I have never met a more laid back couple in my life.

Reagan and Dan have been the ideal bridal client every step of the way. They searched for a photographer that matched what they liked (glad it was me) and let me do what I do best…run around like a madman and take thousands of images.

At the beginning of the day I split up my photo-squad and sent my assistant Hector over to take shots of Dan while he was getting ready.

I’ve always thought it was interesting how different people handle the nervousness before a big event. Every bride I’ve worked with has stopped in the middle of getting ready and said something like “make me look beautiful, ok?” This happens without fail, and every time without fail I turn the camera around so they can see the images.

All of the fears about how they look dissolve in that moment. I live for the expression on someone’s face when they see themselves the way I see them through my lens. It is the biggest reason I got into this business. Photographs are beyond powerful. What else can you look at in 50 years and get taken back to that one day in your life then feel it all over again?

I’m getting sidetracked…back to the story.

Reagan was nearly ready to head to the ceremony, so I hopped in the car and left for the venue ahead of her. They got married at a local winery here in Central Missouri, called Les Bourgeois.

It’s a beautiful location where the ceremony is held outside on a bluff overlooking the river. You will see how nice it is there when you look at the album slideshow later.

I’m really anxious to show you that album now that I’ve already mentioned it, so I’ll say one more thing before I close out this blog entry. Dan and Reagan had a few setbacks on their wedding day (the cake was very late) but they took them all in stride and really enjoyed their wedding day.

I think that’s an important attribute to have for ones own sanity, the ability to let stressful occurrences roll right off your back.

Now check out the album so you can see the rest of their images! Click here.

Dan and Reagan I wish you the best, and thank you for asking me to document this day for you. It was an honor.

My Uncle Mike is one of my greatest role-models, quite possibly the only one who could even qualify for the position. When I was growing up, he volunteered to be the father-figure in my life when nobody else was. He helped my mom raise me, even though he had a family of his own to look after. No matter how busy life got for him, I was never neglected. He took me camping, canoing, skiing, helped me learn how to bowl, and many , many other things. I learned what it was to be a man by watching him. I watched how no matter who you were, he made you a friend of his. I watched him stand up for his family and protect them, even if it caused him harm. I witnessed the peaks of his strength and the depths of his compassion. A little less than one year ago, I watched him face his own mortality, and put his fears aside to comfort and reassure his family…to comfort and reassure me.

On April 24th 2008, the man that had the biggest hand in making me who I am today, passed away.

No death has ever torn me down like this one.

By our nature the men in my family face adversity with a quiet, calming and powerful demeanor. My Grandfather, my Cousin Josh, my Uncle Mike, my Uncle Doug, Uncles Veng and Ouvieng, and myself…we are all the same in this way. It is not easy to maintain. This time I couldn’t keep it controlled. This time I find my emotions flowing like the tide. They are calm and peaceful when the tide is out but, when the tide rises…the sea grows and the waves of emotion come crashing down, leveling me.

I gave a eulogy at his funeral yesterday and in all of the times I have spoken to large groups of people, I have never had so much difficulty. In fact, I can safely say that I have never been through a more difficult time in my life than I have in the past week.

Many people have asked me since yesterday to write down, and give them a copy of what I said. Thankfully I had already written it, and although I ad-libbed a bit, I remember it all. I’m posting it here because although it is deeply personal, I want everyone to know what an amazing man Mike Morgan was.

So here it is:

I’ve told myself over and over that this won’t be easy but that I will make it through this speech and keep my composure. Now that I am up here though, I look out at this room full of people and all I can think is…”uh oh”

I haven’t stopped thinking about what I want to say today, and I still barely know where to begin and I know that even when I finish I will feel like I have left volumes out.

I have been trying to figure out how to describe my family, it’s not easy. I can’t figure out the best way to sum us up. In speaking with my mom last night, she said “we are strong.” As simple as it is, it’s true. The women in this family are strong and compassionate. The men are solid and stoic, although as you can see sometimes the stoicism is impossible to maintain. We, the men in this family have a tendency to stay quiet during the hard times, keeping their emotions at bay, I suppose because there is strength in silence.

I’m going to break that mold for a moment, because these emotions are stronger than I am right now.

You see the difficult thing about being a man who keeps his feelings close is that you tend to wonder if the people you care about ever truly understand how much they mean to you. Sure, you can try to say it but, the words never do justice to the depth of love you have for them. So you say: “I love you son”, “I love you, dad”, or “I love you Uncle Mike.”

When you say these things to someone with the same quiet caring as you have, he’ll reply with “I love you too, dad” or “I love you too, son”.

Sorry, just a second please…

I actually wrote that little apology in here because I knew I’d get choked up at that part. All of the pain of this tends to hit me at once every time his voice says “I love you, son” in my head. This is something that has been happening with some frequency over the past several days.

See, my Uncle was the only man to ever call me son and really mean it. He was a father to me when no other man could be, or knew how to be. He took up that role voluntarily, because he couldn’t let me grow up fatherless. He defended me and my mother when guys came around that meant to do us harm. Yes, I am his nephew by blood but, he chose to call me son, despite the fact that my mother is his sister and I’m sure this dynamic was confusing for some people.

I’ve come to the conclusion that my father leaving us was one of the best things that could have happened to me. Not because he is a bad person, but because he could have never been the role model to me that my Uncle is. My Uncle showed me what it means to be a man. He showed me how to live with integrity, strength, and compassion…traits he learned from his own father. I have tried my whole life to be like him. I can only hope that in the end I’ll be half of the man that my Uncle was.

I’ve made many mistakes along the way. Many things that I never had the courage to tell him. I was always afraid that our relationship would dissolve under the strain of my own sins. We all have something today that we wish had done differently in our lives with him. Maybe you think you could have been better friends, better parents, siblings, a spouse, or children. I know that I personally wish that I would have gone canoing more. I wish we had gotten together for lunch more often, like the one we had before I moved to Columbia. I wish I had picked up the phone more when I had the urge but something got in the way. I wish I hadn’t told myself “he needs his rest, I’ll call him when he gets better,” I wish I had been here to hear him say “I love you, son” one last time. I have a long list of things I wish had done differently. If you have even one thing you wish had been different, let me tell you this…

My Uncle was the man that he was because of the culmination of every experience in his life. Good and bad. He held nothing against you. You were wonderful parents, loyal friends, somewhat obedient - but loving children, siblings who were always there for him, and a wife who stood by him through the best, and the worst just as you vowed you would. If any of you had changed something about your relationship with him, he would have ultimately been a different man. I think we can all agree that he was good just the way he was.

I’ve decided that one day, if I have a son, his name will be Michael, and with God’s help I will teach him what it means to be a man, like my Uncle taught me. Should I have a daughter (I won’t name her Michelle) she will learn to settle for no one who is less than my Uncle was. I can only pray that one day I’ll be as great a father to my children as my Uncle Mike was to me.

Thank you.

If you are still reading after all of that, thank you. I am at a loss for words now. I will put some images up when I return home. If you feel compelled to do anything on behalf of my Uncle you may do so here.

I am ready for this week to end.

I have this curiosity about earthquakes. It is one of a few dangerous natural occurrences that I want to experience first hand. Growing up in the midwest I’ve been around massive thunderstorms my whole life. I’ve seen tornadoes, been in blizzards, been hit with golf ball-sized hail, watched fields of grass burn from a lightning strike, hell I’ve actually seen lightning strike the top of a car on the highway.

I have never felt anything like an earthquake though, not even a tremor.

Apparently Illinois had an earthquake this morning. A 5.2 quake they say, with tremors felt nearly 450 miles away. Everybody I’ve talked to today is focused on these tremors. Everyone I’ve talked to today, felt these tremors.

“Did you feel them?” they ask me.

I have to report, over and over again that no, I did not. Do you know why I missed out on this life-changing, ground-shaking event?

I was asleep.

The Sandman decided that today David Bickley - a generally light sleeper - would not wake up when the rest of the city felt the ground move. Oh no sirs, he would stay sound asleep dreaming of being a superhero, completely oblivious to this life-altering event.

I’m tired of the lack of earthquake experience in my life.

I’m going to San Francisco, where the earthquakes flow like wine.

Adios.

No real need for a description here. Just a little avian social networking.

When I was growing up I had a series of books full of animals. “The Wildlife Fact File” was what it was called. In the next 20 years, many of those animals may be gone. We are facing a point in history where our children face a very real possibility of living in a world devoid of biodiversity.

We are not disconnected from our environment, we are not above it. We are a part of it. As humans, we are responsible for it. The sad fact is that for centuries we have obliterated our environments to make way for “progress”. Now we see the damage, and something must be done because we’re running out of time.

The number of oceanic dead-zones is on the rise. Many places on Earth have become toxic that were beautiful and full of life just 20 years prior. Commercial loggers devastate acres upon acres of vital, oxygen producing, Co2 processing rain forests.

News about global warming is everywhere, but many people either underestimate it’s impact, many more simply don’t understand it. There are even those that completely discredit the idea that we impact the planet and it’s environment. Maybe you are one of those people. I am not well versed enough to counter your arguments but, what I can say is this. Everyone can benefit from living greener, everyone can live a little freer without having to pay $3-$5-$8 per gallon for fossil fuel.

Global warming is an urgent, but solvable problem. I’ve recently joined the “We Campaign”, a powerful nonpartisan movement of concerned citizens that was founded by Nobel Prize Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. We’re already a million strong — and growing each day.

Visit this site to learn more and add your voice: http://www.wecansolveit.org/

Sign up, take a stand. This isn’t an issue we can afford to lose on. Our world is too precious, and it’s the only one we have.

The We Campaign is working to ensure that elected leaders make the climate crisis a priority. Visit: http://www.wecansolveit.org/. Here, you can learn about solutions to global warming, take action steps and even find events happening in your community. Although it’s not too late, global warming is very serious and there is no time to lose. So please don’t wait any longer to get involved – sign up today: http://www.wecansolveit.org/

Together, we can solve the climate crisis.

Thank you for reading,

David Bickley

Everything works now, as far as I can tell. Email your hearts out!

Thank you for your patience and understanding while I was working towards a solution.

-David

Well ladies and gentlemen, it came to my attention about five minutes ago (by sheer luck) that this giant server move I told you all about before…knocked out my contact form on my portfolio site. That means that  if you used it to contact me, even though it said it emailed me. It didn’t.

So, if you have emailed me in the past month, and not received a response. I am deeply sorry. I am working as fast as I can to resolve this issue.

In the mean time, if you need to reach me please use the contact form here on this blog, or use the phone number you’ll find on that page and call me.

Thank you for your understanding,

David

After a month or so of photo shoots that I can’t show you all yet, I am proud to bring you a very interesting young woman who came all the way from West Virginia to have me take her photo. Randi Ward is a wonderful poet that spent a number of years on the Faroe Islands, a small series of islands close the same distance from Norway, Iceland and the United Kingdom. She published a book in 2007 called Meditations on Salt which from what I understand, has made an enormous impact on the Faroese people.

This is my favorite photo from our session:

A little more urban now.

As I finish up these images I will be sure to add more for you all to see. Until then, check out her site at www.randiward.com. Most of it is in English, but if you happen to speak Faroese I’m sure you will enjoy it that much more.

I had the pleasure earlier this month of photographing two photographers from Iowa. Sarah and Erin came down on a Saturday and spent the weekend with me snapping who knows how many frames.

The first location we went to was an open field with an abandoned home and some rusted out vehicles. It had been pretty sunny the week of the shoot so I figured that it would be pretty easy to get in and out. I was definitely wrong.

You wouldn’t know it from the photographs but, it was insanely muddy. I didn’t realize this until I had already driven my poor car halfway up the sludge-like road leading to the location, parked and tried to get out. So, fifteen minutes later when I’ve gotten my car back on solid ground we get to start shooting.

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I’ve been itching to try something “new” for a while, and after weeks of searching I actually came right back around to the very beginning of things. I opted to buy a new medium format film camera. For those of you that may be unfamiliar with the term “medium format” I’ll tell you the biggest difference. A medium format camera uses a film that is about 4 times larger than the standard (35mm) stuff you find at walmart. This means (among other things) that you can make a much larger print from it.

Well, I went and bought a Holga 120N. This little thing is a cult phenomenon. It’s a very cheap camera (mine was about $30) and made entirely of plastic, that includes the lens which is also plastic. The Holga is also extremely unpredictable and no two are alike. They leak light, and have no real precision with regard to the shutter or aperture.

Perfect.

So, I bought one and a good amount of color and black/white film. I also made sure to ask for expired film just so I could make doubly sure that I would have no real clue as to what to expect.

So I took about 24 snapshots in a number of different conditions to get a feel for how it would work.

Overall, I’m pretty happy so far. The expired Ilford black and white film I bought produced extremely low contrast images. That particular result could have been better but, oh well. I’m going to fire a few color rolls tomorrow with a modification I made to the camera and see what happens.

I’ll be sure to post “Day 2″ as soon as I get the film back.