Every Thursday, I go with Maria and our friends Kim and Jack Macmillan to Foggy Notions – we call it the “Bog.” Kelley waits on tables, tends the bar, brings food out to the people playing horseshoes in the back of the restaurant. It is beyond me how one person can handle scores of hungry and thirsty people at the same time while never losing her radiance, her competence, or her wondrous smile.

No matter how many people are there – and tonight there were lots of people – Kelley manages to get everybody’s order (she brings our drinks before we sit down), bring it promptly, sense when we are done, smile every step of the way. I have never seen her lose her cool, not for a moment.

Kelley is a strong woman, a mother and friend to family and others, she never blinks at the camera, turns away or balks at having her picture taken. When I got the new monochrome camera, one of the first things I wanted to do was take her portrait, capture her smile.

I showed her the camera, and asked her if she could come over to the window by the pool table and we could catch the natural light. “Sure,” she said. I’d love one day to publish a book of her smiles, they are warm and genuine, as she is.

It’s a nice way to inaugurate the camera, portraits are something I am eager to do with. I’ve decided to get a 14 mm wide angle Canon lens for this camera, I am going to B & H Photo in New York to trade in one of my two Canon cameras and two lenses, that ought to be enough to cover it. This wide angle lens will be perfect for the farmscapes I want to do here.

The camera is helping me see the world in a different way, but also helping me to see familiar things in a different way. I love the shadows and shading on this photo.