Benji Mast’s Photoblog

A lovely couple, a cousin and future cousin.

I used a flash on the following picture to add a back light. It’s supposed to look something like the evening sun… Whaddya think?

Ok so it doesn’t look very evening-sunish, but do you like it anyway? Or not?

There were two doors metal doors that were open to the great outdoors as we walked around town, looking for interesting backgrounds. Heidi came up with the idea to stand in the doorway. I grimaced and massaged my forehead nervously. It looked kind of like there might be people inside and they might see us. That couldn’t be good in any case.

In a rare show of not caring what others thought, I decided to do something random and exciting in public completely against my personality. We shot in the doorway. It was nice. Heidi held the umbrella and lit ‘em up and we shot away. In the middle of shooting we noticed that there was a flock of ballerinas practicing in the background. They stared a little between their drills. So even though you can’t see it, there are 12-year old girls in tutus staring holes into the back of Shane and Dorc’s heads during this picture.

The Beach

Incomplete

We miss you Hans!

Heidi posted the same collages on her blog and I thought I would just link, but I created the HTML for her already so I just copied it here to steal hits from her.

That’s what I am. I don’t know how this picture makes you feel. For me it feels warm, with a soft breeze on my face, a sunset, peace, friends, brothers, love…

Truly blessed.

Soft Grass

Sharpie

Myrna

Myrna was kind of a special shoot. The yearbook staff had a habit of getting caught in the rain. It was raining pretty hard with Myrna. My hands were cold, but I didn’t care. It was such a cool experience. I felt like the team did one of the best jobs of capturing personalty with her. She is a melancholy young lady who loves poetry. She was also a ton of fun and thought it would be cool to shoot in the grave-yard. Honestly, I thought it was a bad idea.

I protested. “It’s not only weird, no one does that, it’s also meaningless, and blatantly morbid.”

It was perfect. The rain, the book, the umbrella, the flowers, Myrna’s friends with their smile-provoking presence and loads of amazing ideas, it couldn’t have been better.

Jules

Friday evening the youth group hosted a banquet at church for all those over 65. It was a splendid evening of enjoying to get to know these people. I was so delightful to begin to realize and observe the accumulated wisdom, stories, and sense of humor.

One man told me how he grew up in the Amish church. He was so sickly that he couldn’t get up during church to go outside with the other youth. They would stand around, talk, and smoke. He had to stay home from school one year and begin to read the bible and develop a conscience. All of his “healthy” friends that could party and smoke, have died before him. He is 89.

Another man told the story of three boys driving a cart one day, when one of them grew sleepy. He settled down in the back to sleep. As they approached the railroad, the others decided to have some fun. There dialog went something like this.

“Oh my, it’s going to be close.”

“We might not make it.”

“We’re not going to make it. The train is going to hit us.”

The resting young man was disturbed in his repose and alarmed by the conversation and the hazardous situation he thought he was in. He was so alarmed, in fact, that without bothering the verify the train’s existence, took a flying leap from the cart, landing gracelessly in the ditch.

Here are some pictures.