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Still really swamped by life right now, and editing photos really just isn’t happening very often. I’ve barely been able to shoot the last three months, little alone edit photos from those shoots. Still did have to get this one done as I’ve had the idea for literally several years for this shot, but water flow and weather never worked out quite right until a shoot last week with Rebecca Lawrence.

A few random observations from the last few weeks.

• Most people are wonderfully understanding and supportive when you’re dealing with life. It’s easy to focus on the jerks, but there are truly a lot of wonderful people in the world.
• Finding a coffee shop when you just need a couple quiet hours away from things can work wonders for your mind.
• It’s surprising how many places contain a Starbucks. Or serve Starbucks coffee. Or are within walking distance of a Starbucks. Or are a Starbucks.
• On a related note I feel like I’ve run most of the last month on coffee.
• You probably wouldn’t be surprised that many hospital/doctor type places block ModelMayhem where you can encounter the occasional nude. You might be a little surprised that those that did block it classified it as swimwear. You might be very surprised to fin that fewer block Tumblr where you can easily find explicit adult content. Please explain that one to me.

Baring the unexpected, and that’s really been a description of the last month and a half, more normal posting should resume later this week.

I’ve spent most of the last month dealing with a pretty serious and at times scary medical issue with a family member. Much of the last month, and just about all of July, have included way too much time in hospitals and at doctors, while also trying to keep up with my job and attempt something resembling a life. I’ve had mixed success on that last one in particular. Photography for the most part has just had to wait.

The good news is that things are looking good. While I’m still visiting a hospital on occasion, it’s in anticipation of that family member returning home healthy again soon. That leaves me slowly working back into the huge stack of messages, edits, and other things put aside during the crisis. If you’ve messaged or have been looking for photos from me, please understand that I’ve basically not edited anything since almost the middle of June. I’m starting to catch up on messages this evening, and I’m hoping to have everything out over the next week or two.

A short thanks to the people who were understanding as I had to put things off and push back deadlines I’d promised. I’ve a shoot next week getting back into work, and expect August will be as close as I ever come to normal.

I’ve been trying to use my Instagram account more, so I’m going to take advantage of my lack of a computer to do just that. I’ll be posting using my phone to Instagram until at least I get my computer back from repair. Photos from there should come through to here too so you won’t miss anything. You can though find me on Instagram at @candidvision.

An experiment with long exposure and animation of a stream near Tuolumne Meadows last summer.

Update: Leaving the original post below for future reference, but it appears that Google has reversed their decision on this. Doesn’t change my comments below on why I don’t want to rely on someone else’s platform for my content.

I like owning my Internet home, where I post my content for this exact reason. Starting March 23, 2015, Google is changing their rules on nudes on blogs hosted there. While the rules still will “still allow nudity if the content offers a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts.” if you’re a photographer or model that posts work to a blog there, you might want to consider a new home.

If you’re reading this on Tumblr and thinking, “Wait a minute”, my Tumblr mirrors content from my own web site at www.candidvision.com.

I’ve always been a cat person, and generally they return the affection. In one of those annoying ironies that life seems to enjoy hitting people with, I’m also cursed by the fact that I’m also allergic to cats. While I’ve owned cats, they’ve always been outdoor cats that were outside most of the time so after being with them I could come in, wash my hands, and rarely have any problems. Over the last few years I’ve mostly gotten my feline playtime fix visiting friends and family who had cats.

I’ve considered getting a cat off and on for the last few years, but always talked myself out of it because of my allergy concerns. I’ve had few rough moments from my allergies, but one incident always gave me pause. Early in my professional career I worked as a computer technician that mostly did their work out of the shop, but occasionally had to go visit to a customer’s home to fix an issue. One of those visits was to a person that had probably more than a normal number of cats around and not a well cleaned house. I did fix the computer problem, but when I left I felt like I’d come down with the flu and really didn’t get over it for a couple days.

Lucky on her First Night at Home during a Shoot

Still allergy medicines are better, and while I’ll not wow anyone with my housekeeping skills, I do think I’m a better housekeeper than that home had been. And it’s been years since I’d had an issue as long as I’d been careful to not touch my eyes or face with my hands before washing them after contact with cats. I’ve considered it more of late, and finally had talked myself into it early this month.

So a week and a half ago I adopted two kittens from a local animal shelter, a pair of litter mates now named Lucky and Morticia. I’d only planned to adopt one cat, but the shelter really wanted the two to go together and both talked me into it given I do have an often busy schedule and only home for a small part of some days. I’ve become very attached to them in a very short period of time and that seems to have been returned.

At first all seemed well in the new household, but over the previous week I’ve noticed my allergies are being more of a problem. I’ve gotten amazingly attached to these two cats since they’ve come to my home, and the thought of not keeping them brings me near to tears, but I can’t ignore that even with allergy medication I’m waking up wheezing from the allergies. Even after taking a dose as I just did, my symptoms aren’t going away.

I don’t know how it will end at this point. I can’t contemplate taking them back, but if I’m feeling like this now, how will I do when tree pollen gets into the air which often leaves me wheezing like this without the added stress of the cat allergies. Keeping them outdoors isn’t really an option where I live. I’m trying some things to limit the parts of the house they use to reduce the places the dander can get into, but I’ve no idea if this is going to work out, and that just sucks.