Lon's Thoughts

Travelin'

lon@atkinsonstudios.com (Lon Atkinson) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:33:00 +0000

I notice how many people that I know go on great trips and take hundreds of photos. I go somewhere and am lucky to shoot a dozen. Course, I don't go to many places very interesting. Well, to keep up with the 'Jones' here are some of my travel photos from the last 18 months or so.

Boy, I don't get out of the studio much or for very long. Oh, well, that's what retirement is for.

Outhouses!

lon@atkinsonstudios.com (Lon Atkinson) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:28:00 +0000

Outhouses: hate 'em, scared of 'em, but boy, when you need one aren't they great!?! You never want to be down wind of one, that's for sure. You always open the door with such trepidation. You just never know what you might find. If the smell or the sights don't get you there's always that chance of finding a nice rattlesnake or a wasp's nest sitting in the corner. They sit there, so obvious, so brightly colored, so not part of the landscape.

They have such great names: Big Red's, Spanky's, Andy Gumps, Johnny's. Then there's the door. You sneak out in the dark of the night, in the middle of the campground. You are trying to be so quiet, so secretive. You do what you went for and then you leave and that door slams, with that familiar noise, the 'you all know what I have been doing' THUNK.

I slept in one once. It was raining and I needed a place to keep dry. Have you ever tried changing clothes in one? Then there was the time, in the middle of the night, I put my small flashlight on top of the paper dispenser. As I finished doing that which was necessary, I bumped into the dispenser. The flashlight bounced around the outhouse and right down the hole. I just had to look in, and what a weird glow was emanating from that dark, scary place. I always wondered what the next person thought!

There is the story of Wild Bill Hickock, the famous gunfighter. He went to use the town's outhouse and as he stood up one of his pearl handled 45's fell down the hole. His guns were his life. So, he opened the lid and squirmed down into the stuff. He pulled out his gun. As he exited the facility, he ran into the town drunk. There Bill was, covered in s***. He pulled his gun out and put it right against the old man's forehead. He warned him that if anyone ever heard about this incidence he would dispatch the poor man from this life. True story.

Love 'em, hate 'em, but when you need one....

Whata Month

lon@atkinsonstudios.com (Lon Atkinson) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 23:40:00 +0000

Wow, September went by pretty darn fast. I can't believe that it's been over a month since I wrote about Merry Mary, who by the way, is having a great time in Guatamala and I'm sure she is making all around her happy.

September is a big month for Shelley and Me. We both give up a bunch of our free time in support of the Boy Scouts here in San Diego. In particular we are part of a group that put on a Mountain Man Rendezvous for the Varsity Scouts. These are guys from 14-18. Here is a picture of our staff. See if you can spot Shelley and Me!
The boys that come to this weekend activity get to do a bunch of the things that Mountain Men did from 1820-1840. They shoot blackpowder guns, throw tomahawks and knives, shoot arrows, run, compete, eat too much, and have a heck of a good time. Here are a few more photos to give you the idea.

If you want to see the entire website on this activity go here: www.VarsityRendezvous.com
This years photos and stuff will not be up for awhile, but you get the idea from last years website.

Why do we do this? Well it is fun. But I believe that we all need to give back to those organizations that have done a lot to make us who we are. Whether its a religion, professional organization or youth organization. Give back. The rewards are tremendous.

Lon, aka: The Booshway

A Very Merry Mary

lon@atkinsonstudios.com (Lon Atkinson) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:49:00 +0000

Those of you that have visited our studio this summer had the pleasure of meeting our Merry Mary. For the second year, she has worked for us during her summer off from college. There are just some people that make everything more fun than it really is or maybe even more fun than it should be. Like working for me.

Or scrubbing the studio floor:

Or painting a wall:

Or archiving hundreds of images:

Or, cleaning the ol' commode.

She would also gleefully, (yes, that is a word) jump into the middle of a set to blow the dust off of a large product:

Mary has chosen not to go back to school this fall at Brigham Young University. Instead, she is going to spend four months in Guatemala at the "Clara Fantasia" home for at risk children in Chimaltenango, Guatemala. HELP International sends volunteers there to provide the education, supplies, support and other essentials for the children and their estranged families. The ultimate goal is to reunite the children with their natural families after appropriate counseling with both the children and their parents. If that is not possible, then the orphanage seeks out responsible, married Guatemalan couples who are looking to adopt.

For more information: www.help-international.org

She will be missed. But we are proud of her decision to help others. But, who is going to scrub the floor?!? We look forward to hearing some great stories from Guatemala.

Here is a link to Merry Mary's blog, with exciting stories of life in an orphanage:

http://marylindquist.blogspot.com

Ashley

lon@atkinsonstudios.com (Lon Atkinson) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:55:00 +0000

We had another busy week in the Studio. We had a couple of large client jobs that required a many hours and considerable effort.

Then there was the photo shoot with Ashley. Ashley is our second granddaughter. She is full of energy. We have been shooting her each three months of her life. She is now eighteen months old. It reminds me of why I chose to become a product and advertising photographer. Shelley, was given the dubious assignment of being the shooter. I did the lighting and then just kind of hid behind my computer. Mary, Lois and Elaine, (Ashley’s mom), spent an hour doing everything that you could imagine to get this darling, rambunctious child’s attention. Oh my. Here are a few of our attempts.

Here is one that worked. It will look even better when Shelley does her magic in the Digital Dungeon, where she dwells all day. I wouldn't have missed this special photo assignment for anything.

Buster goes to a show

lon@atkinsonstudios.com (Lon Atkinson) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:10:00 +0000

I swore that I would never put my bus into a car show. But I did. It wasn’t anything big, just a community car show.

The problem is that for every five or ten people that think my bus is cool, there is some purist that thinks that altering this, fairly rare, VW bus is a sacrilege. They love to say that if this bus was restored it would be worth x number of dollars. They just don’t get it. It’s not about dollars. It’s about the challenge of creating, figuring out how to do something and the absolute joy of driving around surprising people. It's all about being different.

I also seem to notice that most the ‘purists’ that are all upset about this bus look as if they wouldn't even have the money to restore a little red wagon, let alone a fifty year old VW bus.

To heck with them.

It was nice that I ended up parked next to a gorgeous, bright red Dodge Viper. Kinda made the bus look a little dumpy. If you are interested, the surfboard on top of the bus is a 1958 Velzey-Jabocs 'Pig'. It's 9' 9" long and weighs 40 pounds.

Ol' Wiley

lon@atkinsonstudios.com (Lon Atkinson) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:55:00 +0000

1994-2008

Some of you, that have visited our studio might have met Wiley. He was a good dog. A great dog in my eyes. He left us last week. He had a great and long life. Australian Shepards live to about eleven years. Wiley was having so much fun living his life that he forgot about that and almost made it fifteen years. All but the last few weeks were full of good times.

He never was a problem. Never chewed things. Well, there was the straps to our spa that disappeared. He never dug holes. Well, there was the gopher infestation two years ago that he took quite personal. I think he thought they were coming from China. But all in all it was great to have him as a dog.

He got to go backpacking in the Sierras, hiking in the desert and visit all the neighbors trees. He chased cayotes out of our yard and he loved herding our neighbors wiener dogs when they would dig under the fence. He would corner them near the pool and they had a heck of a time getting back home.

Lots and lots of good memories. He will and already is missed. He had his own dog Dharma, who is suffering from his lost.

Wiley was named after my grandfather, Wiley McDonald. They had a lot in common.

Some Shell Collection

lon@atkinsonstudios.com (Lon Atkinson) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:32:00 +0000

One of our more interesting clients is the San Diego Museum of Natural History, located in Balboa Park. This past week we had the opportunity to go into their research library and photograph pages from old book. The photos will be used to make note cards to sell in the Museum shop. The book was printed in 1790. It was commissioned by a Maria Theresia Augusta. She seems to be a person of importance or at least of great wealth from Austria.

The book was large, about 15x18. We were not allowed to touch the book. A museum curator, with white gloves, handled the book and turned the pages. It was in great condition. They keep these books in a climate controlled vault.

Here is the title page. I think the book was written in Latin.

The purpose of the book was to catalog Ms. Augusta's collection of shells. After each plate there were pages describing each shell. The book was about 2.5-3 inches thick.

Here are three of the seven plates that we photographed:

The book was published in black ink. Each shell was reproduced as a line drawing. I have no idea how many of these books were made, but each page of shells was individually hand painted in water colors. This would have been done on each book published!

Really fascinating shoot. And for the first time in my life I got to stand in my stocking feet on top of a table in a library. Now how many of you can say that!!!

Interesting Shoot This Week

lon@atkinsonstudios.com (Lon Atkinson) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:17:00 +0000

One of the fun things about being a photographer is the variety of clients that we have. One day we may be shooting a cell phone in the studio, the next day a shock absorber for a car and the next day a pretty model wearing sports clothes. Each assignment is different and requires different tools and methods to accomplish what the client would like.

This week was no different. We shot a steel 'gusher' mold that was about the size of a loaf of bread and weighed 50 pounds. Then we did a close up of a part on the mold that was no larger than 1/8 of an inch. We also had 18 views of a new cell phone, some gun leather products and a few items that I don't know what they were.

Then we had the big stuff:Our client makes high end equipment for recording studios. The 'woofer' in the middle was three foot by three foot and weighed 300 pounds. So we started out this shoot wrestling this block. The fun and interesting part was the client wanted the lights to be illuminated on the front of the woofer and monitors. In order to do that we had to hook all of them up to a computer and send an audio signal. By the time we had enough lights illuminated the walls were vibrating in the studio. Pictures were rattling and I swear I loosened a filling in my back molar.

But we got the shot and I'm sure our new neighbors were wondering if anyone else felt the 'earthquake' they had felt.

And people think we are in this business for the money!

Bunch of new things

lon@atkinsonstudios.com (Lon Atkinson) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:36:00 +0000

Well, if your reading this you must have found our new website. Honest, this took us a complete year to finish. I have found the perfect marketing plan: you decide to do some personal work, or create something new, or for heaven's sake, go on a vacation, and clients come out of he woodwork!

We have had a good busy year in the studio, so the website took much, much longer than we thought. Anyone want to give us feedback on the website have at it.

Other new things in my life would have to include my brand spanking new knee joint. I have finally joined the ranks of the bionic. I had the surgery on Feb. 29th (that will be an easy date to remember) and it is an expected six months recovery. Six months is not too long, when I realize that I broke this knee when I was fifteen years old and this is the fifth operation I have had on it.
I have suffered, limped, cursed, complained for all these years. Now it feels better than I can ever remember. I actually can stand without pain. Of course, I can't predict the weather anymore.

One more new thing. I have finally got my 59 VW bus out of what was supposed to be a fire pit in our backyard, and got it on the road again. I put in a brand new engine, rebuilt the trans, rear end, put on disc brakes in the front and am working on the interior now. The engine is a GM 350 CI V8, putting out 330 horsepower. A little more than the original stock 30 horsepower motor. It's mounted in the middle of the bus, behind the front seats. I'll post some more photos next week.

Well, enough for now. I hope you liked the new website. If anyone wants pictures of my knee, just let me know.

Lon