Sherylonicle, Part I

My Mom, Chez Moi
My Mom, aka Sheryl, on round two of breast cancer, has enlisted me to photo document her treatment.
We had our first 'shoot' this weekend, during a wig shop outing that turned into a hair shaving outing.


The nice stylist wigs at Hair Options in Greenwood, wigs my Mom.


My Mom is pretty, and I like this shot so it's a keeper.


After narrowing down the wig selection, Mom goes outside to check the color in natural light.


It was my idea--I couldn't help it. It's so Cat in The Hat.


We've found a wig, now off with her head, of hair.
Don't try this at home, it will hurt.

Pile o' Hair.


Off with it.


The Last Stand, for a while anyway.

Katrinka's Secret Show at Salon Aria

I'm having a showing of 11 pieces of my Katrinka's Secret, Intimate Photography work at Salon Aria on Capital Hill. If you want a fab hairdoo in a groovy locale or just want to see my work, check it out.

This Epic? It's long.

Which is why I am going to list it.

First though, Happy New Year!

1. Alex's Mom was diagnosed with cancer in early December
2. Alex had knee surgery in early December
3. I had to call 911 night after his surgery because his eyes rolled up into his head and he looked dead. Oxycontin is not his drug of choice.
4. Two weeks after his surgery, we went to Germany to spend Xmas with his mother. There, Alex's knee become so infected that he had to be hospitalized and had 4 German surgeries (that might be a cool band name).
6. Our house sitter had an 'accident' with the house alarm and the cats are now deaf and familiar with the cops in the hood.
7. I kind of crunched a family friend's car in Germany.
8. I flew home solo, with a 16 month old who screamed bloody murder for 11 hours straight.
9. I came home to learn that my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, again.

All of this, combined with thoughts like "recycling the cat food cans is a moot point given the world will come to an end in my lifetime" and you have one crappidy dappity year ahead.

The good stuff:
Alex comes home tomorrow, finally.

Studious

The New Katrinka

Katrinka's Secret has a new look, courtesy of the amazing graphic designer Erik Fadiman.

Check us out!

Something Else I've Been Doing

An African-American Museum is opening just down the street from our place and a large, one block mural by the artist Eddie Walker is going up. I'm documenting some of the local residents who the artist wants to include on the page. Check out Ms. Frankie, my neighbor. She's in her 80s and has been in the hood for at least 60 years.

http://communitymuralprojects.blogspot.com/

Christina Mallet Photography

Christina Mallet Photography is trying to get the web page reindexed to show recent updates. Dear webbot, please go to www.christinamallet.com

Not Sea Level

Bit O Flower Arrangement

Fall

Scary

WHEE!

Ritual Balance

Now that I'm keeping pretty busy with a steady flow of shoots, on the order of 5-6 a week concentrated into 3 days, I'm finding work life balance is a lot harder than I expected.
Even with SuperNanny here twice a week and the grandma one day a week, I can't get all my work done, entertain boyboy, vacuum in pumps and have dinner waiting when Alex gets home. The house stuff, well that's just a fact of life--I'm never going to be June Cleaver. But my boyboy, well he's my boyboy and so the guilt I'm feeling about not always being mentally or physically present is probably something I best act on.
I'm thinking getting out of the house and letting everything fall to the side 2 days a week might be the way to go. Sorry Alex.
I've been brainstorming ideas for rituals that boyboy and I could do together, rituals that are mutually entertaining and get us out of the house.
I really want Xander to have a sense that this city is his--that he knows it as a local and not a tourist, which is why I thought it might be cool to take the bus (a 5 minute ride from home) to Pike Place once a week to do a bit of grocery shopping.
I loved the fact that as a child we went to the market often--fond memories indeed.

Katrinka's Secret--Boudoir Photography, Seattle

Katrinka's been pretty busy lately, in fact more so than Christina.

This is cool, very cool, because Katrinka has helped Christina find her niche in a city full of photographers, many of them fighting for kids, families and preggo ladies. Don't get me wrong, Christina loves photographing these sorts but if she wants to differentiate herself, she needs to do something that no one else is doing.

So... if you want to some liberating fine art shots, either for yourself or your significant other, come see Katrinka and help her donate to a good cause. For the month of October, she's donating 25% of boudoir sales to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Katrinka's Secret, Boudoir Photography, Seattle.

My Husband, My PR Agent

Alex has a blog post about the latest photog stuff I did. Check it out HERE.

Xander does Urban

Crazy Color

HDR is my new "I wish I could spend more time learning about that" thing. You take multiple exposures of a scene and then merge it all into one file, creating crazy out of this world color.

This is my first go at it, it's a bit rough, and as you can see, I have yet buy the software required.

This is the view from our bedroom balcony.

Amazon.com's Support of Animal Fighting

My love of Amazon has gone cold.

Did you know Amazon sells animal fighting magazines? See here for the full story: http://www.hsus.org/

Let's do our part, being the web savvy people we are, and send Jeff Bezos an email telling him to stop selling magazines that support illegal and cruel practices.

Use the below link to send your mail to him

https://community.hsus.org/campaign/US_2007_amazon_fighting3/

Interesting Upcomings

Work has been coming in at a steady pace, to the point where finding a nanny a few days a week is about to become urgent.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a record 6 shoots in one week. A few nudes via my other 'secret' site www.katrinkas-secret.com, a maternity session, some family gigs and one really sad shoot I did for Soulumination. A little 5 day old at Children's Hosp.--they were taking him off life support and I was there to document a small bit of his short life with his family.

Tonight I'm shooting a living wake for a terminally ill gentleman. Tomorrow a Senior and a baby and then get this: drum roll please
I'm doing a two day shoot for a the white house committee on anti drug use. I'm shooting 5 people who have been effected by Meth use. The shots will be displayed during National Drug Recovery Month, aka September. How I was chosen for this... it beats me but I'm pretty geeked about it.

Strange photographic juxtapositions abound, from sick newborns, to terminal adults, to pregnant ladies, to families and then naked ladies.

Xander's Party

What the hell is going on?


Scanning for cupcake predators.


Loving cake with the ladies.