Portrait of Kitchie Courtesy Geoffrey Feret. Copyright 2023
Text by Kitchie Ohh, Copyright 2023
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Resolution Revolution
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Happy January. The first month of a whole new year. A time to set new goals, make resolutions, leave last year in the past. A clean slate.
Social media is always a wealth of posts shared for laughs, information, and most often, on my feed, inspiration.However, I am finding more and more that those intended inspirations are toxic as hell. The number of people in my network proudly declaring – warning, really – that they are “matching energies” has become overwhelming. So what’s the problem with that? I’m so glad you asked.
Most, if not all of us, were raised with some form of the Golden Rule. You know, treat others the way you’d want to be treated. Numerous belief systems have some variation of this rule, you’ve very likely heard it regardless of faith. So THAT my friends is the crux of the matching energies problem. Responding to someone’s behavior toward you in a way that reflects their treatment of you, rather than who you actually are is disingenuous and, very likely, petty. I say this as the majority of times an individual claims to be engaging in an energy match, they are doing so only to those they feel disrespected or in some way slighted by. I rarely, if ever, see or hear this in the context of being kind. It has become a practice in returning slight for slight, creating a near-obsession with getting even and perpetuating the behavior they are trying to end. It’s also made a spectacle for others to applaud and encourage. Thanks, Facebook.
Rather than engaging in this behavior, on- or offline, wouldn’t it be more productive to be up front with how someone made you feel? Telling a person they offended you, rather than going right for a return offense seems a more logical step one. It also leaves room for clarification of intent. Every person is entitled to feel the way they feel about the words and actions of others toward them, intention never invalidates how something is received and processed.However, every person also should be given the opportunity to learn they offended and offer apology, not that they will. Sometimes the way you feel about what someone has said or done is exactly what they intended. In which case, there is likely no apology coming.
There is absolutely no merit in being a doormat, allowing people to walk all over you, or treat you unacceptably. Trust me, I’ve been there. However the alternative isn’t stooping to their level. I am in no way trying to tout myself as any kind of expert here. But, I have in recent years discovered the joy of setting boundaries. I define the parameters for what is and is not acceptable behavior toward me. There is nothing forcing me to accept the unacceptable with a smile. I am allowed to be hurt, insulted, angry, etc. and walk away from it with a clear and resounding NOPE! Not even a No, thank you. I don’t owe politeness or anything else to those who refuse to accept my boundary.
There is a secondary issue I have with this whole matching business. In letting those you’re interacting with dictate your behavior you lose all consistency of self. When the answer to the question “who are you?”becomes “well, that depends on who I’m with,” that’s a big red flag. Do you even know you?
While it’s not the same thing, I am linking another over-shared thing I see via social media these days as equally problematic: most zodiac related posts. I definitely read my horoscope on occasion and even sported my sign as a tattoo for a while. It’s all in good fun, it has never and will never control my life- hence the cover up. What I’m referring to is the posts declaring the star signs are the reasons for awful behavior. Ugh, how very Capricorn of me. Seriously though, like the matching energies, defaulting to zodiac traits to explain or justify behavior is just another way to refuse responsibility for your actions. Because, again, I rarely observe this in connection to positive traits, its mostly the negative or hurtful ones. Reflecting someone’s behavior back at them or shrugging off something you said or did as an unconscious fault of your star sign that others should excuse only shows a lack of accountability. How can anything ever be your your responsibility if the cause is external – other people, the stars, universe, whatever. Totally not your fault, right? Wrong. Regardless of what anyone else says or does, the position of celestial bodies at the time of your birth, or today, you are still responsible for your words, actions, and reactions and should be held just as accountable for them as you expect others to be.
No offense to those who follow the zodiac and/or do any type of energy work. You do you.
Oh, and yes, if you caught the reference, I am a Capricorn. My birthday is this month. This year, I will find the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything….
Kidding. But, if you get THAT reference (without Google!) you not only know my age, but you’re pretty damn cool.
How about we use this New Year to do better, to be better, or the best, versions of ourselves that we can be? This includes doing the bits that might be hard to do, like admit fault and apologize; set boundaries or cut ties that are overdue for severing, and walk away without getting the last word. Also, let’s not call this a resolution. I hate that. Let’s call it what it is: self-improvement. This is an ongoing process not limited to start and end on certain dates. Every day we have choices, to act or be reactive, to grow or remain stagnant. To let others determine who we are or to be genuinely ourselves. Which is kind of beautiful isn’t it? Don’t wait for a new year, start when you’re ready and keep it going.
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Portrait of Kitchie Ohh, courtesy Geoffrey Feret. Copyright 2023
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About The Author:
Kitchie Ohh is a full-time professional fundraiser who has worked with a number of health and human services nonprofits for over the last 20 years, currently with a food-related Philadelphia nonprofit. She found her passion for modeling after a pinup-style photoshoot in 2013. Since then she’s worked with many talented photographers, stylists, hair and makeup artists in a variety of styles. She has been featured in -and on the covers of- multiple print and digital publications. Over the years she has branched out from pinup studio modeling to serve as a figure model for live sketching, walked a runway, and was part of two campaigns for local Philadelphia designer K. Vaughn.
In addition to her food insecurity-related work, she has also volunteered with art, historical, and community organizations, and even on the events team of a local brewery, pre-pandemic.
You’re just as likely to find her whipping up something deliciously plant-based in her kitchen or knitting a sweater as you are to find her on a photography set. Her motto is “be both.” The model and the homemaker, sultry and sweet, serious and silly. All the things, all at once.
“Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.” – Senator Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader, R-KY, August 18th, 2022[1]
Good ‘ol Mitch is oh so right. The quality of the men and women running for elected office in the November 2022 midterm race on the Republican slate was what American voters had to contend with.
Hmm, would it be to give a blessing to the handpicked candidates of former President Donald J. Trump, who by happenstance on his Dis-Truth anti-social media entity fiddled with terms of ‘death wish’[2], ‘broken down hack’, ‘crazy’ and a racist smearing towards Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao and wasn’t rebuked by the Senate minority leader from Kentucky?
“He has a DEATH WISH” – former President Donald J. Trump, September 30th, 2022
Or, would it be the voters deciding to go a different way all together?
Door number two has been chosen by a majority of the voters. Now, it is that white flag which the Republicans predicted to be waved in surrender by the Democrats which they shall hold onto for themselves. Maybe it’s no longer a flag, but a remedy for fainting to revive them from the shock of having fallen way, way short of taking a majority in the Senate and an even wider swath of seats in the House.
Could it be because the Republicans thought they could just coast on previous outcomes of mid-term history for the party of the sitting President losing seats? Oh, yeah, Mitch and Kevin McCarthy in the House thought it would be just a snap to get any candidate with an R next to their name elected without an agenda being placed forward for the voters to decide upon.
Just say ‘Biden bad, Republican good’ and all will work out fine was their plan. But, like the best laid plans of mice and men, things have a way of not going so smoothly.
When Mitch McConnell mused about candidate quality[3]of the Republicans who were running in the mid-terms, it was obvious he was taking a swipe at the man behind the choosing of that less than stellar group whose only shine was to a former occupant of the White House.
Technology is such a miraculous thing. With the audio and video technology that is out there in today’s world, there are few things that would seem unlikely to get hidden away from anyone who wants to know the truth.
Maybe, it’s just me. I’m a curious human being who just doesn’t automatically believe or disbelieve something just because it is told to me by word of mouth. I want to see it for myself, hear it for myself, and then judge it for myself. We all have biases. I’ll admit I have mine when it comes to politics. I’m a liberal and I don’t apologize for it.
And, I have no doubt that many of you who are reading this article will have your own feelings about politics. With that being so, I could hope that there are certain things that are uncontested as being reality.
Yet, when there is an attempt at bending truth into a pretzel and then calling it a doughnut, that’s where I gotta’ throw an error flag onto the field.
If there were no audio recording of someone asking for 11,780 votes to be found in Georgia, or no plethora of video of a mob of hellions egged on to enter the capitol with anger, Confederate flag waved, adorned in a Camp Auschwitz t-shirt, a gallows erected in the distance, and walls desecrated with feces; then I guess it could be debated or denied of what was seen before our eyes or heard by our ears.
If nobody ever had anything recorded as proof of what they were witness to, where would this country really be in beating back the tide of gas-lighting?
Would we all be zombies under the spell of Republican anesthesia and amnesia?
Say something over and over again and it seeps into a person’s psyche. Forget what you see, forget what you heard. Don’t let the truth stand before you, as the lies are constructed as the seconds tick away.
Anesthesia and amnesia seems to be how one of the two major political parties in the United States is running on in this year’s election.
The Republican establishment has caressed the myth of lies in the 2020 election over their followers and constituents as if it were a paralyzing balm of suspended animation. Say it once, say it twice, say it a thousand times and it just seeps under the skin and into the psyche. Do it almost as if it were a throwback of orthodoxy over tax policy and mortgage rates.
Yet, it would be logical to have a debate on the merits of tax policy and other fiscal matters. Okay, I even might agree at some points with Republicans on that.
But, in this present moment in time they are sure as anything are not focusing on the merits of monetary policy.
This moment is all about the undermining of the underpinnings of American democracy. As Americans go to vote; be it through early voting or on November 8th, an insidious tide of election denying is creeping into that space which once was seen or known as being sacrosanct.
Okay, most of the time, we as citizens in this country don’t really pay that much attention to campaigns until around the final weeks of an election.
Lewis Carroll meet today’s Republicans. Down the rabbit hole they are, as some are all in for the cause. While others are what I would call ‘coup-curious’; you know, half-in, half out. I consider the once grand-old-party as three types of people in the Rabbit Hole Theory.
Firstly, there are the true believers who ran head long down into the rabbit hole. Cock-eyed conspiracies from a single letter group to those of the furthest right to the right in which you can be are those in this group of people. Those events around the big lie and January 6th were a part of their divine trinity.
Secondly, there are the ‘coup-curious’ who peek down into the rabbit hole with keen interest in being part of the in-crowd between the movers, shakers, and various activists. Senators Ron Johnson and Mike Lee flirt with curiosity.
Thirdly, there are those wily opportunists who stand ten feet away from the edge of the rabbit hole with their arms folded and a silent grin, as they are hoping they can make the most out of an unorthodox political situation to stay in leadership or rise to that plateau.
Fist pumping Missouri Senator Josh Hawley proved an allegiance on January 6th 2021, as he walked across the capitol grounds with the hordes of hooligans on the other side of the security fence on the verge of breaking into that complex. Now, after the midterm 2022 election letdowns and meltdowns for the GOP, Senator Hawley pretends his own actions around the big lie didn’t play a part in the defeats[4] of the party.
Florida Senator Rick Scott, who was in charge of getting more Republicans elected to the Senate has his eyes on the prize of becoming leader of his fellow Republicans in the Senate and displace the man Donald Trump called ‘Old Crow’. As to that person dubbed as ‘Old Crow’, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell would be the last person seated in the clown car of conservatives down that rabbit hole. Yet, that wily opportunist would do whatever needs to be done to remain top of his conference, even if it means acquiescence to those who are abhorrent to his sensibilities.
Big Lie, Big Cheese. The Senator from Wisconsin was not just a spectator in the events of that fateful day, as he was a participant. His attempt at gas-lighting history in some sort of act of anesthetizing the public is so weak, as the reckoning with reality might not be so far off in the distance.
From the Fourth Hearing of the House January 6th Committee, an investigative counsel Casey Lucier relayed what Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson[5] had been up during that fraught day of January 6th, 2021:
“Text messages exchanged between Republican Party officials in Wisconsin showed that on January 4th, the Trump campaign asked for someone to fly their fake electors’ documents to Washington. A staffer for Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson texted a staffer for Vice President Pence just minutes before the beginning of the joint session. This staffer stated that Senator Johnson wished to hand-deliver to the Vice President the fake electors’ votes from Michigan and Wisconsin. The Vice President’s aide unambiguously instructed them not to deliver the fake votes to the Vice President.”
So, Ron, now he plays the amnesia game in saying he doesn’t remember. Oh, ye of coup-curiosity you are, Senator Johnson.
Mike Lee must have gotten that anesthetic on himself in some sort of blowback in thinking the tornado of lies about the election of 2020 that he has fallen beneath the tide of amnesia also, in thinking he could just squeal and squawk for Mitt Romney to toss him a lifesaver for re-election and it would be there without question.
Ah, but, Senator Lee, you must be mistaking Senator Mitt Romney for a man who has amnesia also. But, you are so wrong in thinking that, for Senator Romney could never forget what happened[6] on January 6thand how you as his colleague were on the other side of the issue that was the foundation of that insurrection that was ripping apart the capitol.
Unlike Senator Mike Lee, the senior Senator from Utah does not need to grovel before the former President.
Mitt Romney’s financial and political sphere is not based upon any form of interest of alignment with Donald Trump or his ardent strain of voters. Romney has his own lane of influence that is based on several decades in the political realm which goes back to his father, George Romney, who was a former governor of Michigan.
Seems like Mitt don’t need Mike to survive the slings and arrows of re-election, but Mr. Lee surely needs Mr. Romney’s lifting of a finger or a word of endorsement[7] to get him over the finish line in a close race against his opponent Evan McMullen.
I guess there is one finger that Senator Romney is giving his senate colleague – and it’s not the middle one. It’s a thumb placed down.
“Our Brand Is Amnesia” –
From a Republican congressional press conference in June of 2022 with Indiana’s Jim Banks, New York’s Elise Stefanik, Minority Whip Steve Scalise and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy standing directly behind him – at the 3:44 minute time, Banks says the following question with a straight face and forthright righteousness[8] in his voice:
“Was Speaker Pelosi involved in the decision to delay National Guard assistance on January 6th? Those are serious and real questions that this committee refuses to even ask. Speaker Pelosi doesn’t want to answer those questions, because she knows that the answers to those questions leave a trail of bread crumbs right back to her office; underscoring her negligence, her lack of leadership as Speaker of the House. Those are serious questions that we will continue to dig into. ” – Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN)
When Banks talks about digging, he should be the person digging his head out of his own posterior in trying to pull one over on the American people.
And, as Banks pondered this question before the microphones with Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy standing to his right, the look on good ol’ Kev’s face speaks volumes on the level of his own amnesia or self-delusion.
Maybe McCarthy and Scalise had forgotten those tense moments at Fort McNair where they and Speaker Pelosi were being secreted away for their protection on January 6th 2021, when the rioters were leveling destruction at the capitol.
Kevin McCarthy knew the truth. He always knew the truth. Now, maybe he can try to corral his members to vote for him as their leader when the congress changes hands in January 2023. But, you know something, the video don’t lie of you standing with Nancy Pelosi inside of Fort McNair when all hell was breaking loose via the words and actions propelled by President Donald Trump.
So, just keep on playing the game of acting as if Nancy Pelosi was the Devil and did nothing to right the wrongs of what was going on that day. Oh yeah, the Republican amnesia machine will keep grinding out the lies about what happened. But, the video don’t lie, Kevin. Yet, you do.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi was a woman in charge and no matter how many people want to demonize her, it was the lady from San Francisco who kept the wheels of democracy on track.
Daughter of Nancy Pelosi is documentary filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi. If not for the younger Pelosi having her film crew documenting[9] her mother’s overseeing of the historical proceedings of that day, the continued cascade of lies about what Speaker Pelosi and other Democrats did or did not do on that day would be castigated and twisted into a Republican fable.
Hey, Kevin! Hey Jim Banks! Hey Steve Scalise! The camera isn’t a liar, but you definitely are!!
Of course for the Republicans, they want to forget what has happened and sing from the hymnal of everything that is without chaos.
As a citizen out here in America, I am giving the Democrats a piece of advice; please don’t shrink or minimize our values for a cockeyed sense of comity with the Republicans.
I’ve seen the midterm analysis from some elected Democrats on the news programs seeming a bit too eager to give a light sweeping of that which is disagreeable and close the door on yesterday.
Do not bend over backwards to give the GOP an easy way out of not having to truly face the consequences for what they have allowed and encouraged to happen. Now if that means they have to be in the political wilderness for however long that it may make take for their party to be reborn as something recognizable – then so be it.
They have to get their own shit together and no Democrat should even be offering a hand up, hand out or political paddle to save them from drowning in that red river of rancidness they so willingly chose to swim in.
Sometimes Democrats bend over backwards in trying to smooth out every wrinkle to make everything workable and doable in the political sphere. Damn, if your opponent has destroyed themselves, don’t lift a finger to help them. They’re big boys and girls who decided to ride the Big Lie. So, when that has gone poof and backfired in their candidacies to succeed, then they’ll just have to live with it in their own circle of conservatism.
To the Democrats, I say this: DON’T BE CO-OPTED BY THE REPUBLICANS!
Oh yeah, the slow roping in of Democrats into this narrative of not all of us were in allegiance to Donald Trump and that we shouldn’t be given a side-eye or stiff- arm in being held at arms’ length over our actions within the past six years, is just that misting of anesthesia to let everything go back to the way things were before he came to town.
Democrats please don’t fall for Republican’s rouse.
Normalcy vanished the moment in which that downward escalator in New York City on a day in June of 2015, when HE and his missus descended to ascend to the highest office in the land.
As the Democrats retain majority control of the United States Senate with the re-election wins of Catherine Cortez-Mastro in Nevada and Mark Kelly in Arizona bringing the seat total to fifty with Vice-President Kamala Harris as a tie-breaker for any passage of legislation; there is a single race that is left to be decided in a run-off.
Georgia! Georgia! Georgia! Since neither candidate from Georgia amassed more than fifty percent in their race, both men will have to endure a run-off in December of this year.
Oh yes, Senator Raphael Warnock will have to deal with the fumble-mumble of his opponent Herschel Walker for one more month to go through this extended election process.
Senators Ted “Cancun” Cruz and Lindsey “Clutch My Pearls’ Graham can hold Herschel’s hand and lead him around the peach state and onto the Fox News love-fest, but that might not even be enough to get him over the finish line of victory.
“A Ray of Light” –
For older voters, prescribing amnesia is simpler and done with greater ease by the right-wing crowd. Just tell them it was nothing that happened on a certain day at a certain time. And, even if they think they saw it or the whiff of remembrance fills their minds, just tell them it is not so.
Well, for the voters who are younger, they are not fooled or transfixed under the aura of anesthesia that authority may attempt to wash over them.
With that level of ignorance, back-handedness and just plain out false assurance that the status quo will always roll on, the right-wing never saw what was coming in this election season.
In the midterm elections of November 2022 as reported by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (C.I.R.C.L.E.), it was 27% of voters[10] aged 18 to 29 who came to put the Democratic candidates over the top.
Some may wonder what it could be that would lead to such a surge by the young voters across America. Well, of course it probably was the overturning of abortion rights by the Supreme Court. But, that’s only a part of why the young voters took destiny into their own hands and power to the polling booths.
Looking at a segment of whom some of these younger voters are I focus on three events which occurred in the past.
As of this year of 2022, it has been 23 years since Columbine, 9 years since Sandy Hook, and 4 years since Marjory Stoneman Douglas. From the month of May 2022, there have been 554[11] school shooting victims since the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado in 1999.
Of these three which are listed, the one which has had a most profound political impact is the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. I cite that event because those students and staff that were affected in the first-person status galvanized their own pathway into a multi-pronged arena of activism.
Unlike Littleton, Colorado in 1999 and Newtown, Connecticut in 2012, the victims never were the ones with the voice to go forth and advocate directly for how they wanted the gun laws, control and procedures to be tightened in the wake of their tragedies. In the aftermath of each of those events, it was the family members who were the majority speaking for the departed.
Yet, in the vein of persuasion, persistence and power in politics, it is the generation who came of age from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida that took their rage and ran towards chipping away at the wall of obstruction that the Republicans cherish oh so much.
It is this “Parkland” generation that has lived through decades of active shooter drills in their schools, unlike older generations such as mine, who only had to worry about fire drills and a few fist fights in cafeterias and hallways over the years.
Even to my parents’ generation, they dealt with black and white films flickering from movie projectors showing how to get under their desks for nuclear drills or assemble in a hallway as not to get shattered glass from a sheering blast upon them, which now seems so quaint.
In those four years since 2018, the students from Parkland have not gone quietly on with their lives in anonymity or vanished from the drive and debate over the issue of America being awash in guns. They have bravely done just the opposite.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s students David Hogg, X Gonzalez (born as Emma Gonzalez), and so many other awesome young people have gathered courage and persisted in the political space to get their issues pushed forward with the formation of the “March For Our Lives” movement. Along with those former students, are the dedicated parents such as Fred Guttenberg, whose beloved daughter Jaime, and the father of deeply cherished Joaquin Oliver, Manuel Oliver, who were both befallen by a heartless murderer who have taken fight against the gun lobby across the United States.
To show just how much progress has been made by the vision of younger voters, former March for Our Lives and ACLU organizer 25 year-old Maxwell Alejandro Frost[12] was elected to a congressional seat from Florida.
Issues for this generation go beyond abortion, gun safety and proliferation; as the economy, inflation and climate change are what we all are grappling with also.
For me, my level of admiration for this group of voters has risen, because they flipped the script and proved many mainstream political analysts wrong in stepping up, coming out, showing out and damn straight – voting out the old for something better and new.
Emboldened with the freedom on knowing there is not a moment to waste in sheltering themselves into cocoons of making others feel comfortable in the person that they are and what they want to become, these young souls have met their rendezvous with destiny and surpassed it.
It is one thing which I have observed about those who are younger. They are fearless. I don’t know what it is about them. But, they just seem to come off with that lust for life that is magnificently breathtaking to me.
They are the ones that are not going to be invisible anymore. No matter what anyone says about how they should live or who or what they should be, the young are here – right now and in the present! They are LGBTQIA+ and any other binary or non-binary they are born to be. Just deal with it. Or, if you don’t, they are going to be like their souls – Forever Free!!
And, in this election, along with the rest of American voters who are far from sleeping our way through a fog of fallacies. I guess you could say being awake and woke is better than being culturally comatose and intellectually broke. Yeah, Ron DeSantis, that one’s for you! Ugh!!
Fetishistic fervency of Christian holy warriors[13] is how some of the Republicans who ran for election and re-election have spewed forth before and after that Tuesday in November 2022.
“Now this great exodus of Americans, for those folks, Florida, for so many of them, has served as the promised land.” – Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida[14]
Alas, this ‘Godly’ Governor from Florida is the same man who had orchestrated a shady endeavor of transporting a group of Venezuelan migrants[15] from Texas onto a plane like they were sacks of potatoes and had them hustled up to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts just to score a few political points in his craven quest for a potential higher office.
Yep, one word to describe the right-wingers is definitely craven. But, another is crass.
“Quality Control ONE”
By
A.H. Scott
“Quality Control” – The Footnotes:
1.- McConnell Discusses Importance Of ‘Candidate Quality’ In Senate Races – NBC News
2.- Trump Intensifies Attacks on McConnell With ‘death wish’ Remark – CNBC
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A.H. Scott is a poet and essayist based in New York City. Miss Scott is a veteran contributor to this blog. To access part two to this article by A.H. Scott, click here: https://tonywardstudio.com/blog/quality-control-two/
Photo: Tony Ward. Model photographed with Canon 100D. Copyright 2022.
Text by Bob Shell, Copyright 2022
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Good Enough
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A friend wrote me with a technical photography question. He wanted to know if a raw file from a native 6 megapixel sensor would have better quality than a file from a larger sensor converted to a 6 megapixel JPEG image. I answered in part:
On the photography question, simple answer — I don’t know.
My late friend Fred Picker, one of the finest photographers I’ve known used to get a lot of ‘what happens if I do this?’ questions.
He had a big rubber stamp made. It said, “TRY IT!” He’d stamp it on the letter in red ink and mail it back.
Without being able to actually take Fred’s advice, I’d guess the raw file would be better. My Canon EOS 10D was only 6 megapixels, but I was able to make great 13 X 17 prints suitable for gallery sale from it. Seems to me these cameras with massive pixel counts mostly serve to fill up storage space on your computer system unless you’re shooting for Times Square billboards.. I had very good results upsizing my files with Genuine Fractals software. I believe I heard they were bought by Adobe and folded into Photoshop.
Like anything else, it all depends on what you’re doing with the photo. The last book I did before being convicted was ‘The Complete Idiots Guide: Massage Illustrated.’ I shot a couple hundred photos for the book illustrating massage techniques with a couple of models. The book measures about 8 X 10 inches. The biggest photo is about half page size. I shot it all with the Canon EOS10D, 6 megapixel. Shot all as high quality JPEG. Converted to B&W and tweaked contrast a bit in Photoshop. A camera with higher pixel count — bigger files — would have just slowed down the workflow.
I’d done three books before for Penguin, the world’s largest publisher, so they trusted me to deliver quality on time.
My agent called me, “Can you write a book on massage therapy for Penguin, shoot all the photos, and create a one-hour DVD to go with the book?”
“Sure, I’ll write/photograph anything for them!” was my answer.
That was some project! I needed a Certified Massage Therapist as coauthor for credibility. My old friend and former model Viictoria Jordan Stone was one, so I hired her to be my coauthor on the book. I had to shoot the still photos and video for the DVD at the same time due to budget limitations; I could only afford the two models, both of whom were professional massage therapists, for one day. Very hectic day!
The folks at Penguin in NYC liked my work, had me do four books for them until my conviction shut my life down. I’d probably have done a dozen by now. Anyway, high pixel count would have actually been in the way for those books. No photo was run full page.
Back in the late ’80s I was up in Maine with a group of photographers at Acadia National Park. Beautiful place! I noticed that George Lepp, a very prominent wildlife photographer, was shooting with the cheaper Canon 100 – 200 zoom. We were talking and I asked him why he wasn’t using the L-Series version, which was much better optically. He said, “I use it because it’s good enough.” I took George’s comment to heart. Most of my photos were made with cheaper lenses, Canon’s lower priced versions, Vivitar (made by Cosina), Sigma. I tested them, and if they were ‘good enough,’ I used them.
Most amateur photographers get equipment obsessed, forget that all that really matters in the end is if the final image is ‘good enough.’
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About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author, former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine and veteran contributor to this blog. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence for involuntary manslaughter for the death of Marion Franklin, one of his former models. He is serving the 13th year of his sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Facility, Virginia. To read additional articles by Bob Shell related to UFO’s, click here: https://tonyward.com/the-passing-of-a-true-genius/
Photo of Miss Kitchie Ohh courtesy of Regina Marie. Copyright 2022
Text by Kitchie Ohh, Copyright 2022
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Family
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I come from a large, close knit family. Dad is one of five, Mom is one of three. I have four siblings, four siblings-in-law, five nieces, four nephews, four aunts, plus their three spouses, two uncles, and seventeen cousins. Those cousins, and their uncounted partners, have forty children between them, and those forty have another seven between them, so far. And I still have one living grandparent; Mom’s dad is nearly a century old and still going strong.Yes, I did just have to sketch out a family chart. I’m not even sure I remembered everyone, and the count is still nearly one hundred individuals….and growing. There have been more occasions than I can count when I asked “who is that, again?” at a family function. We are a lot of people, a lot of personality, a lot of fun, a lot of dysfunction at times, but mostly we are a lot of love.
Growing up, my family was a bit of an oddity compared to those of my peers. Every evening we gathered around the table for dinner. Same time, same seats, prior permission needed to be absent. Dad was home from work before Mom, lending an additional level of strangeness by being the one who cooked most nights. Although many of our friends seemed confused or shocked that this happened every night -yes, even weekends- they rarely passed up the opportunity to join us when it came.
The home in which I was raised seemed to have a magical kitchen, whatever meal came out of it was enough for everyone, even unexpected visitors, and there were often unexpected visitors. Invitations were standing. The door was always open. There was room for everyone. It took me some time to realize there was nothing particularly special about the kitchen, the ingredients of the meals, or the table at which we ate them. The magic was my family.
I have been using past tense as if these things are no longer true.I assure you, they are, despite all of us kids leaving home and starting our own lives and families. Dinner is still on the table every evening. If you show up, announced or not, you will have a seat and a plate. Conversation will flow and any leftovers will be offered for you to take home. Any day, weekends and holidays included.
For my family, food is love and recipes hold powerful memories. Cold weather? Feeling sad or sick? The best remedies can be found in a bowl of Gram’s crespelle – rolled crepes torn into chicken broth and topped with parmesan cheese; or Nan’s chicken pot pie – which anyone ofPennsylvania Dutch heritage knows is not a pie at all but more a stew consisting of wide dumpling-like noodles, potatoes, onions and shredded chicken. Every time I make either of these comfort foods, I wonder what those old gals might think of my plant-based modifications and hope they approve. Then there’s the holidays. We can’t have Christmas without sugar and linzer cookies – which are my absolute favorite, by the way –like we used to make with Mom, assembly line style, or New Year’s without Dad’s pork & sauerkraut and the oh-so-sweet “fruitcake” Gram used to make that isn’t actually cake, or even baked. It’s weird; don’t tell anyone I don’t really like it that much.Finally,we come to the “new” traditions and recipes; the things we try out that stick around and will turn into memories for future generations’ tables. I laugh as I type this thinking of how those future conversations will go with speculation as to how tres leches cakes and tikka masala became traditional recipes from a family of mostly Irish-Italian descent. No mystery, we just like good food!
Looking back, I recall sometimes feeling like my family was too much. Too loud, embarrassingly goofy, always there knowing everyone’s business. Sometimes I hated the inclusion of the entire extended group plus random tagalongs and complete strangers. I resented rarely having alone time or a secret. It’s only now that I see, and fully appreciate, just how much my family’s open and welcoming nature shaped the person I am today and how much a home-cooked meal can say without a single word. I am grateful that I was raised knowing how to share, or more accurately, never knowing that not sharing was even an option. If I’m hungry, I’ll be fed. If I need someone, I have several dozen to call on and several dozen more who will be there before I even ask. And if you know any of us, so do you.
Family is not limited to genetic relations, but if you’re as lucky as me, the ones you’ve got are the ones you would choose anyway.
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Photo: Regina Marie, Copyright 2022
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About The Columnist:
Kitchie Ohh is a full-time professional fundraiser who has worked with a number of health and human services nonprofits for over the last 20 years, currently with a food-related Philadelphia nonprofit. She found her passion for modeling after a pinup-style photoshoot in 2013. Since then she’s worked with many talented photographers, stylists, hair and makeup artists in a variety of styles. She has been featured in -and on the covers of- multiple print and digital publications. Over the years she has branched out from pinup studio modeling to serve as a figure model for live sketching, walked a runway, and was part of two campaigns for local Philadelphia designer K. Vaughn.
In addition to her food insecurity-related work, she has also volunteered with art, historical, and community organizations, and even on the events team of a local brewery, pre-pandemic.
You’re just as likely to find her whipping up something deliciously plant-based in her kitchen or knitting a sweater as you are to find her on a photography set. Her motto is “be both.” The model and the homemaker, sultry and sweet, serious and silly. All the things, all at once.
Kitchie Ohh. Photo courtesy of Michael Bann, Copyright 2022
Text By Kitchie Ohh, Copyright 2022
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Gone and Forgotten
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Well, it’s officially October. The start of Spooky Season. Celebrating Samhain, All Hallows Eve, Halloween. Whatever you want to call it, and however you want to celebrate, or not, it’s here. For thirty-one days, people will be going all out to scare and be scared, for the sheer thrill of it. Which has me thinking, what are you afraid of?
A few years ago, a friend and I took an autumn trip to Massachusetts. Starting in Boston, we toured the city on foot. I should mention that this friend is not from the U.S., so the American History aspect through a Brit’s eyes was quite an interesting perspective. Between Paul Revere, the Boston Tea Party, and all 294 steps up the Bunker Hill Monument and down again, we found ourselves strolling through cemeteries and learning about their notable occupants. In one small plot, tucked away amid the bustle of the city, I felt a sense of overwhelming emotions- mostly a mixture of sadness and horror. The cause? One completely worn away headstone and a historical placard. Staring me in the face – figuratively, this isn’t a ghost story! -was proof of a formerly living, breathing person that someone cared enough for to provide a proper burial and headstone, who time had completely erased. The card stated no records of this burial exist, due to age and damage. No family has laid claim to the occupant of the coffin and the stone is too eroded to decipher any writing whatsoever.
From Boston, we drove the short distance to Salem. The trip was timed so that we would not be there during peak tourist season. To me, the draw of Salem is the history, the tragic reminder of what happened there. It is not magic wands, or broomsticks, potions or cauldrons. And let’s not even mention Harry Potter, okay? (Seriously, they are not even remotely connected.) The victims of the Witch Trials deserve dignity and respect, things they did not get in the time leading up to their deaths. Their graves are not the scene for some magical photo op or scary story. What they suffered at the hands of other human beings is scary enough. But I digress.
Again, we found ourselves strolling along cemetery grounds and historical monuments. There is a simple beauty in the space dedicated to those accused, and found guilty, of witchcraft. You often hear modern day practitioners saying they can trace their lineage back to one victim or another. It’s a badge of honor; though I doubt that every claim to this is valid. This remembrance of names and lives, the purposeful upkeep of carved monuments is a stark contrast to the weather worn and time forgotten Boston headstone.
These were all regular people. They died tragically, yes. I do not argue the importance of remembering their lives and what happened to them, lest history repeat. But I do identify more with the forgotten Bostonian, whoever they were, because I am terrified this is what my life will amount to – a pile of bones, a worn stone and a card that says “we have no idea who this is, but hey, thanks for stopping by.”
I heard somewhere that we die twice. The first time, physically; the second, when our name is uttered for the last time. It is only then that we are truly gone. From the world, from all memory. Despite knowing that there are countless people who came before me and that it is absolutely impossible for there to be some recorded history of every single one of them, seeing that headstone was a chilling reminder that life is fragile. The feeling was nothing that a good meal, with an even better hard cider, and the company of my wonderful friend couldn’t shake. We were present, sharing the experience of living. And it was beautiful.
I am fully aware of my own mortality and absolute cluelessness about what happens next. And if I’m honest, I wouldn’t actually be living if I spent my days in constant worry over it, but the thought sometimes creeps in. Have I made a significant enough impact on the world, or even one person, to be remembered? By showing up as the best me I can be, every day, I sure hope I have. Have you?
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Kitchie Ohh. Photo courtesy of Michael Bann, Copyright 2022
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About The Author:
Kitchie Ohh is a full-time professional fundraiser who has worked with a number of health and human services nonprofits for over the last 20 years, currently with a food-related Philadelphia nonprofit. She found her passion for modeling after a pinup-style photoshoot in 2013. Since then she’s worked with many talented photographers, stylists, hair and makeup artists in a variety of styles. She has been featured in -and on the covers of- multiple print and digital publications. Over the years she has branched out from pinup studio modeling to serve as a figure model for live sketching, walked a runway, and was part of two campaigns for local Philadelphia designer K. Vaughn.
In addition to her food insecurity-related work, she has also volunteered with art, historical, and community organizations, and even on the events team of a local brewery, pre-pandemic.
You’re just as likely to find her whipping up something deliciously plant-based in her kitchen or knitting a sweater as you are to find her on a photography set. Her motto is “be both.” The model and the homemaker, sultry and sweet, serious and silly. All the things, all at once.
Editor’s Note:
The photos with this post were taken at a gorgeous hotel property in Roxbury, NY by a brilliant photographer, and my friend, Michael Bann who also publishes multiple titles under the umbrella of Retro Lovely Magazine. It has been a privilege to be included in the pages of many issues as well as on two covers.
