life changes

This is a little video we put together for my stepson before he left for army basic training today. While it was not a surprise that he was joining the military, we did not expected to have only 11 days with him between the time time he signed his contract and left. We tried to make the most of our time and squeeze in every little minute with the boy we know before he grows up to a man in the hands of US Army.

There were laughs and tears, plenty of memories revisited, advices, encouragement and reassurance flowing as we prepared ourselves to say good bye. We felt the strength of the love that binds us together, gentle and sweet, but also solid and unbreakable.

He left this morning.

And so it is, life changes on you, no matter what. And as long as love stays intact we can deal with the changes, being able to readjust and readapt. A new chapter is being now written, and my prayer is that God keeps our boy safe and secure in his hands. Godspeed, Matt!

father and son

Daniel Striepeke Artwork

I am always impressed by creative minds and in my book my brother-in-law Daniel Striepeke takes the cake. A retired Hollywood make-up artist, two times Oscar-nominated (Forest Gump and Saving Private Ryan), he spent sixty years in the movie industry (nineteen of them exclusively as Tom Hanks make up artist), enabling movie stars to have the right look for the right scene and he surely excelled on that. So when he retired a few years ago (his last movie was The DaVinci code) we were not surprised that he took on another form of creating art: sculptures. I've been photographing his artwork for the last two years and putting them on videos to showcase the range of his art and the amazing details of each piece. This is the most recent video with his latest pieces 'The Meeting' and 'Jesus'.

I was overjoyed when he called me to tell that he really liked the newest video. I am a huge fan of his work and to have him to like mine is not a small thing for me!

Jake being photographed by me (Mark plays with his Ipod in the background)