From the Edge of the Envelope: The Equipment

Being a military spouse means seeing equipment come and go on a regular basis..... TDY's and Deployments.....

Eventually it comes as no surprise that a whole shelf in your storage area is covered with various camouflage colored items.

The kids love it when the gas mask comes out, or when the 5 camel packs come out. I am always amazed at how the assortment of hats and blankets seems to multiply between deployments. We have enough equipment to camouflage an entire city from view I am sure....

My husband is also a photojournalist so there is usually some odd assortment of items for some sort of photo shoot lying around..... if you looked at them individually the items would seem very mismatched. Like the photo shoot that involved countless light sources some of the kids toys and several of my kitchen pans....
If you were to walk into my immaculately clean living room..... it would not shock you to find rumpled tissue paper all over the couch from another shoot.

I was a photographer so I get a lot of the equipment.... which comes in handy because sometimes I find equipment in the strangest places ( This morning while vacuuming I found a flash cord buried in my couch cushions..... some people find change I find photography equipment).... I have lived with all of this equipment for so long that nothing really phases me.....( like finding flash filters in my pillow case )

When I was in one of my college photography classes my professor loved to make us read about obscure photographers. Often we came across some very interesting stories. We studied this one photographer who spent a year just taking pictures. I mean literally he just kept shooting pictures, every second of every day ( this was before digital so this was all film can you imagine) He put the camera down to develop and to sleep other wise he took pictures all the time. ( long before reality TV...this was a far out concept for the time) He had a wife and 3 kids ( his wife left him after the project because she went crazy) It always struck me as odd someone would want to do this in the first place. I am not sure I could do this 24/7 for a year.

We joke at our house that the paparazzi lives here. Between me snapping pictures and Sam taking pictures even the dogs knew how to pose. I mean the twins were months old and they knew what to do for the camera. It is obscene the number of pictures we have digitally archived or actual book of other pictures. The kids and I have been the subject of many of Sam's projects....even if it means someones arm or leg or hand. Kids have been hidden under items as they are holding equipment , and Sam & I have become masters of camouflaging items and the kids holding them to make a shoot work. I have had my picture taken when I have looked my worst, for the purpose of some project.... hoping that somehow no one will recognize it is me ( Sam swears messy dirty hair in a grungy silhouette is fine no one will know it is me and it has to be for this shoot ) Sometimes the kids and I sigh at the thought of being roped into another project. Other times everyone is enthusiastic about how to make something work. In a way I think we live it 24/7 anyways just in different ways. The twins know how to work a camera even at 2 because you never know when you might have to have them push the button while you are holding a flash while dangling from a step stool in some odd pose to get the light just right on something that is rigged.

The other day involved another of those odd photo stories. After everyone had gone to bed ( I seem to always be clean up crew) I had to sit and laugh at the mess about me. Tissue paper and toys, camera parts and equipment from one end of the house to the other. Then the next day I found more in my bed , the couch, and in my closet.

There are trunks in our room, in the kitchen, in the study....... I had to laugh because it still doesn't phase me.

This week Sam leaves again for another trip and the trunks will go with the uniform, the laundry, and the cords..... and in another few weeks it will be back, with more pieces and parts. I swear it multiples when it flies. I will always have a lens in my bed, or a cord in my couch, or a trunk at my dresser.

Mixed with the multiplying camouflage uniforms and laundry.......As I am typing this I have found the spare flash underneath my desk and another lens cloth stuck to one of the kids shirts from the dryer. S is behind me playing camera with a set of binoculars saying "cheese" to her brother.