Marrington Shoots

We lived in Charleston, SC for almost 5 years during the 1980's and during that time I used my wife as my primary, and almost my only, model. I did get to shoot with one or two other ladies from time to time, but those opportunities were few and far between. That was fine, really, since Wanda was such a great model and always willing to pose for me, so I had lot's of opportunity to practice with the camera.

The image to the right was taken in a place called Marrington Plantation, which was actually a park area on the Naval Weapons Station. Wanda and I spent quite a bit of time shooting on the plantation, as it was conveniently close to our home, and we would often bike there during the week for a picnic and a photo shoot. During the week the place was essentially deserted and we could wander around the grounds for hours without running into anyone else. We were almost surprised once by a group of young boys out riding their bikes, but they didn't see us and we were shooting clothed shots at the time anyway.  We had a bit of laugh about that inciddent.

During this time, I experimented with black & white film quite a bit, but I finally determined that I really preferred color images. B&W is great for composition and tone, but I just prefer the pop of color. The image above was taken with a Canon AT-1 manual focus, manual exposure camera and a Vivitar 70-210 Series 1 zoom on Tri-X film. It's a scan from a print, rather from the negative, but a decent image all the same.

We've always played around a lot with our photography and had fun shooting in interesting places. This sign warned visitors to Marrington that there were dangerous alligator's in Mark's Pond - so we just had to take this shot.  We also did a shoot with Wanda in hose, heels, and lace lingerie at the edge of the pond. Strangely enough, we never saw any 'gators while we were there.

I have many more images from Marrington and from those days in Charleston, so I'm sure a few more will pop up now and again in this blog. 

Fantasy and Reality

A number of years ago, we some a great couple in Las Vegas. It turned out that they were also from Oregon and had a home on the McKenzie River. We had a great time talking with them while we were there and they were quite interested in my photographic endeavors. They told us they had a great view of the river and surrounding forests from their home, and offered to let us use their land and their deck for photography if we ever wanted to visit.

Life being what it is, we didn't get down there right away, but we were able to visit them the following summer and were amazed at the beauty of their home and of their land. The McKenzie moves deep and swift past their land, and in the summer their deck is covered by a canopy of green. The home decor relies primarily on the natural wood tones of the lumber used to build it as does the multi-level deck that rises from the slope that leads to the river and attaches to the back of their home.

Over the years, we've used their land for several photo shoots and the image above is only one of many images I've captured there. This image, however, is somewhat special. For our 25th anniversary, I decided to give Wanda a different kind of gift that would merge my love of glamour photography with her love of fantasy art and decor. It just so happened I know a very talented and creative art designer in San Diego, and I commissioned her to use this photograph to create a custom piece of art for Wanda. The first image she produced is below and to the right.

As you can see, she extracted Wanda from her surroundings and added a castle wall, swords, a gown, jewelry, flowers, and other articles. The swords are from photos of a sword that hangs in our home, the flowers are images of columbine I shot for another project, the table and knife behind her replicate other items in our home, but the gown and the jewelry come entirely from the artist's imagination and skill.

We did collaborate quite a bit on the image as she sent me several images prior to the producing the final version. The wall came first, then we decided to put swords on the wall. She found the flowers on my website and decided to use those in the hair. The table was her idea as well, but I suggested the knife that's on the table. The table's color and texture match an antique piece that we have in one of our bedrooms.

Since the final image was to be framed and hung in our bedroom, I did ask for one final addition, for even though our bedroom is a place of privacy and intimacy, we do occasionally have other people in the room. The final image that was printed and framed can be seen below:

Super Trooper

Wanda has been my best model for a long time. You might say, I really learned most of what I know about photography by shooting her. As that primary model, she has tolerated my passion for images not only by posing for me, but also by standing is rushing water, climbing trees, braving frigid temperatures, snowstorms, and oceans waves. We've often hiked several miles to get to a spot where I want to shoot, and she's right there beside me the whole way (sometimes dragging me along). When we're out shooting, she knows that if I see a bit of water, I'm going to want to pose her in it. I have hundreds, if not thousands, of images of her over the years in streams, forests, deserts, oceans, on on mountains, rocks, beaches, and trails. This post, however, about snow.

Wanda gets cold easily. Her idea of a comfortable temperature is about 90 degrees F. In the winter she wears socks, and house shoes and thick sweaters. But, despite her need for warmth, on more than one occasion she has posed naked or near naked in the snow for me. Take the first image here, for example. We went up to Mount St. Helens one day in late winter for this shoot. We stopped at the entrance to the Mount St. Helens National Monument where the snow was piled up many feet deep in front of the entrance sign. We climbed a steep embankment to get into the wooded area adjacent to the entrance and proceeded to take a series of images I thought would be fun to shoot. Wearing at times only snow boots, she tromped through the crusty snow while I exposed shot after shot. By the time the shoot was over, she had scratches on her legs where she had broken through the crust and the ice had scraped her legs, her lips were blue, and her hands were red. Still, when we returned to the car, she was more than game to strip down for this shot with the entrance sign.

A few years later, we had this huge snowstorm in the valley. I easily persuaded her to go for a walk with me in the falling snow to shoot a series of images for fun. I wanted to experiment with various shutter speeds and with flash to see tje various effects falling snow would produce. I could have easily done it without her assistance, but having her along to pose made it much more fun. As you can see, she was quite willing to accommodate my requests. What more could a man ask?


The last time we shot in the snow, we stayed close to home and simply used the back yard as the setting, but once again, she gamely endured to cold to satisfy my desire to shoot something just a little different. I'll say this much for her, present her with an interesting idea for a photograph and she'll give it her best shot.

Wekiva Springs

We lived in Florida for about 3 years during the early '90's. It was my first real shore duty tour. I had had one previous tour of duty on shore between my 1st and 2nd submarine, but it involved 8-12 hour shifts and rotating shift work--not very conducive to family life, though 2 of our three children were born during that time. After 5 years on submarine while stationed out of Charleston, the assigment gods in Washington, D.C. smiled on me and we got to spend three years in Florida and I only had to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (barring inspections, extra duty, training, etc.).

During that time I managed to complete a 4 year degree, take some technical classes in photography, get several articles and photographs published, and still have time to spend with my family. One of our favorite places to take the kids was Wekiva Springs State Park, just a few minutes north of Orlando.

Wekiva Springs is a beautiful park highlighted by a large spring fed pond/pool. The area immediately around this large pool is an grassy hillside dotted with picnic tables and open areas for sunbathing and games. In the hot, humid summer months, this area is filled with families eager for relief from the oppressive temperatures. The pool is quite chilly and it's a shock when you first jump into the water. It's shallow, about chest high on an adult, for the most part, with deeper areas spread around the pool. Though it has a mostly sandy bottom, the spring itself forcefully flows up from a large crack in the rocks beneath the pool. Kids love to dive to the crack, swimming against the strong current in an attempt to reach the source of the cold water.

These grounds are surrounded by the larger park with is mostly forested with many improved trails. The Wekiva River flows through this area and many families bring or rent canoes in order to explore the river and the lands surrounding it. During our time there, we saw many alligators, huge spiders, numerous turtles and fish, and too many species of birds to count.

A few years ago, Wanda and I got to travel back to Orlando for a vacation. We took the time to visit Wekiva Springs to renew our memories of the place. The photo above was taken during that trip. We have many other images we've taken on the ground there when we lived there in the '90's, but those were the days of film, so those images will have to wait until I've had a chance to scan some of those images. But, as you can seek, it's a beautiful place.

On the Lake

We lived in Charleston, South Carolina for about 5 years. During that time, I bought a small 17 foot Bayliner runabout. It had an open bow, and 85 HP outboard engine, a decent sound system and provided great fun for the family. On the weekends, we'd take the boat up to Lake Moultrie to ski, waterboard, and tube with the kids, and we'd often throw the grill in the back of the truck as well so we'd have a whole day of fun cooking out and playing on the water.

Lake Moultrie was a large man-made lake full of small islands that had a number of secluded beaches where we could anchor for a day of play. Wanda and I weren't able to get to the lake too often by ourselves, but during the last couple of years we were in Charleston, the kids started spending a couple of weeks each summer with their grandparents, and that gave us the rare opportunity to visit the lake and some of the islands alone. During those lazy summer days, we could sunbathe and swim without worrying which child was too far down the beach, too far out into the water, or getting into too much trouble. Instead, we were able to enjoy out time together and I had ample opportunity to photograph my lovely wife.

We did several photo shoots on these islands, and Wanda would often pose and sunbath nude or in very small bikinis. I certainly had no issues with that. Some of my favorite memories and photos are from those lazy days both without and with the kids.

After we left Charleston we moved to Orlando, Florida for 3 years, and the boat came in quite handy there as well, though the lakes were a bit smaller and harder to navigate and isolated and secluded islands were very difficult to find.  We did spend more time at the ocean beaches, especially Canaveral National Seashore, but the boating days were the best.

We finally sold the boat when we left Florida and moved to Connecticut since we knew we would seldom have the opportunity to boat while we lived in New England, at least not like we did in South Carolina and Florida. There are often times, however, when I wonder if I should buy another.

Window Nude - 2000

This is one of my favorite images of W. Taken with an Olympus C2000Z P&S Digital camera, it captures her slender, elegant beauty quite nicely. The setting is the corner of our living room. The windows here have a southern exposure which provides for strong backlighting during most of the day. As I recall, this was taken in the early summer of 2000 as part of a series of images we were shooting just for fun and this image was the best of many very good shots.

I'd like to say the blow out in the window behind Wanda was deliberate in order to obscure most of the house and other distracting elements behind her. The reality is that I had no ability to use a strong external strobe with this little camera (I didn't get my first digital SLR until later that year), and the little on-camera flash of the little Olympus simply couldn't balance the strong exterior light. Fortunately, despite the on-camera flash there are no harsh shadows and no red eye to mar the image.

The C2000Z was a 2 megapixel camera, so I had very limited resolution for editing this shot. Of course, in 2000, 2 megapixels was a very decent resolution for a camera. Later that year when I purchased my first DSLR, the Canon 30D, 3 megapixels was the standard. The C2000Z was a very capable camera for its time and I used it for far more than just glamour images. Check out the images below which were taken in my backyard and then at a winery later that year. The detail and the color are wonderful for a camera we would laugh at today.

Our First Oregon Country Fair

The Oregon Country Fair is one of our favorite events. We went to our first fair in the summer of 2000. Wanda especially enjoyed herself as there was a fantastic body painter in attendance (Kathleen) who painted a wonderfully creative art piece on her torso. Of course, when at the fair and painted, you have to be prepared to have your photo taken and to pose with all the other ladies there. There were quite a number of ladies, young and old who enjoyed getting painted, or painting themselves, for the fair and there were a fair number who just went topless without any paint at all. There were lots of revealing costumes as well on bothe men and women, as well as lots of elaborate costumes, masks, stilts and other accessories that added to the weird but wonderful flavor of the festival.

We were stopped a number of times for Wanda to pose with various people or to pose alone for the many GWCs (Guys with Cameras). Sarongs, string bikinis, wings, wands, flowers, and paint adorned most people though there were a very few folks who simply didn't get it and were complaining about the nudity and the throngs of other people. It was hard to understand what they thought they were getting into when they came to the fair.

The crowd was pretty bad though, and as the day wore on it become more and more difficult to traverse the fair grounds. Food and souvenirs were quite pricey as you can imagine, and dust was almost intolerable at times. Thankfully, there were misters on many of the main paths to keep down the dust and to cool the press of bodies below.

We enjoyed the fair and the people, but left early enough to avoid most of the exit traffic and to take advantage of the last few hours of light. Instead of taking the most direct route home, we decided to drive over to the coast and up and find an area to take more photos of the body painting while it still looked good as the paint wasn't going to last over night. Once we got to the coast, we headed north and eventually found a small, secluded beach where we were able to shoot a series of photos undisturbed except for the sound of crashing waves and screaming seagulls. The light was quite lovely, but we didn't stay very long because it was getting quite cool as evening progressed, and of course, Wanda wasn't dressed for a cool evening. You can see a some of those images below.

The Premise

This started out to be a reconstruction of an old blog we had a long time ago. It no longer exists in its previous format, so I thought about reproducing it here for prosperity's sake and to help us to recall the time line of some of the photographs I've taken of Wanda during our adventures over the years. After making the first entry, though, I decided to take it in a different direction and utilize it to feature the photos of my favorite model without following the strict time-line of the old blog. Just think of it as a photographic tribute to my lovely wife.

While this isn't for the general populace, if you run across the blog, don't be shy, interact with us and tell us what you think.

M & W