2009
09.08
Our next door neighbors are grad students at Rutgers who caretake the Hutcheson Memorial Forest, 185 acres of preserved land that Rutgers owns which includes the last 55 acre virgin hardwood forest on the east coast. They became parents last October and have a beautiful baby girl who is a natural in front of the camera. She has no startle reflex, no anxiety about being on her own [as long as mom or dad are in sight!] and is so even tempered that she’s just wonderful to be around!
David & Inga have been getting many many suggestions that they should consider having Corinna do some baby modeling so David came by yesterday with her [and a number of wardrobe changes ;-)] so that we could try some images of her to send of to a modeling agency I have worked with, Axis Model & Talent and possibly several peers who work in the city with children and infants. It is simply such a joy to be around an infant because of their absolute wonder at EVERYTHING! And they are just totally in the moment, no past, no future, just right now. There is nothing in the subjunctive case for these guys and they haven’t been taught about guilt yet. It is simply a “pure” experience and I LOVE it!!
Any time you want to come over and play, Corinna, just have mom or dad give a call and you and I will have a play date!
Nat
Somewhere in rural New Jersey
2009
09.04
Damn, I LOVE being on the water! Audrey has a male therapist friend who owns a 30′ Catalina who takes every Friday off of work to spend time on his boat out in the Raritan Bay. He suffered a bad boating accident several weeks ago and has very limited use of his right hand so he’s landlocked if he can’t find another pair of hands to help him with the rope work on the boat. So up steps Sailor Nat, complete with the necessary off color language and the rolling walk [OK, so I was on a Carrier and it didn’t roll anything like a Destroyer, but I can still fake it pretty well!] [this reminds me of playing with our kids when they were little and what I now do with other’s children where I put them on my knees facing me and we do “This is the way a Lady walks, tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe; This is the way a gentleman walks, Stride, Stride, Stride; This is the way a sailor walks, gobledy goy, gobledy goy, gobledy goy” then you tickle the child and everyone gets hysterical].
So, I went out with Scott today and had a great time! Nice quietude sailing rather than motoring, mild winds with occasional gusts that would put a bit of a heel on the boat, great sunny afternoon with scattered clouds and just some good male bonding time. Came home late in the afternoon with some good color, the smell of the sea in my nose, salty hair [well, what used to be hair!], and … my gentle sailor’s gait. Boy, I could handle this on a regular basis!! Now, if only he had rum on the boat …
Nat
Somewhere in rural New Jersey
2009
08.25
The mission of Flashes of Hope is to photograph every child who is diagnosed with cancer each year. Certainly going into 40 childrens hospitals every month is one way to approach that goal. But an even better tact is to go to the special camps that are around the country where these children can go for a week and just be regular kids at camp enjoying all of the wonderful activities that any summer camp has for kids. When FOH goes to a camp for a photo session, it’s usually anywhere from 8 to 15 photographers who descend on the camp and they try to photograph upwards of 200 kids in a morning.
Earlier in the summer, the National Office asked me if I would be willing to work [actually it was something like “here’s what we want to do and thank you so much for volunteering to do it” before I could come up with any kind of response! 😉 ] on organizing a shoot at Camp Happy Times, the camp that The Valerie Fund here in New Jersey has held for for their kids for the last 23 years out in the Poconos. I was able to line up six photographers/friends and then the National Office was able to get three more photographers who were local to the camp and it was a wonderful time!
We all went out to the camp on Sunday and got the “lay of the land” so that we’d be able to hit the ground running on Monday morning [it was a three hour drive out there for most of us]. We were each planning on shooting 20 to 24 kids apiece between 9 am and 11:30 so it was really going to be a fast and furious shoot to get it all accomplished!
I had gotten the name of a really nice local restaurant, Matthew’s on Main from some of the people in the area and FOH took us out to dinner the night before the shoot. It was a really nice time for all of us shooters, getting to know one another and just talking shop as all photogs do when they get together. The food was excellent and there were two outstanding gelatin silver prints [the old fashioned kind made in a wet darkroom, not this new fangled digital “Giclee” print stuff!]. I was a bit anxious about the shoot and afew other details, so I didn’t eat very much but I was mesmerised by the image of Miles Davis that was over our table.
I ended up not shooting very many kids at the camp and several of the other shooters carried the bulk of the work but, as always, it was an absolute pleasure to work with Lisa Cencula from the National Office and to photograph these kids!
Nat
Somewhere in rural New Jersey
2009
08.14
Category:
Humor, NJ /
Tags: no tag /
The Breeder's freezer!
We have two wonderful dogs who are almost like daughters to us [sorry Mer & Alex!]. As any dog owner knows, OUR dogs are the smartest and most well trained in the world! [ well, almost well trained … Roxie still pulls like a bitch when I walk her on a leash! ]. And, of course, because they are so important to us and because Audrey is so conscientious and well informed about nutrition, we buy raw food for them. Every six weeks I head down ‘da shor” to pick up our order from the Golden Retriever breeder who is a delivery point for Oma’s Pride
Ducks' necks
[http://www.omaspride.com/] in this part of the state. Sixty to sixty five miles round trip. Because I don’t work a nine to five [ TG!! ], I don’t have to make the trip during any sort of commuter traffic and it’s really quite a nice ride. The breeder must have well over a ton of raw food delivered and she has a number of her customers come early to unload the truck and separate the orders [for which she “pays” WELL over the minimum wage to be deducted from your order]. The driveway is a mess with all of the food spread around but I am ALWAYS amazed at what some of these folks order for their furry friends [it’s no wonder doggie boutiques and pet supplies were a 7.6 Billion dollar business in 2002]!
Hubbard Squash
Beef Tripe – Salmon Whole Belly Trim – Ducks Feet
Ground Ostrich – Whole Buffalo Tongue
Ground Llama – Ground Kangaroo – Ground Yak
The first time I went down early to help separate orders, I was blown away by what people were getting for their animals!
You just can’t make this stuff up!
Nat
Somewhere in rural New Jersey
2009
08.09
Before I even opened the New Brunswick Chapter of Flashes of Hope, I tried to get some exhibit space at my local Starbucks. I wanted to make more people aware of the organization and I figured that anyone who saw the images would be profoundly impacted by the images and wouldn’t be able to keep their wallet closed.
It’s amazing how much I’m still learning about the world!
The present manager of the store really liked the organization and persuaded his district manager to let us put up some images. She said that it would be fine and suggested a section of wall about 6 feet wide. It also happened to be the only section of wall that had no lights on it [in these images, the photos are lit up with a strobe so that you can see them 😉 ]. Not the ideal place but I’m a patient man. I figured that we’d get up on the wall, she’d see how great they looked and would see them changing every month so that customers wouldn’t be bored with the visuals on the wall [as they presently are with the corporate graphic elements that never change, that stuff on the orange wall] and then she’d give us more space, maybe even most of the wall space!
Well, I finally got the images up last week! The manager bought the Arakawa rail and I’ve temporarily donated the hardware, the stainless steel cables and the acrylic sheets that “sandwich” the ink jet prints. What really amazes me is that there has been no response from the regular customers! Many of them know me because I’m a “regular” as well. two or three people have commented to me about the display but no one has made a contribution of any size. I’m not looking to raise all the funds I need from this exhibit, but I did expect several small donations. I guess I may be much more conscious of my surroundings because of my profession. And maybe, we just need to get more images up under the lights.
As I said, I’m a patient man ….
Nat
Somewhere in rural New Jersey
2009
07.21
When Audrey and I bought our house over 25 years ago, we were really looking forward to raising a family in a small community. Now we’re not quite in a neighborhood, we have to walk through two neighbors’ backyards to get into the Village, but nor are we in a big development. We live in a village that has it’s beginnings back before the Revolution when it was on one of the major routes between New York and Philadelphia. Up until two years ago it had it’s own butcher shop [really more of a small general store, without the cracker barrels, in order to be economically possible in the modern world].
The heart beat of this kind of village is the volunteer first aid squad, the volunteer fire company and the ladies auxiliary that supports them both. We also have our very own Post Office which, since the closing of Chester’s Market, has become our social center, if you will. That’s where you meet your fellow villagers and where you hear about all the goings on about town. It’s really not about gossip [although there is some of that], it’s the place you go to connect with everyone; who is dealing with health issues [and more importantly if they’re in the hospital and need a visit!], who’s a new grandparent, whose kids are back from college, who’s in need of “care” packages, etc.
It’s also the kind of place where you share your bountiful garden harvest, even if you don’t have the chance to drop off the produce at someone’s house! 😉
Ya gotta love it!
Nat
2009
07.09
Several years ago, I started to photograph the people who live and work along the D&R Canal [our pristine part of the state!] and the first person I shot was Biff Heins because he was an artist, I already had a good relationship with him and I really saw him as a sweet man. I think about Biff whenever we are having a spell of beautiful weather, the air about him was always calm and radiant and I find his shop wonderfully picturesque
!
He grew up living on the Canal and for many years was restoring antiques in the barn that his father had built right across the street from where he lived. He was also an incredible watercolorist working with the glorious palette of colors along the Canal in all of the seasons
Biff passed away three years ago; he came by our house to rototill our garden [he had a big Troy Built rototiller that he owned with his sister and they had a policy of not loaning equipment to friends for fear it would damage relationships]. He had lunch with us after he did our garden and then went back to his shop to paint. That night he died in his sleep , I’m told, with a wonderous smile on his face. I and many others miss him! He was such a kind man, a talented artist and a true craftsman.
So, when we get this kind of weather, and the colors really begin to sing, I head down Canal Road, put on my “Biff glasses” and just work on photographing some of the beauty that he would always see in this area.
Whether it’s a box of old tools sitting outside his shop or all of the various vises and clamps that still hang in his shop.
Or maybe just the rain barrel that still sits outside his shop so that he could water his little vegetable garden…..
Nat
2009
07.09
Since the day we got back from vacation [naturally!], the weather here has been amazing! Usually we get beautifully clear blue skies about twice a year, immediately after a storm front has moved through the area.
It’s been looking and feeling more like Iowa or Montana or one of those
other states than it looks or feels like New Jersey. Many years ago when I was still in the photojournalism corner of the profession, I would fantasize about getting a job at the Austin American Statesman because every time I visited a close friend from the Navy down there, the weather was so unbelievable gorgeous! I had forgotten how blue the skies could really be.
I guess because we’re the most densely populated state, over the last 20 years or so there has been a concerted effort to retain much of the farmland that originally made New Jersey “The Garden State”. One of the recent 
additions to the preservation of the farm land is the Griggstown Native Grasslands Preserve. The majority of this land used to be a horse farm along the D&R Canal and a number of years ago a developer was trying to buy up the land. The township, in coordination and with the help of the NJ Audubon Society, was able to buy up all 600 acres of the land, annex it to other land that is part of the Ten Mile Run Greenway which in turn is part of the East Coast Greenway and turn it into a native grasslands meadow where wildflowers are blooming and the grasslands species of birds have a place to call home. Rght now the Black-eyed Susans, milkweed and Cone flowers are in bloom and it’s just a wonderful place to go filled with trails, birds, rabbits and all sorts of other wildlife.
Nat
2009
07.05
Afraid that a photo is not going to be appropriate today …
I was pruning the azaleas we have along our front walk yesterday and I happened to take a tiny bit of the tip off the middle finger of my left hand with one of the shoots from the plant [ note to self: Don’t wear bifocal sunglasses when you’re pruning bushes! ]
Nothing major, but I created a real bleeder and my wife took me to the MedEmerge facility for the cleanup. Got this great nurse with a wonderfully twisted sense of humor; my kind; someone who will really play with me with a bit of repartee. Because of all the work I do in the healthcare environment, I run across it alot; these people have to have some way of blowing off the tension when they’re up to their asses in alligators and seconds count. I’m picking up on it much more quickly now, usually the body language and part of the first sentense will do it.
So I told her that I was in the Witness Protection Program with the Feds and I was trying to alter my fingerprints. Without skipping a beat, she very discreetly took her name badge off and slipped it in her pocket saying “Thank you, ‘Mr. Smith’ for that piece of information” .
Nothing like livin’ in Joisey! [Did I mention that Tony Soprano, in the guise of James Gandolfini, lives acouple of miles away in my town?]
Nat
Hi, I'm Nat Clymer and this is the blog where I put my musings and ramblings of thirty plus years as a commercial photographer and observer of humankind.