I’m spending my break just decompressing. Mostly, that entails taking pictures of birds. I think I’m pissing them off, honestly, but have a look for yourself.

That's Quite Enough, by me

That’s a male Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) giving me the bad-eye.

Getting the Badeye from a Yellow-rumped Warbler, by me

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Dendroica coronata)

What's Your Problem, Creeper??, by me

Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis)

Brown-headed Nuthatch, by me

Brown-headed Nuthatch (Sitta pusilla)

Angry Eastern Bluebird, by me

Female Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis)

Great Blue Heron Gives Me the Stinkeye, by me

Juvenile Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)

See a pattern, or is it just me?

I’ll put up some less angry-looking birds next time.

From whence came the art:

All images are ©2010 by me, and are clickable to see larger versions on my Flickr site.

Rough Day, By Lou FCD on deviantArt

It’s a recurring theme lately.

I’ve been wrestling with being down, maybe to the point of depression. I’m not a doctor, so I can’t rightly say, but it wouldn’t surprise me to hear such a diagnosis.

So I suppose it’s natural that among the questions my friends are asking me are two that keep popping up: “What do you want?” and its sister question, “What do you need?”

The second question is easy to answer now, but it took me a while to figure out. I need to be. I need to be sad, and I need for that to be OK. I am not ready to be happy today. I need you to listen, not try and make it better. I need your permission, I need your acceptance. I need a hug from you.

The first is not a hard question to answer, it’s just a hard question to feel allowed to answer. I know what I want. I can’t have it, but I know what I want. I can’t tell you about it, but I know what I want. I can’t express it generally in public on Twitter or Facebook even, but I know what I want.

Do you really want to know what I want? I hope you mean it when you say you do, because if you keep pressing me, I’m going to tell you. And you know what I’m going to say.

What I want is a fist full of your hair in one hand, a fist full of your breast in the other. What I want is to growl your name behind your ear and hear you whimper mine. What I want, right here and right now, is to sink my teeth into the back of your shoulder, and feel your warm, wet tears on the back of mine.

That’s what I want.

From whence came the art:

That image is titled Rough Day, by me, all rights reserved. You can purchase prints of my work at my print-shop on dA, or you can just hire me for your intimate or other portraiture needs.

Revel, by LouFCD on Flickr

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything new here, but I’ve  been busy. Between school, the dissolution of my marriage, and my new girlfriend Canon (she’s a Rebel!), life has just kept me hopping.

I’ve got a personal writing project newly in the works, and perhaps it will show up here someday, but it’s not really ready yet.

What really prompted me to post something new was a whim by Glendon Mellow, who you might know better as The Flying Trilobite. I was a bit curious to see what sort of answer I might get with this writing analyzer, so I put in a few posts and got different answers each time.

Working backwards in time on this blog,

Real Women is apparently most like David Foster Wallace, an author with whom I was not familiar, but I note he hung himself a few years ago. That doesn’t bode well…

Enter the Queen, a prelude to Hamlet that I wrote for a Lit class (and which I love because it changes the tone of the whole play), is most like H.P. Lovecraft. One has to be happy about that, right?

8 Seconds, a piece for my first English class at Coastal, and featured in last year’s literary magazine, was compared to Dan Brown (a bit disappointing, that…).

Gone to California, the analyzer tells me, is like Vladimir Nabokov. Score.

I’m not sure what this all says about the evolution of my pen, to go from Nabokov to a guy who hung himself, but it doesn’t seem good.

Fortunately, I’m having an affair with Canon, and I think she kind of likes me.

From whence came the art:

The first image is titled Revel and the second Suspicion, both by me and both copyright 2010.

Coastal Carolina Community College, by LouFCD @ Flickr

I love my school. I don’t think there’s any question about that.

I love the campus (tore up with construction as it is at the moment), I love the size, I love the variety of classes offered (though I wish there were more, of course), I love the high standards, and most of all I love the faculty and staff. I don’t think I’ve ever met a conglomeration of people so dedicated to the purpose of helping a rag-tag, diverse bunch of people and their unique needs as the faculty at Coastal. With one exception (an instructor no longer there, I might add), I’ve spent nearly two years watching instructors fall all over themselves to help students understand the presented material, and inspire us to think about it, evaluate it, expand on it, and run like hell with it. I don’t know if this is the norm for the community college as I’ve never attended another, but it certainly wasn’t my university experience lo, those many years ago. I will sorely miss Coastal when I graduate this Spring and transfer to UNCW this Fall, regardless of how wonderful an experience that might be.

That freedom, I tend to think, has taken a rather extensive toll on this blog (not to mention JanieBelle’s!). I expend a great deal of creative energy going above and beyond, working my ass off to not just pass my classes, but to excel in them, and when I get home, quite frankly, there’s little left for personal projects like blogging or even photography.

So it pains me to level a criticism, valid as it may be, in any shape or form. I have already taken my concern to several of the instructors there, and to The Chair, and I am satisfied that my voice has been heard and the situation is properly addressed. Nevertheless, I thought a bit of explanation for the title and point of this post is in order.

I took CHM 151 (Chem I) online last semester. I didn’t want to, but it was only offered at times when other classes that I needed were offered, and it was the best of a list of unsatisfactory choices for me, near as I could tell with the information I had in hand. Some days will be like that. Coastal can’t possibly tailor their entire schedule to every student, and they do go out of their way to do the best they can with what they have to work with. So with the consolation that at least I’d have a real on-campus lab, I elected to do the online lecture.

Big mistake.

Let me say this before continuing. Never, ever, for any reason, take a science class online if you can take a seated class instead. Work the other stuff around the seated science class instead.

Now, I took Chem I and Chem II in a seated class my first go ’round with a real university (as opposed to the brainwashing institution of Bob Jones “University” that I did right after high school). I got a B in Chem I (not totally unrelated to my inadequate Jesusschool high school education, in the instructor’s defense) and a C in Chem II (not totally unrelated to issues of native language and accent of the instructor, in my defense) back in the mid ’90′s at Marshall. Although the credits didn’t transfer due to the intervening ten years, I felt fairly confident that some of it would at least be familiar, and I picked up some understanding of Chemistry in Biology classes at Coastal, so I was pretty sure I’d be OK, if more than a bit challenged. That might have been the case had I taken a seated class.

As it turns out however, I had an online lecture instructor that was pretty much phoning it in. We got notes that amounted to “Read this chapter, know these three principles, and here’s a youtube video.” When the weekly quiz showed up, it rarely had more than a tangential relationship to principles A, B, or C, and the exams were similarly unconnected to the material (and insanely easy). It was bizarre.

Complicating matters was that 1) the instructor turned out to not even be a member of our faculty, but was an instructor at some other community college, and 2) she did not respond to email from any of us. OK, so if you’re taking an online lecture and you’ve got a question or are having a bit of difficulty, you’ve already got to figure in some lag time for a response, but to not get any response at all? Now add to that the fact that you can’t even track the instructor down at her office, and there is a serious problem. It gets worse, but that’s the gist of the most relevant problem.

On the upside, the seated lab was mandatory, and hence we had a real human being to whom we could go for help. Dr. P. (that’s not to protect his identity, that’s just what everyone calls him) rocked, as is expected for Coastal faculty. On the downside, he usually spent the first hour of our three-hour lab teaching us enough of what we should have learned in lecture that we at least had a vague idea of what the lab was supposed to be about. That of course, only left us two hours to do a lab experiment that was designed for three hours, but Dr. P. was very good about making shit happen. I think he deserves a medal or something.

In any event, at the end of the semester, I approached Dr. P. with the question, “What are the most important parts of Chem I that I should have learned so that I have a fighting chance in Chem II?” He enumerated a list for me of indispensable things that I could not get through Chem II without knowing, and I spent my Christmas vacation memorizing the things below (and some other stuff, this is a partial list), figuring out gas laws, solubility, and half a dozen other principles, rules, and laws.

I got an A in Chem I, but to be honest it’s the only grade I’ve ever gotten at Coastal that I do not feel I earned. I walked out of that class with half an understanding of half of what I should have learned (and that entirely at the hand of Dr. P.), and frankly? That A pissed me off. It irritated me. It disappointed me, and that’s the worst thing of all.

I’m holding my own in Chem II (an A so far – earned this time), but I’m busting my ass to work from behind to do it. I’m putting this stuff here for reference, and I’ve added it to the Escuela section of the blog so it’s accessible when I (or you) need it. I’ll add yet more Things I Should Have Learned in Chem I (but didn’t) like formulas, laws, and important constants as I get the time. (Read: “Don’t stand around holding your breath, I’m a fucking college student!”)

From whence came the art:

That image is titled Coastal Carolina Community College by me, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

Swarmed, by LouFCD on Flickr

In my spare time (haha) I’m again reading Darwin’s Origin of Species. It’s an incredibly insightful work for its day or any other, and even modern biology writers, with all the updated information available at our fingertips, are hard pressed to match its beauty.

In reading it again with my own now more advanced understanding of biology, I’m struck by two things in particular within the first several chapters. The first that stands out to me is Darwin’s mastery of the turn-of-phrase. In World Lit II last semester, the pieces we read were exemplars of their time period. The early and mid-nineteenth century works were chosen specifically to highlight the Romantics’ “rejection” of Enlightenment ideals. The systematic logic and naturalistic view of the universe was traded in for adornment, symbolism, and emotion. Yet even then I noted in an essay on my midterm that Darwin was an outstanding exception to this rule.

Romantics viewed the world around them as a natural extension of their emotions. Emotion and Nature are inextricably intertwined, the one often used as a symbol for the other. This was a rejection of Enlightenment ideals of the logic and order of Nature. They valued this emotion and its connection to the natural world almost to the exclusion of reason. (Charles Darwin was a notable exception, whose seminal 1859 treatise on evolution, “On the Origin of Species &etc” being a work replete with both the reason valued by the Enlightenment and the powerful emotive awe treasured by the Romantics.)

(I may transcribe my entire response as a separate post, just for fun – I was pretty happy with the way it came out, under pressure and unedited, and in response to a perfect prompt for taking modern Creationists to the woodshed – you know I took that bait with reckless abandon.)

I stand by that comment, and this latest read reinforces my opinion that Darwin exemplifies the best of both Enlightenment and Romantic writing. His synthesis is unparalleled among the writers of his day.

An oft-quoted example of his beautiful mastery of emotive language is found in the final passage of Origin:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

The other glaring feature of the first several chapters is my own recurring frustration. On nearly every single page I read, I want to just scream backwards through time words of encouragement to get this greatest of minds to take that one last little step that in retrospect is so very very tiny. Darwin was one thought away from picking up the revolutionary idea of Gregor Mendel. He dances all around it, a ballerina doing elegant pirouettes without ever quite stepping on that one spot in the center – particulate theory of inheritance. (Genes, we call them.)

Thus it is, as I believe, that when the males and females of any animal have the same general habits of life, but differ in structure, colour, or ornament, such differences have been mainly caused by sexual selection; that is, individual males have had, in successive generations, some slight advantage over other males, in their weapons, means of defense, or charms; and have transmitted these advantages to their male offspring.

I have to sigh, and be resigned to the facts of history, else I might scream. Particles, Charles, particles.

From whence came the art:

That image is titled Swarmed, by me, and is © 2009.

Pelican Sunrise, by LouFCD @ Flickr

In 1806, a Russian poet by the name of Anna Petrovna Bunina wrote something strange, and dark, and beautiful. She titled it, “С ПРИМОРСКОГО БЕРЕГА”, roughly translated “From the Seashore”. We read a translation by Pamela Perkins (in the Norton Anthology) early in our semester in my World Lit II class, and honestly it took a while to grow on me.

When it came time to begin work on our creative project for the semester, I turned to this piece for my inspiration. Since I’d been working on my photography it seemed natural to blend the two and see what happened.

The photo above is an outtake from that project. (As usual, all images in this post are linked to their respective Flickr page. For desktop-sized versions, click through to Flickr and then click the “All Sizes” button above each photo.)

I’m very tickled. In fact, I’m so tickled that although it’s usually my policy not to put my school work on the blog until after it’s graded and returned to me, I just can’t wait any more. You’re getting this before it’s even due. (This Thursday, for the record.)

The poem in its original Russian, an English translation by me, my photos from the project, and a few more outtakes are below the fold. (If you have religious nudity-related neuroses, no need to tell me about them, just move along. I don’t really care.)

From the Seashore

From the Seashore 3, by LouFCD @ Flickr

The shining sea
Seamless from the sky,
The quiet waves
Splashed upon the shore,
The gentle swells
Shivered just a little.

The sun is extinguished,
There is no moon,
Scarlet blaze
Glints in the west,
Birds in their nests,
Flocks in their roosts.

Everything suddenly shushed,
Everything in its place.

The room is still,
There is no rustling.
The children are cuddled
Modestly in the corners.

From the Seashore 4, by LouFCD @ Flickr

Lina touched
The harp strings:
The golden harp
Raised its voice;
Sounds in harmony
Sing with Lina.

Rosy flames
Shine from the fireplace;
The clear bright fire
Skips upon the coals;
The dark-gray smoke
Twists in a column.

The fierce flame
Scorches the soul;
The heart languishes,
Everything is desiccated.
Poison flows
In my veins.

From the Seashore 5, by LouFCD @ Flickr

Tears ran dry
In cloudy eyes,
Sighs stopped
The breast from heaving,
Speech freezes
On chilled lips!

Sea rise up!
Be a coffin for me!
Golden harp,
Strike like thunder!
Flame overflow,
Incinerate this poor woman!

Anna Petrovna Bunina -1806

(If you speak Russian, feel free to critique my translation – but be gentle, it’s my first time.)

С ПРИМОРСКОГО БЕРЕГА

From the Seashore 6, by LouFCD @ Flickr

Светлое море
С небом слилось,
С тихостью волны
Плещут на брег,
Кроткие зыби
Чуть-чуть дрожат.

Солнце погасло,
Месяца нет,
Заревом алым
Запад блестит,
Птицы на гнездах,
В кущах стада.

Всё вдруг умолкло,
Все по местам.

В комнате тихо,
Шороху нет;
Дети прижались
Скромно в углах.

From the Seashore 7, by LouFCD @ Flickr

Лина коснулась
Арфы струнам:
Арфа златая
Глас издала;
Звуки согласны
С Линой поют.

Розовым пламем
Светит камин;
Скачет по углям
Ясный огонь;
Дым темно-серый
Вьется столбом.

Пламень лютейший
Душу палит;
Сердце томится,
Высохло всё:
Яд протекает
В жилах моих.

From the Seashore 8, by LouFCD @ Flickr

Слезы иссякли
В мутных очах,
Вздохи престали
Грудь воздымать,
Речь замирает
В хладных устах!

Море, взволнуйся!
Гробом мне будь!
Арфа златая,
Громом ударь!
Пламень, разлейся,
Бедну сожги!

Анна Петровна Бунина – 1806

I have to say, I’m really glad I did my own translation, for several reasons.

First, I’m going to enter my project in the student art show at school in the Spring. If some big-time art dealer sees it and pays me a bajillion dollars for it, I don’t want to owe the translator any royalties. I’m a stingy bastard that way.

Bunina by Firelight, by LouFCD @ Flickr

Second (and more seriously), I learned a few things. Now, as you were reading the poem, you may have asked yourself, “What? Who the Hell is Lina, and why is she playing the harp in the middle of this poem?” We sure did.

By translating the poem word by word using an old book I’ve had laying around for years, Google Translate, and an online Russian-English dictionary by Babylon, I happened to discover that the word Месяца, fairly translated by Perkins as “moon”, is more literally translated as “month”. That led me to ask, “Then what’s the Russian word for ‘moon’?”.

Turns out that the Russian word for “moon” is “Лина”. Transliterating that back to English, I had to grin. “Lina”. Suddenly the Lina=Luna connection fired a neuron or two in my brain, and I couldn’t help but grin for at least two hours. I still have no idea why the moon is touching harp strings in the middle of this poem, but it does make the poem make a little more sense.

The Fire in my Breast, by LouFCD @ Flickr

Third, I discovered that while I certainly haven’t the relevant expertise to question Perkins’ translation, I got a slightly different feel from the poem than she did, most especially in the final line. Where she translated the final line as “Warm this poor woman!”, I got the distinct impression that the word сожги means not just “warm”, but “burn”, or even “burn down”. Perkins’ translation seems to make a complete 180 in that stanza because of that word, while I think mine makes more sense. The speaker has been talking about dying (of a broken heart, perhaps?) for some time, and I got no indication at all that Bunina changed course in the final stanza. I’m sticking to my guns on this one.

The project has taken several weeks to put together, and it’s been tough every step of the way. I put a lot of work into it, but I couldn’t have done it without my very good friend and Art major, Kaitlyn. She scared up victims models (her sister posed as Lina with her (the sister’s) children), loaned me her living room for a studio, calmed me down when my original model for the nudes got sick and had to cancel the shoot (twice), introduced me to the Art instructor who pointed us to a better/less expensive art supply place, calmed me down when I repeatedly went into panic mode… Kaitlyn dear, I owe you big time.

The Death of Bunina I, by LouFCD @ Flickr

I also have to give a big thank you to my model for the speaker in the poem. She was absolutely wonderful, and came through for me on 12 hours notice, really de-stressing my life. She spent several hours lying on the floor nude while I worked the camera and re-set, re-shot, re-focused, changed my mind, posed her like a Barbie doll, and generally stumbled my way through my very first studio shoot. (Not to mention my first nudes-who-are-not-my-wife!) And as you can of course see, she’s a very beautiful woman to boot. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything, not least of which is permission to post these photos.

One last thing, a frustrating little tale about living in the Bible Belt. There were three separate photo shoots for this project. The first was at the beach, for the “sunset” (it’s really a sunrise, but don’t tell anyone), the second with Lina and the children a week or so later, and a few weeks later came the shoot for the speaker (a fellow Coastal student who can identify herself if she wants to). I had the first two shoots printed at one time. My printer is currently on strike, so I went to the first place that came to mind to get them printed. It happened to be Walmart. Stick your flash drive in the machine, order what you want, no muss, no fuss.

The Death of Bunina II, by LouFCD @ Flickr

This past Thursday I went back to Walmart to have the last two shots for the project printed (From the Seashore 7 and 8). As I was inserting my flash drive, I overheard the photo department woman telling her newlywed customers that they could not have their honeymoon photos that had just finished printing. The reason? In some of the photos, the bride was apparently wearing a “nighty that was too see-through” and that this constituted (gasp!) nudity. Hence, she would not give them their photos. That’s just fucking nuts.

I pulled my drive back out of the machine, and headed down the street to Walgreen’s whose photo department has grown-ups in charge. I was delighted to discover that Walgreen’s has a regular price that is half that of Walmart, and doubly delighted to find that photo printing happened to be Buy-One-Get-One this past week. I paid a quarter of what I would have paid at Walmart, and the prints are on better quality paper anyway. Stephanie, the very friendly and helpful woman at Walgreen’s was taken aback by the story, but on reflection she realized she shouldn’t have been. I wound up having to have the first bunch of prints redone to match, but in the end it was worth it.

Moral of the Story:

Fuck Walmart and their religious nudity-related neuroses. Go to Walgreen’s and deal with grown-ups, even if you don’t have any nipples in your photos.

By the Fire, by LouFCD @ Flickr

From whence came the art:

In order, those images are titled:

1. Pelican Sunrise
2. From the Seashore 3
3. From the Seashore 4
4. From the Seashore 5
5. From the Seashore 6
6. From the Seashore 7
7. From the Seashore 8
8. Bunina by Firelight
9. The Fire in my Breast
10. The Death of Bunina I
11. The Death of Bunina II
12. By the Fire
13. Portrait by the Fire

All photos © 2009 Photography by Louis Shackleton, except Pelican Sunrise, which I have licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

Portrait by the Fire, by LouFCD @ Flickr

Autumn Legs, by LouFCD @ Flickr

A few more below the fold.

Boots, by LouFCD @ Flickr

Pushing, by LouFCD @ Flickr

Pulling, by LouFCD @ Flickr

From whence came the art:

Those images of my beautiful, sexy wife Jane are titled Autumn Legs, Boots, Pushing, and Pulling, by LouFCD and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommerical-Share Alike license.

Turtle Nest, by LouFCD on Flickr

I’ve been in the field a few times in the last several weeks. Though my classwork has me about buried, I really enjoy these little stress relievers where I can just enjoy the surroundings and take a few pictures. It started around Labor Day weekend, when I spent several nights sitting a nest of Loggerhead Sea Turtles down on North Topsail Beach. The turtles were due to hatch about any day, so I was very excited. Alas, they never did hatch out while I was there, but it was a relaxing time for the most part anyway.

In fact the Sea Turtle Hospital has no record of a hatch to date (nest 55). There are several possible reasons for that. They may have hatched during a storm while no one was looking, with the storm erasing every trace of their leaving the nest. That happens sometimes. The turtles could have been drowned by a storm as they were hatching, too. Also, while the possibility exists that this was a false nest, the Sea Turtle Hospital folks were pretty sure this was a real nest.

So it was a bit frustrating, sad, and disappointing, but I got some photos of other things that I thought I’d share here anyway. They are below the fold.

We got an especially pretty sunset the first evening.

Sunset over Topsail, by LouFCD on Flickr

And moonrise over the ocean was pretty gorgeous, too.

Moon on the Ocean, by LouFCD on Flickr

The next night, I had a clear view of the moon through the cloud cover just as it rose. It had a somewhat different feel.

Blood Moon, by LouFCD on Flickr

On the third evening, I did manage a few shots of this Great Black-backed Gull,

Wary Gull, by LouFCD on Flickr

who was fine with my taking his picture right up to a certain point. Then he very suddenly let me know that I had gotten too close.

Piss Off! by LouFCD on Flickr

I even pointed my camera at Jupiter during a break in the cloud cover, and managed to pick up all four Galilean moons. I took this with just my camera mounted on a cheap tripod, no telescope, using a 300mm lens wound all the way out. If you look carefully, you can see from left to right: Callisto, Io, Ganymede, Jupiter (the bright one), and Europa. (They are annotated on Flickr, so click the pic if you can’t pick them all out.)

Jupiter and His Four Moons, by LouFCD on Flickr

I caught a nasty head cold that later moved into my chest and had me feeling like warmed-over garbage for weeks, but I was better by the time the next few excursions came in quick succession. (Blog posts with photos forthcoming.)

From whence came the art:

Those photos are all taken by me, LouFCD on Flickr, and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. More photos from the nest sitting excursion can be found here in my Turtle Nest Sitting set on Flickr.

Bianca, by LouFCD on Flickr

My good friend and Zoology classmate Bianca (pictued above – forget it, she’s married) noted to me at school that Crowded Head has been very ranty of late. While it’s true that this is my own special place for venting, I’d rather not allow that to become the general tone here, either.

With that in mind, I’ve been looking for something to write that doesn’t involve a great deal of venom and spittle. I’ve not really been inspired to write much lately though, what with school sucking up all my creative energy like a sponge on a bar.

It occurs to me that I haven’t posted any of my recent photos here, however, so I’m going to share some of my favorites that I’ve taken lately.

I’ve shot a handful of friends from school, and I have an idea about doing a specific collection (I’ll write about it when it’s done). Meanwhile, these have begun to grow into a bit of a personal yearbook.

More photos of my friends and schoolmates lie below the fold.

Most mornings before class I can be found on the patio, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze with Kaitlin. She’s one of the first people I met at Coastal. She’s a very talented artist from Boston, and I’ve had the privilege of seeing about all of her work over the last year before it’s even ready for public consumption. She insists she’s not photogenic (doesn’t everyone?). I disagree.

Kaitlin, the Artist, by LouFCD on Flickr

We’re usually joined by Katy, who really really really needs her morning coffee before she winds up for the day. Once she gets going though…

Brown Eyed Red, by LouFCD on Flickr

In the event you got the idea that only our womenfolk are dangerously good looking, Easy Cool Brandon will set you aright. He wears those shades most days, and I think it’s so that he doesn’t have to keep calling EMS to pick up the girls who’ve fainted upon seeing his Rutger Hauer baby blues. I imagine that gets old after the first 1500 times.

Smirking MIB, by LouFCD on Flickr

I don’t usually see Laura outside of Zoology class, and when I do she’s hustling off on her way to some other class. She’s very studious and on-the-ball. I actually met Laura last semester, when she was one of my PASS students. Her mom taught Biology over at White Oak, and actually had my daughter Kay a few years ago, so there’s a neat connection.

Laura, from Zoology, by LouFCD on Flickr

Sam is proudly a member of G.R.I.T.S. (Girls Raised In The South), and has become my officially designated critter model for Zo field trips. She asked me once why that was, and though I replied at the time that she was the only one dumb enough to just do whatever I told her without question, the truth is that she’s just really cute and doesn’t mind holding bugs and frogs and stuff while I take pictures of them (photos in a subsequent post).

Sam in Profile, by LouFCD on Flickr

Sarah and Dwayne are a really cute couple, at least one of whom is almost always on the patio. They’ve asked me to do their engagement photos, with an eye toward my flying to Michigan next summer to do their wedding photos. We’ll see how the first round goes before I decide on the shots for The Big Day.

Sarah and Dwayne, by LouFCD on Flickr

This shot of Rachael was totally an accident, but I love the way it turned out.

Censored by Coke, by LouFCD on Flickr

…and sans Coke can to show off her legs a bit better.

Rachael, by LouFCD on Flickr

There’s a bit more to my virtual yearbook, and I’ll be adding to it as I go. The entire set can be found here, on my flickr page.

From whence came the art:

All images in this post were taken by me, and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. Clicking them will take you to their respective pages on Flickr, where larger sizes are available by clicking the “All Sizes” link above each photo.