do this for his wedding, fix his tie already done and he will say "AWW MAH STOP IT"S FINE" and smile large. Next to him I pictured a little girl dancing in a beautiful pink dress, bow tie in the back at her waist, a sun hat atop her head. And I perched my ear real big to try to hear the laughter that was not there. My heart was already breaking. In the car we go and on the way there I try to explain to him the severity of what he is about to see, feel, hear. How do you tell your child about these things without crying? I wiped tears and told him my heart was bursting with sadness and that I loved him. Tears welled up in his eyes as I spoke of the little angel departed. I told him to not be afraid of what he sees and while she might not look like a "normal" baby, normal is overrated and that she is a precious being. Beautiful no matter what. That he not say the words "I'm sorry the baby died, instead to say I'm sorry Ms. Marla and I love you". Pull into the LOVE funeral home; I see Marla's Expedition and grandpas car (her dads). For a while my brain wanted to believe I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that I was making this all up in my head and I'd wake up soon. Seeing their cars made it real. It took me four tries to actually park the car right. Two tries to lock the car and one try to get little man out of his car seat. In order though, my brain was the one rattled.
Fifteen steps to the brass doors, and the violent red/green rug that just screamed funeral home. It took me to memories of the day we had my daughter's memorial, the day my grand mom died. The hushed dreary music flowing through the halls. Hallway was so long I wanted to run in the opposite direction no matter how hard it was to push my marshmallow feet to find the right room. Anne Marie (Marla's mom) walked out and gave me a huge hug, Marla was walking to the bathroom in the background and had not seen us yet. I asked how she was doing and she replied "I'm being the strong one, but Marla has not spoke a word to anyone". Little man hugged her tight and said he was sorry and loved her. Just like i said, and he meant it. She picked him up and walked him into another room and I went to find the bathroom. Turn the corner and Marla is sitting on a bench staring at a wall. For a split second she was me I was looking at and I was about 8 years younger than now. I knew that look. She saw me and ran right up to me gave me the biggest bear hug and burst into uncontrollable tears, I did to. We sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. My shoulder wet with tears and i told her I loved her and that I was happy she was alive and OK in that way. That I was there for her and to hold her and that no matter what I understood. That it hurt me to hear her cry and go through this, but I was there to go through this together. About five minutes later her mom came in a broke up our sobbing huggy mess so we could spend some time with the angel before others started to arrive. I went into the other room set up for friends to give them some time. Marla found me shortly afterward and escorted me to the front. She said as far as they were all concerned we ARE family and that I was to sit with them in the front the entire time.
Soon my eyes came upon a beautiful bassinet equipped with some small toys and a mobile with stars on them. A little pink hat on the middle. And there she lay. Honestly you are a bit afraid it is normal when you first see a corpse of any type. Natural reaction, it is also normal to fear what she might look like with all the abnormalities and such. Tiny fingers clutched around a rosary and to me she looked like an angel. Not a monster or a child who died due to numerous deformities of internal and external things. There laid a real life angel. One I will call my godchild still. I kneeled at the transportable alter in front of her and said my bit, not so much to god as the day my Paige died so did my religion, but more to her and Georgie. Georgie is Marla's brother who killed himself this past year. I told him and Paige and everyone to look over her. I do believe our love ones look over us once they passed. Went back to sit with Marla and hugged Greg and grandpa and grand mom (Anne Marie) held my hand. We all tried to talk of other things in the world but the stare Marla would get sometimes I knew she was thinking about everything that could have been different.
Pregnant friends and family came to the viewing and every one of them it was like Marla was shooting lasers. I couldn't be in the room with a pregnant woman for ages after I lost Paige. My mom and law was pregnant so it was a hard feet. Many people showed up about two hours after I got there. We talked and she told me the nightmare she dredged through the past few days. Told me she thought it best she went when she did because she didn't want her to be in pain, and that is the solace she has that her baby girl is not suffering. How the moment she passed in her fathers arms this look of peace came over her. We cried and cried and hugged and then BS'd and I made her laugh a little. Her finally talking about this, the first time she did she described all the gruesome details and in that moment i knew she is going to be OK soon. She is open about it, she's not running. She is devastated, who is not?
Her boys and little man where getting a bit out of hand so I opted to bring little man home, given my mom could watch him. I drove back here dropped him off after I set them up with a movie and some dinner. Went to drive back and as soon as I sat in the car torrential downpour. I drove anyway. Stuff flying past me there were some wicked winds, blurry eyes, tear-strewn face. I was a mess .By the time I got back I had enough time to hug her boys and they were off to play at a friends house to just get away.
I missed the sermon, that is Ok though I'm' not religious.
Then HIS family started to arrive some very respectful, one of them kept getting calls on her cell phone and I just saw Marla getting more and more pissed off. I marched right up to her (don't know what got in to me!) and told her to either shut it off or get the hell out of the building. She turned it off, and didn't say a word. Marla gave me a wink and a thank you on that one. Eventually we talked about the things she is going to hear "everyone is going to tell you, you can have another. Or that it was gods will, or that things happen for a reason. She said "nothing will ever make this right, I'll just have to learn to deal with it but there is no God-given or any type of true right of this wrong. I told her 8 years later I agree with her. I still can't shop for little girl outfits, my mom shopped for the baby shower. When I see a little girl I think looks like what Paige would have, i burst into tears.
No parent should bury his or her child.
We are so much alike and she told me she felt comfort in my being there because she knows I was there for her and that she could say and talk about anything with me, but mostly because she knows I have been right where she is. In so many words, that I really understood.
Everyone paid their respects, Marla finally had to leave because her feet and legs were so swollen she couldn't bend them! She delivered not so long ago and has been on her feet since pretty much, Greg and her waked up to the bassinet and lifted the hood back. At the same time they bent down and gave the baby a kiss on each cheek and I lost it I had to walk out of the room. They gathered some of the roses and random flowers that had been sent. One last goodbye I witnessed and then the discussion about the photography came in. Anne Marie stayed behind to get the rest of the other things and left me for the most part alone in this large room with the baby to shoot what I thought would look good on the necklace and just some photos for the family.
I was crying so hard I could barely turn on my camera but I did, for them. I was the last in the room with the baby; she is to be cremated tonight. I gave her a tiny kiss on her cheek and told her to kiss angel wings. That we all loved her even though she only stayed here on earth 23 and half hours. That we will all see her soon and that she is so loved more loved than any could imagine and that I was happy she wasn't in pain. To give Paige a hug from mommy.
Looked back over my shoulder while I was walking away trying to get out of my mind that it was the last and first time I had ever seen my goddaughter.
Slowly I shut the French doors behind me right after I took a final shot.
Fell out in the hallway and finally gathered myself up enough to drive back to Marla's'. Stayed a few minutes they put Marla to bed, drove home and here I am.
I'm a mess and in photo post, these were the hardest set of photos I have ever taken.
Today was beautiful and horrible and wonderful and sad, and closure.
Rest in Peace dear Angel, rest in peace.
My cousin Ellen (ellenmckennadesign.com) designed cousin Barb's house. Every window was placed specifically for the views. Awesome, Awesome!!!!!
Glacier National Park Summer Beauty Montana Landscapes Fine Art Natura Photography Elliot McGucken Fuji GFX100 Medium Format
A view of the Linville Gorge from an overlook along the Rock Jock Trail. The trail skirts along the west rim of the gorge and offers great views of the east rim.
Thank you all!
3,000,000 views basically since November 2012 - where I started using my Flickr account for good...
View from Parliament Hill in North London. The sight line to St Paul's Cathedral are a protected view.
Panorama taken with four iPhone camera shots (though Exif data won't display as it's been combined using the AutoStitch App). The view features St Paul's Cathedral, just right of centre, Blackfriars Bridge to the left, the Millennium Bridge which leads pedestrians from the Tate gallery across the Thames to St Paul's, and Southwark Bridge just in view on the right.
The high rise offices of the Square Mile, which is the City of London, seem to increase in number every time I take a photo of this view! I counted the number of cranes just in this shot, and there were 27, which testifies to the amount of construction going on.
Fly view background graphic available for download at http://dryicons.com/free-graphics/preview/fly-view-background/ in EPS (vector) format.
View similar vector graphics at DryIcons Graphics.
Lake View Terrace is a middle-class suburban district of Los Angeles near the large Hansen Dam. Near the Verdugo Mountains the area is nearly rural, with farms and a large equestrian community. The area is said to be named for a now-dry Holiday Lake, which was a popular vacation area in the 1950s. Lake View Terrace however is most notoriously known as the site of the Rodney King beating that would lead to the massive 1992 Los Angeles Riots.
Los Angeles in the late 1980s and early 1990s was wealthy and prosperous, having received international acclaim for its recent successful 1984 Summer Olympics and with massive foreign investment coming in from Asia, most notably Japan. The city however was also fraught with tension. By the early 1990s, widespread unemployment, poverty and the rise of crack cocaine led to the rise of powerful street gangs in the city, especially in South Central Los Angeles. This was faced with the Los Angeles Police Department, a tough, widely-respected force led by Police Chief Daryl Gates, credited with developing SWAT. However the LAPD was also frequently accused of using excessive force and extremely heavy-handed tactics, including arresting some 25000 people under Operation Hammer, mostly without charge.
After the Korean Conflict, a large influx of Koreans moved to the Los Angeles area, where many of them opened small shops, often in poor areas dominated by African-Americans. Tensions quickly arose, as African-Americans resented the Korean-Americans, who they saw as taking money and getting rich off of their community ( Black Korea was an infamous song later accused of inciting violence).
Into this came Rodney King, a taxi driver previously convicted of armed robbery and having served a year in prison. Released on probation, on the morning of March 3, 1991, King was driving home with two friends after a night of drinking. Police officers noticed King speeding and pursued, the pursuit later reaching speeds of 185km/hr as King later confessed that he attempted to outrun the police to avoid a DUI charge that would violate his parole. After a massive chase involving several patrol cars and a helicopter, King was cornered near this intersection (directly behind me).
The King's friends were arrested (and they claimed attacked), while Rodney King remained in his car. He was then ordered out. At this point the LAPD took control of the situation, led by Sgt Stacey Koon, as well as officers Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno, and Rolando Solano. The five LAPD officers swarmed and grabbed King, who resisted. He was then tasered twice, falling on the ground.
At this point, George Holliday began videotaping the incident from his apartment overlooking the site of the arrest. King got up and collided with Officer Powell, whether to attack or escape remains unclear. Holliday pulled out a baton and began beating Rodney King with it, knocking him to the ground. When King rose again, Sgt Koon ordered his officers to use "power strokes", repeatedly beating and then kicking the prone figure. King was then arrested and sent to the hospital. Rodney King was struck a total of 33 times, and kicked six, suffering fractured facial bones, a broken right ankle, and multiple bruises and lacerations.
George Holliday sent the 12-minute video to a local news channel, and it soon became widely viewed across the United States, infuriating the public, especially in the Los Angeles area where many had complained about excessive police brutality for years. Officers Koon, Powell, Briseno and Wind were charged with use of excessive force. Judge Stanley Weisberg was assigned after a previous judge was removed and controversially he decided to move the venue from Los Angeles County to the neighboring and far more conservative (and white) Ventura County. On April 29, 1992, to the shock and fury of many, the jury acquitted three of the four officers of excessive force and hung on the fourth.
There remain divided opinions about the decision. Some have claimed that the acquittals were based on the blurry initial three seconds of the video that show King running into Powell before the beating. Others claimed that the defense simply desensitized the jurors by repeatedly playing the video until it had lost its emotional impact. Many however darkly claimed that the jury, made up of 9 Caucasians, 1 biracial, 1 Latino, and 1 Asian (and no African-Americans), simply would not choose to convict white officers over an African-American.
Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley held a press conference immediately after the verdict, stating:
"Today, the jury told the world that what we all saw with our own eyes was not a crime. My friends, I am here to tell the jury...what we saw was a crime. No, we will not tolerate the savage beating of our citizens by a few renegade cops.
...We must not endanger the reforms we have achieved by resorting to mindless acts. We must not push back progress by striking back blindly."
The spark was lit. In South Central, police arrested a suspect throwing rocks at a patrol car, only to retreat when a large, angry crowd gathered. The police were ordered out of the area, and the crowd began looting neighboring shops and attacking vehicles, pulling out people and beating them. Larry Tarvin was knocked unconscious before being helped by an unknown Samaritan to drive to safety. Soon after Reginald Denny, a white truck driver who had unknowingly driven into the area, was pulled from his truck and severely beaten by a mostly black crowd, which was broadcast live on television. Seeing the report led a local black Samaritan Bobby Green Jr. to run to the scene and drive Denny to safety. About an hour later Fidel Lopez, an immigrant, was attacked and tortured before the crowd was stopped by Rev. Bennie Newton, who told the rioters: "Kill him, and you have to kill me too."
Meanwhile Police Chief Gates, who had been called to resign but refused after the Rodney King verdict, went to a political fundraiser. In downtown Los Angeles a crowd attacked police officers and overturned cars and fired at firefighters trying to put out a blaze. Another crowd assembled here at the site of the beating, and rock throwing and firing occurred until the crowd was dispersed by riot tactics.
The next day the Los Angeles riots were all over the news, and horrified viewers watched as it appeared as if a major US city was tottering on the brink of chaos. Mayor Bradley signed a dusk to dawn curfew over the major areas of unrest, and California National Guard units began to move out.
At this point a second racial component arose, the poor relationships between the African-American and Korean-American communities reaching a boiling point. Thirteen days after the Rodney King beating, Latasha Harlins was killed following a dispute over a bottle of orange juice at a convenience store when Soon Ja Du, thinking that the teenager had stolen the drink, shot her in the head. Du was convicted of voluntary manslaughter but only fined $500 and sentenced to five years of probation and 400 hours of community service, infuriating the African-American community. Now many in the angry crowds of looters began to specifically target Korean stores. Many of them veterans of the Korean Conflict and feeling abandoned by the LAPD which seemed to give more priority to protecting the rich areas like Beverly Hills, the Korean-American community converged on Koreatown and their stores, armed with weapons. Several public gun battles raged out between Korean shopkeepers and potential looters.
Finally, the police response began to organize as reinforcements converged on the city. Pres George Bush spoke out stating that "anarchy" would not be tolerated, while the Justice Department began federal investigation of the Rodney King beating as a civil rights violation. The next day, Rodney King himself had an impromptu conference asking "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?" Pres Bush invoked the Insurrection Act via Executive Order 12804, federalizing the California National Guard. By the end of day 4, some 13500 troops were in Los Angeles, and the riots began to die down. Some 30000 people marched through Koreatown, supporting merchants and racial healing.
The 1992 Los Angeles Riots finally ended on May 4, 1992. 63 people had been killed and over 2000 injured. 12000 were arrested. Over 3700 buildings had been destroyed, 2300 from Korean shops, causing over $1 billion in damages.
The LAPD was widely criticized from all quarters. It had exhibited police brutality in the Rodney King Beating, but had all but disappeared from much of the city during the actual riot. At best, it showed itself incompetent and unable to control the situation. At worse, many felt, it had acted out of spite to "punish" the city for its critiques. Having already resigned, Daryl Gates stepped down immediately in the aftermath of the riots. On April 17, 1993 two officers of the LAPD, Laurence Powell and Stacey Koon—were found guilty of Civil Rights violations, while officers Theodore Briseno and Timothy Wind were acquitted. While the city waited with bated breath over the results the decision passed peacefully. All four officers involved in the Rodney King beating have since left the LAPD.
Rodney King was never charged for the DUI that started the entire incident. He was awarded $3.8 million in damages from the City of Los Angeles, which he used to start a hip-hop label "Straight Alta-Pazz Records", that soon folded. King had several more-run ins with the law, though he generally tried to remain out of the spotlight. In 2012 Rodney King was found dead of an accidental drowning in the family pool, likely related to alcohol.
The Rodney King Beating and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots were major incidents in the history of Los Angeles, and gave the city a negative reputation that persists to this day, even as crime has dropped and demographics have changed. The controversies related to police brutality and law-and-order and policing policies also remain national issues.
Lakeview Terrace, Los Angeles, California
The ABN AMRO tower in Zwolle is, with its 96 meters of height, the largest tower of the city. The unofficial name of the tower is "De IJsseltoren" ("The IJssel Tower", named after the IJssel river).
The tower offers a very unique view over the city. Unfortunately, it's closed for public.
But lucky me, someone could sneak me into the building. The office lights were very bright, so the reflections were too heavy to take real good long exposure shots. So I decided to take some short exposure handheld pics with ISO 1000 (sorry for the noise).
On the left you see my dear host Elias reflected in the window, taking a cup of coffee; in the background you see the city of Zwolle.
View from the top of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Construction for the "New" bridge piers can be seen.
I was on the ferry from NYC to NJ and taking pictures of the skyline - A man stepped in front of me and I couldn't resist taking this shot