These are two of the students from the Focus on Youth organization that works to empower at-risk youth through photography classes. We teach the students how to use film cameras, process film and make prints in an 8 week period. It’s been interesting to go back into the darkroom after more than 7 years of shooting digitally. You can visit their web site at www.focusonyouth.org
The entire cup is made of chocolate. Then it’s filled with chocolate mousse, topped with coffee flavored whipped cream, chocolate covered espresso beans. Even the straws are made of chocolate. And the best thing about photographing food is when the job is over – you get to eat the food.
My long time friend and client Rich Siegle wrote this for me about the product photography we created together.
“I had the pleasure of working with Doug Crouch for over ten years in Phoenix, Arizona. Together we created a body of work for Fender Musical Instruments that was both memorable and prolific. Doug’s eye is amazing, his dedication is pure and his sense of humor is infectious. Doug does the two most important things a professional photographer must be able to execute – realize an art director’s vision and take that vision one step further.”
Sign outside a Portland, Oregon restaurant on Hawthorn street.
This beautiful old barn sits up in the mountains above the Columbia River on the Washington side.
This is Bolsey, my miniature Australian Shepherd, he rides shotgun with me when we go out scouting for a location.
I’m working on new images that will be short stories about memories from the past. Here’s a sample of an image that’s about a past love. I like to include enough detail in the image to start a story, but allow the viewer to use their own imagination to fill in the remainder using their own imagination. Coming soon in my new still life portfolio.
It was another beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest on January 2nd. We had a white Christmas and the snow continued for several days. It’s tough to stay in the house when it’s so visually alluring outside, so on go the chains and off to the high country to make photographs.
The great thing about the Pacific Northwest is the changing light and all the possibilities offered by rain, fog, sunshine and everything in between. The same location can take on an air of mystery, zen calmness or brilliant spectacular beauty depending on when you’re there. A photographers dream.
On Memorial Day I saw a tough looking group of motorcyclists gathering for a ride and being a motorcycle rider I decided to stop and find out where they were headed. I discovered they’re the Patriot Guard Riders who attend funeral services of fallen American heroes as a show of respect and to shield the mourning families from interruptions created by protesters. They were going to the Memorial Day service at Fort Vancouver to stand as flag bearers around the perimeter of the ceremony. It was touching to see a group of burly guys reciting the pledge of allegiance and saying a prayer before the ride.
The Fort Vancouver service was extremely moving as families who had lost a son or husband were presented a wreath and laid it at a monument to our fallen war heroes. Tearfully I watched as an 8 year old boy read a poem about his dad, his hero, who he lost this past fall in Iraq. Escorted by a Marine, a young mother, carrying her daughter, laid a wreath in memory of her beloved husband who never got to see his only child.
A few years ago I made a trip to the French countryside of Normandy. On several occasions while driving in the farmland I would come upon a cemetery with hundreds of the graves of soldiers who died in WWII. Many of the graves were marked as the resting place of an unknown soldier and many of them were young American men. It was sobering to view the graves of these young men, similar in age to my own sons, who had fought and died for our country and never returned home to their familes and to the life we enjoy. I cannot imagine the sum their mother’s grief or the size of the river of tears that must have been shed for them.
I don’ think anyone could express any better the debt we owe these men than Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg address.
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain –that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Here’s some photography from Memorial Day.
