Our second photo session with George Forss went smoothly. Maria and I took it a bit more seriously, dressed up a bit and George and I found a good spot to move the wicker cushion. I was a bit shocked when George told me he only charges $35 for a photo shoot, this is shockingly low for one of the most celebrated landscape photographers in the world. George is the epitome of grace, people are always giving him their old cameras and he is always patching them up and re-using them. He and I shot some photos of Flo – more and more, we are spotting the same images to photograph, and this makes me very proud and happy. I am learning to compose photographs more thoughtfully and this is largely George’s doing watching him is so valuable to me, I learn something new every time.

I think we got the images we need for the photo of me, Maria and Frieda for the “Second Chance” book. But I think I need to pay George more than $35. I hear people grouse about their lives all the time – they complain about the Internet, the price of gas, their tax bills. I have never heard George utter a world of complaint about the collapse of photography as an art, the trove of fabulous photographs he took that are sitting in galleries in New York, the very hard work he does to care for himself, his stepbrother, to maintain his art gallery. He is an inspiration to me in more ways than he knows. I hope his dream of encountering alien life is fulfilled. Every day he takes his photos in the old way, he works in his cave-like dark room, he lives his life in grace with his partner, the artist Donna Wynbrandt. How lucky I am to have found him here in my little town, and to have him do the first portrait of me and Maria (and Frieda, the loving Helldog.)