A couple of weeks ago I had the good fortune to photograph the Director of the Cultural Organization of Lowell, LZ Nunn at her home. We had originally planned to do the shoot in a beautiful courtyard in the back of her house. As the hour approached for the shoot, I watched the clouds gather, but we decided to go ahead with the shoot anyway, as we had been planning it for months. The metadata on my first frame reads 6:02:19 PM, and the last one that I shot in the courtyard, before it began to rain reads 6:06:20. Never a dull moment... Anyone who does environmental portraits and other location shoots in New England can relate. But the quality of light just before the rain was amazing!

We decided to move inside. The walls of the room to which I was led are a great yellow. I really do like warm and lively colored walls in general, and they are a gift to photographers. I mean what is more difficult to deal with than white walls? But while the light had been really amazing when we were outside, before the rain began, inside the house was another story. It was dark. So even though it was raining, I decided to put a speedlight with a warming gel and a bounce umbrella outside the window that faced the sofa to simulate late afternoon. I really like the reds, yellows and the richness of the wood floor turned out.

COOL, The Cultural Organization of Lowell, is a 501(3)(c) tax-exempt corporation affiliated with the Office of Cultural Affairs & Special Events in Lowell, Massachusetts. Do checkout their web site to see all of the things they do for the cultural ecosystem in Lowell. See you at the Lowell Folk Festival July 23rd, 24th and 25th!

Julia and I had been talking about a photo shoot since January. She is often incredibly busy with events that the Cultural Organization of Lowell organizes, but we finally were able to set up the shoot last week. We had discussed a number of locations over that time, but what was clear to me was that the location should say, Lowell. Then there is always the exciting machinations of Massachusetts weather to contend with. In the end, where we ended up, was a location that everyone who visits Lowell has probably seen or walked by many times, and the shoot took just over 8 minutes. Julia is moving on soon to a new career and I, for one, have really appreciated her assistance in her roll as one of the important facilitators at COOL events in Lowell.

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting Deb Harding, who is the Operations Manager of the Community Gardens Greenhouse in Lowell, Massachusetts, and the Vice President of Keep Lowell Beautiful. Interestingly, we also share a background in the high-tech world, and in fact, are both refugees of the same very old and very large computer company. At our first meeting to talk about her projects and my interest in photographing her, we discovered that we had an amazing amount in common in that respect and had, in fact, both decided to walk away from that life.

Borrowing from the Community Gardens Greenhouse web site:

"Founded in 2004, the Community Gardens Greenhouse is a not-for profit initiative, the
beautification sub-committee of Keep Lowell Beautiful, dedicated to creating social
change through the art of gardening, growing communities from the ground up."

Please check out their web site for more information including their accomplishments, who is involved, and, if you are interested, how you can participate : http://www.communitygardensgreenhouse.org

The Greenhouse has also hosts The Earth Day Festival at their location at 220 Aiken Street in Lowell. Here are a few shots from this year's event.

My friend Suzzanne Cromwell of the Cultural Organization of Lowell recently introduced me to Dug North, and what a find! Dug is an artisan who creates "automated wooden sculpture", or automata. This was a really fun shoot because in his home, at Lowell's Ayer Lofts, he has his very own vault! Apparently, the building was once a patent medicine company, and the vault was used to store who-knows-what...cash, drugs, poison? In those days were the latter two different? Today, Dug uses it as his workshop, allowing him to work at any hour without disturbing his neighbors. Plus it's very cool!


Obviously, I wanted to capture him in this environment, along with at least some of his work. He told me that most of his work is sold almost as soon as it is finished, which is the dream of most any artist, but also proved to be a challenge for us in setting up the shot. Fortunately, a piece that he was showing at the Ayer Art Gallery, down stairs from his condo, was freeing up.

This last shot is my favorite from the shoot though. The flourescent ambient light was very cool, and his expression is just right!

Visit his very full web site here: http://dugnorth.com