four white walls photography

Two fashion shows in one weekend was almost to much excitement. Up first was Kristin Dinnis at the Historic Icehouse in downtown Phoenix. This turn of last century building, featuring an atrium in the front, is an ideal spot for anything art related.

Shakabuka which means “a swift spiritual kick to the head that alters your reality forever”, was the theme for the night, and sounds like something we could all use from time to time. In reality it is something that Kristin brought back with her from her travels in Africa last summer.

As for our part in the show, we set up a photo booth in the atrium complete with a pay phone and a few props.

World renown photographer Dayvid LeMmon checks in with his agent…

Local hipsters stop and pose…

Dawid Szmyd a.k.a. The Polish Prince of Mayhem gets his Russian Dance on…

To view all the photographs taken at Kristin Dinnis fashion show, including the PHOTOBOOTH installation photographs, please click here!

Angela Johnson’s Fashion Show was on Saturday night at The Clarendon Hotel in Phoenix. The Clarendon is famous or infamous for the Don Bolles car bombing in the 70’s.

Angela’s show had a burlesque theme that featured a man on stilts, a magician and Daisy Diamond who looked totally hot in her impossibly tight green and black corset with fish net stockings.

and of course there was the Fan Dancer who threatened to steal the show…

The newly remodeled pool at The Clarendon features a rainbow tile walkway that separates the pool from the sauna, which made a dramatic background for this event.

To view all photo from Angela Johnson fashion show click here!

Scratch Pastries, a French inspired cafe and pastry shop in Scottsdale, is my new favorite restaurant.

My first trip to Scratch, I had the four cheese quiche which was made with goat, blue, comte and ricotta. Served with a salad of tossed herbs and a vinaigrette dressing, this was the type of breakfast we used to get in New York City, not Scottsdale. Did I mention that is awesome. The next time we went for breakfast I ordered a spinach and blue cheese omelet. The omelet was cooked to perfection, not runny inside, or scorched on the outside. Served with the same type of tossed salad; this is the perfect vegetarian breakfast.

My favorite part of every meal is always dessert. This is where Scratch won me over. The Raspberry Rose dish with cake on the bottom is my personal favorite. French Meringue was a close second.

This is the Paris Brest, filled with pistachio and pralines. I could live on these things.

The cool color-scheme and many fashion photographs gives Scratch a big city feel that is rare in Arizona.

Its nice to go to a place where the person who owns the place is hard at work. It really showed in the food and great atmosphere.

Located on the northeast corner of Miller and Indian School Road, in the Fry’s plaza, Scratch is open Monday through Friday 8 a.m. - p.m., Friday and Saturday 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sundays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. . (480) 947-0057 www.scratchpastries.com

On a typical Tuesday night the intersection of 48th Street and Van Buren is quiet, except for the occassional transient shuffling around. On April 15th, it turns into a parade of last minute tax filers lining up at the Post Office for miles to make it by the midnight deadline.

No government sponsored event would be complete without some group exercising their First Amendment Rights.  Greg from Tuscon favors a flat tax over the current system.

Postal workers burn the midnight oil, trying to keep up with the flow of Citizens, who have apparently not heard of E-file…

Extra racks for the thousands of incoming tax returns wait patienly as the midnight deadline looms. The line of cars waiting to drop off doens’t seem to end…

I was recently given a tour of the new tower at Sky Harbor Airport by Operations Manager Roger Mandeville. The tower is the fifth tallest control tower in the world checking in at 335 feet.

During the elevator ride to the top, I expected to emerge into a stress filled environment like the control room in the movie “Airplane”. I could see Robert Stack in a pilot’s uniform, smoking a cigarette, talking in a troubled flight.

I was in for a big surprise. No radar screens, no stressed out air controllers, and Robert Stack wasn’t yelling for coffee. Radar screens have been replaced with computer screens, air controllers seemed like they could have been working in any office, and there is no more smoking in Phoenix. Robert Stack is now appearing in heaven.

The windows in the tower have pull down polarization screens that give the tower windows that cool tinted look.

The highlight of the tour, was going out on the catwalk, one floor down from the control room.
We climbed though weird half-door and were standing on outside of the tower.

The Federal Aviation Administration records report that Sky Harbor had 41,439,819 commercial passengers in 2006 making it the eighth busiest airport in the United States and the eighteenth busiest in the world.

The Lowrider Bikini Fashion Show featured designs by Elizabeth Albert,
Jennyvi Dizon, Tiffe Fermaint, Angela Johnson, Allison Jones, Monique Martinez and Kate Walker.

Customized Low-Riders are nothing new, but the customized Low-Rider Bicycles where insane.  This was something completely new to me.

A crazed looking Superman adorns the side of the coolest bike anywhere.

The guy who made this Mortal Combat Bicycle, told me that him and his son had been working on it for ten years.  With that amount of detail in the bike and the display it is easy to believe.

Even cooler than the bikes was the Bikini Fashion Show that ensued.

Wednesday evening there was a war protest at John McCain’s Phoenix office. Since McCain is set to be my generation’s Barry Goldwater - Arizona Senator that comes up short in his bid to be president, I thought there would be a pretty good turnout.

I wasn’t disappointed. By my unofficial estimate there were about 500 people lining Sixteenth Street and Missouri in Central Phoenix. For a demonstration that didn’t have anything to do with illegal immigration, that’s a lot of people for Phoenix.

People form all walks of life vented their anger with the fact that the illegal war that we are paying for isn’t going exactly as advertised.

Impeach Bush stickers were everywhere, with almost as many “Not My President” T-shirts, being worn by many people.

The one highlight of the evening occurred when a group of students successfully blocked a Fox TV news truck from leaving a parking lot, for about fifteen minutes. They stood on the sidewalk chanting anti-Fox slogans while one of their friends dressed like a Zapatista-style terrorist with a bandanna covering his face, video taped their efforts.

When the dogs turn against you, its over. This reminds me of a book by Gunter Grass, called “Dog Years”. In the story, Hitler’s favorite dog Prince, a black German Sheppard runs away, “because even a dog can only take so much…”

Jarrett Maupin clearly has become Phoenix’s version of Al Sharpton. I first met Jarret when he was eighteen and running for a city council seat in Phoenix, and was impressed. An excellent speaker Mr. Maupin is clearly someone who has a bright future in Phoenix politics.

We were taking pictures of our friends dogs recently on a Saturday morning when I noticed bee’s swarming on a nearby plant.

It wasn’t exactly a swarm, three bees, but these guys were getting busy on some broccoli plants that were in full bloom.

With all the recent talk of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and the millions of bee’s that have been getting wiped out, it was great to see something so familiar as bees getting after flowers.
Lately the only bee’s that I have been seeing are already dead or seem to be dazed or confused or both.

Yesterday I was standing in front of the Burton Barr Library, when a bee landed on the sleeve of my shirt. I was able to remain calm inspite of the bee on my sleeve. I watched him as he rested there on my shirt. He seemed to be a little shaky, a shudder ran through his body. He cleaned his antennas, and we both stood there for a couple of minutes, looking at each other. I tried to image a world where there were bees couldn’t survive. There were to many variables. A key component of the food chain in danger, the repercussions would reverberate though our lives… Suddenly the bee steadied himself and flew away in a straight line that took him around the building and out of sight, and things didn’t seem so bad anymore.

I am almost done with this new site! I’m having to learn CSS along the way, so it seems like every time I figure something out, I accidentally move something else!

If you know CSS and can offer a little help, that would be wonderful! There are about three things I am still trying to figure out!

Our weekend is full of photography jobs! Tonight we are photographing a 5 course beer dinner! Tomorrow is Jason and Kelly’s wedding! On Sunday we are photographing a birthday party bbq!

One party after another and we’ll be there to document it!

I hope in between all the excitement, I can figure out a few more things on this website!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Love Sheila and Gary

These are the pinhole photographs from Yesenia and Rafael’s wedding. I have some black and white images too, but they still need to be scanned. Enjoy!

From the balcony of the church:

At the Japanese Friendship Gardens:

At the secluded spot we found near the Biltmore:

On a gorgeous day in December we photographed the wedding of Yesenia and Rafael. They married in a beautiful Catholic Church in North Phoenix. Following the wedding we headed to one of our favorite locations, The Japanese Friendship Gardens for photographs and then to a very secluded spot on a curvy road near the Biltmore.

Their reception was was full of life with dancing, two bands, one a mariachi and the other playing Spanish music complete with a blaring horns section. It was the first time I had seen a money dance, and watching Rafael glide across the floor wearing clown sized Chuck Taylors was a wonderful sight to see.

Yesenia and Rafael are both the youngest of 10 children! Unbeknownst to us they were a couple at a wedding we photographed last spring. We always add our greatest new photographs to our portfolio and at Tonia and Wyatt’s wedding last March, Gary shot a photograph of Yesenia and Rafael:

When we met with them to show them our portfolio it was a pleasant surprise for all when the page flipped to a sweet moment of them earlier that year!