Her skills are manifold. In these pictures, you’ll thrill to: curious stick-handling, nut tossing, old-dog loving, mysterious-look throwing, vintage porch-glider riding, car standing, etc.
We had been talking about my photographing her for ages, and she was always mysterious and reticent about reasons not to. For some reason this day she said “I think I want to take some pictures”—I picked up my jaw, hid my surprise, and grabbed my camera. The wardrobe styling is all her. She manages to look un-ironically lovely in overalls and bare feet, in her happy backyard.
Sometimes pictures of certain people feel kind of private and special, maybe a little fragile. These are like that. Look on them with your gentlest eyeballs, kind blog-reader.
Later that same day—I had been house-sitting for a week while Allison was in San Francisco for work. Was heading back home the next day. We went to see Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom at the Belcourt, and seemingly the next thing I knew I was in the ER with her at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Blood and morphine and worrying. Most of you will know she had a nasty bike wreck which left her badly concussed, with a bunged-up neck and some broken facial bones, a scraped-up face and a bloody eyeball that would frighten small children.
Thankfully, all’s well (relatively) and after much drugging and resting and good nursing from her mom Norma and many other caring friends, she’s back weaving in and out among the living. Her sweet face is going to be OK, except for a small, hardly noticeable scar. Glad to have documented this calm before that storm. I had been putting off posting these, hoping to say something more perfect. But this will do.
