Breakfast at Family Restaurant

Breakfast at Family Restaurant - Wasilla, Alaska, November 13, 2008

I shot a series of pictures today that I intended to put in here tonight, along with some highly insightful comment, for what other kind of comment could I write?

But it is late and I am too exhausted to do it, so I am only going to put one picture in for now, the very first frame that I shot this day.

I took it at Family Restaurant, where Margie and I had gone to for breakfast. Thursday is the weekday that we try to have breakfast out.

We sat at a booth, but the couple above were at the counter, and a beam of sunlight had come through the window to fall upon them.

Whenever we go to Family, the gentleman at left is always there. 

Part of my idea when I started this blog was to not only do grab shots of various sights and people that my eyes fall upon while wandering around Wasilla, but to do actual stories. So far, I just cannot find the time, but when I do, I want to do a story on Family, on the energetic Russian immigrant woman who founded the place, people who work for her and her customers.

How do I ever find that kind of time? Yet, if I am to reach my goals with this blog, I must.

Stay tuned, and see if I do.

As an an afterthought, here is one more from breakfast at Family:

Jolene - Breakfast at Family: Wasilla, Alaska, November 13, 2008

Here is an invite for anyone who might happen to be in Anchorage December 2:

Shooting with just my left hand - the injured series

Press release, ASMP

November 13, 2008 Anchorage.  The award winning ASMP First Tuesday Slide/Lecture Series will feature the work of Wasilla photographer Bill Hess at 7 PM, Tuesday, December 2, 2008 in the auditorium of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center.  Mr. Hess is an accomplished professional photographer who suffered a fall while on assignment in Barrow on June 12th.  While recuperating from a broken shoulder, Bill has been forced to photograph with only the use of his lone left hand.  Despite this set back, Mr. Hess has produced at least one photograph each day since the accident.  The stories of his struggles and the resulting imagery are the basis of Mr. Hess’s presentation.  Admission is free.

Bill Hess launched his career in 1976 when he took the publication of the Fort Apache Scout, the newspaper of Arizona’s White Mountain Apache Tribe.  As a one-man operation, Bill Hess did the photography, reporting, writing, layout, production, ad sales and even hand delivered the copies to subscribers.  

In 1980, Bill Hess wrote and photographed a three part article on the White Mountain Apache for the National Geographic Magazine.  It was, however, his dream to live in Alaska and in 1981 he and his wife sold most of what they owned, packed up their four children and hit the highway north.  Over the past 27 years Bill Hess has invested his time and talents in documenting Alaska’s Native communities.  His book, Gift of the Whale: The Inupiat Bowhead Hunt - A Sacred Tradition, was published by Sasquatch and his book, Celebration: Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Dancing on the Land, combining Hess’s photography with the writings of Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian authors, was recently published by University of Washington Press.  Bill Hess is a recipient of a W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography. (First Runner-up, 1999)

Comments

[nina]

Thanks for the invite. I would love to come, however, I am on the other side of this continent. Much as I have thoroughly enjoyed your photography and reading your stories, it would be wonderful to hear you describe it all, in person.

[Lisa]

I will be sure to get that evening of work off. That is so exciting!

[Wasilla, Alaska, by 300]

Nina, when the time comes, I will see if I can work a synopsis into this blog. Perhaps I could even run the whole show, or a big part of it, in a series over several days.

See you there, Lisa!