Ayahuasca In Santa Barbara

An ayahuasca vision.

I'd never heard of ayahuasca until we showed up at the vacation house in Santa Barbara.  Gavin, the owner, greeted us, helped us with our bags, and proceeded to tell us his wife was in L.A. doing an 

ayahuasca ceremony with a group of others including a shaman.  It's best not to do these ceremonies without a shaman lest bad spirits infect the process.  Gavin told us he did it once and saw a city and then shit his pants.  It wasn't from fear, but rather from a natural side effect of drinking ayahuasca.  Apparently you purge from both ends.  I made a mental note to take a portrait of this character, but I didn't want to bother him at that moment, plus I didn't have my gear set up.  What a stupid mistake that turned out to be.  The next day, while tending to his rugged landscape, he moved a small rock, which dislodged a sizable boulder, which landed on him and broke his femur, thus destroying my portrait dreams.  Note to self:  Take the damn picture!  That goes for everything else.  Stop waiting to do what it is you want to do.  Tomorrow you may be lying on the ground, with an immovable boulder pinning you down while you scream in vain for medical attention while the young whippersnappers are out merrily tasting wine.  At least that's how we heard it went down.  This from the mysterious neighbor with an accent, who rides horses through the national forest with his two dogs in tow.  He also told us Joe Cocker lived over there, Jane Fonda owned the horse ranch over there, and this area (Padres National Forest) is a big, bohemian enclave.  What's the point of all this?  Make sure to use airbnb.com when making vacation arrangements, of course.

Nikki observing heaven.

Decks overlooking heaven.

Hang out room.  Look to the the left and you see heaven.

Center piece.  Look to the right and you see heaven.

 This is the second time we've used this service and it totally changes the vacation experience.  Instead of going to a protein infested hotel room at 6:00, you get to sit and relax with friends and grill your own food.  No tipping, no bad service, and not any more expensive than two hotel rooms would be for two couples.   Both of the houses have been cozy, clean, and peaceful.  This one in Santa Barbara was otherworldly.  We were literally above the clouds.  The marine layer rolled in every morning and was at least several hundred feet below us.  It looked like heaven.  The inside of this house looked exactly like you would expect from someone who engages in ayahuasca ceremonies.  And we loved it.  So far, both owners have been very artsy and bohemian and extremely interesting.  Gavin is a scrabble expert, and Josie has her own traveling, one woman show.

Wooden deer head on the wall.

Multi-Disciplinary prayer thingy on the wall.  I prayed to several of them, to no avail.

Will and Jen

Nikki surrounded by a lot of crazy art books about dead people and ghosts (from what I could tell).

A side benefit of the place is that there were numerous large windows letting in tons of natural light, which was perfect for taking portraits (assuming of course you take the damn portrait before some tragic, life altering event befalls the subject).

This represents the photo I didn't take of the owner.

One of the main reasons we decided to go to Santa Barbara was to do some wine tasting in the Santa Ynez valley.  That decision, of course, was majorly influenced by a cinematic gem called "Sideways".   The lines from that movie reverberate in my head on a daily basis because of my proximity to wine country.  Every time I smell a wine, it's "oakey", then I ask myself, “when do we drink it”.

Before we set out on the first day, we made a pact that we wouldn't use any of the movie lines with the servers.  That would be too douchey and touristy.  We found the main winery road on a map and headed out with no set plan.  The first place we passed is Andrew Murray, which appears in the movie.   We immediately head in, movie line pact firmly in place.  No sooner do we belly up to the serving table than "Maya" walks over and start pouring wine.  I'm serious, check the photo.  Not only does she look like her, but her mannerisms and speech pattern are eerily the same.  I had to do a quick look around the room to make sure nobody was messing with us.  I was waiting for the candid camera (holy shit I'm old.  That's an old reference.  There have been 15 iterations of that show since then) crew to roll out.  It was only after we left that we all agreed the experience was surreal.

"Andrew Murray, well alright" - Miles (Dammit, I used a line).

Maya's clone.

Will and Jen

Us not using any lines from "Sideways".

Sanford Winery. There's no shortage of rusty green trucks in wine country.

We spent the next day touring the main Santa Barbara area, including the mission and pier area.  

My favorite part was the propoganda historical short film about the mission and the converting of the local Chumash indians.  According to the film the locals LOVED the benevolent and merciful teachings of these kind Spaniards and were thankful to be blessed so richly.   Nobody was publicly beheaded and ridiculed for refusing the new and foreign teachings.  They eagerly rushed to the steps of the mission with babies in tow to receive the new covenants.  It was strange, though, that the Chumash all ended up being manual "skilled" brick laborers for the Spaniards while the Spanish stonemason was paid to teach them.

The rest of the day was eating and sightseeing and then we got to return to the house and cook, drink wine, and talk with good friends.  Pure heaven.

What do Skull and Crossbones on a Catholic Church mean?

Sidewalk art at the Mission. Nikki's favorite.  I have no idea why this has anything to do with a mission.

Rider and Dog on the Santa Barbara Pier.

Palm trees.  No shit.

The owner of a small restaurant where Will and I stopped in to have a beer.  He appears to be the epitome of what an Irish man should look like.  His daughter was mean as a snake.

A dog in the public restroom.  His owner was 12 hours post-ayahuasca.  Either that or taco bell.

Little Angels

Angelic.  That's the word that kept circulating through my mind as I was photographing  Dylan and Tori last month.  Nikki and I were on vacation to attend a high school reunion and catch up with some old friends in Colorado.  Jen  asked me to do a family shoot while we were there so we planned a day to spend with them barbecuing and taking photos.

Jen and Nikki first became friends in elementary school and stayed close through high school and became roommates for a while afterwards.  Life moved on, Nikki and I left Colorado for the military, and Jen met and married Will a few years later. About 16 years have passed since we left, but Nikki and Jen have remained close, communicating often on the phone and making the periodic visit to see each other when possible.  I'm usually with her on those visits and we have the opportunity to spend a day here and a day there together with Jen and her family.  I'd met Dylan twice, once when she was 14 months and once when she was 4, but I had never met Tori.   Mostly, though, I've known Jen and her family over the last 16 years via information communicated to me through Nikki.  Bits and pieces of anecdotes and stories were how I knew the girls up until the day we made the photographs.

I knew they were beautiful.  I had seen the photographs a well respected and established photographer made a couple years back.  When that level of photographer is willing to shoot your kids for free because they want them for their portfolio, you know the kids have "it".  I had never seen them interact with each other, however, and I had never spoken with them for any extended time, so I didn't know what to expect.  There's a chance they could be brats with a gigantic sense of self entitlement, which would spoil all of the physical beauty they clearly had.  After Will let us in, the first thing I see is two bundles of energy, in matching clothing, bounding down the stairs screaming Nikiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii............

My heart melted.  They knew who Nikki was partly because they had seen her before, but mostly because Jen talks about her and makes her seem fresh and current in their minds despite her absence.  That's how it is with old friends, they always feel like family and you feel immediate comfort in their presence.   They all ran upstairs to put the finishing touches on the girls' hair for the photoshoot.

I waited downstairs with Will and got caught up on his new life.  He recently decided to quit his job as a VP at mega humongous SAP and start his own consulting business.  That takes a lot of planning and a lot of brass stones to make it happen, but Will is a planner.  I'm hoping it rubs off on me somehow (note to self, spend more time with Will), but I doubt it.   I can't plan past this weekend, it's just how I've always been.  He's also a bass player in a band called  "Fina Dupa" (www.finadupa.com).   It's an interesting dynamic to observe the two sides of Will.  You've got the type "A" VP of business operations on the one hand, and a goateed bass-slappin' player hanging out at the dive bar polar opposite.   It's a nice juxtaposition, I wish I had more of the type "A" personality at times.

A short while later the girls all came down and we were ready to get down to business.   I quickly saw that any fleeting concerns I had about brattiness were completely unfounded.  The girls were polite, bright, charismatic, listened well, and loved each other a lot.  I can't imagine there is a sweeter sound than children laughing, and I heard a lot of it that day.   Watching their interaction with their parents and with each other was amazing.   Like Will the girls clearly have a juxtaposition in their individual personalities.

Dylan is smart, really smart (it's a bit unsettling to have a conversation with a 7 year old and have it feel like an adult conversation) and she's sweet.   Tori is both of those, but in a very different fashion.  She thinks about things differently, sees the world in another way.  Case in point:  the glass water container with the lemon and lime slices.

I walked up to the pitcher where Tori and Dylan were dutifully pouring water for the guests at the barbecue and noticed the lemon slices were floating and the lime slices were at the bottom (or vice versa,  like Tori, I'm not into details).  I found this to be particularly interesting and I had know idea why this would be the case, so I asked each girl about it.

Dylan (Reminder 7 years old):  "Well you see air can get into the little space on the surface of the lemon, and it brings them to the top.  The limes don't have that and they stay at the bottom, plus they are heavier".

(She said something along these lines.  I don't remember the exact words, but I know I was struck by the fact that she attempted to provide a scientific explanation to the problem.   Clearly she was analyzing the situation and articulating a solution as best she could)

Tori:  (pointing to the lemons)  You see these are magical and they float  (then pointing to the limes) These are also magical but they don't float (then she smiled and laughed hysterically).

Then I laughed.  Both answers were probably wrong, but the way they approached them came from polar opposite sides of the thinking spectrum.  

After we finished up the family photographs, both girls insisted that I take photos of them in their room.  Dylan was first and she requested I take something with all of her stuffed animals.  She fastidiously picked up each animal and placed it just so on the bed.  Then she carefully nestled herself down into the animals so as not to disturb the scene and gave me the sweetest smile.

I then moved over to Tori's room and saw that she had changed into a skirt from one of her halloween costumes and a ski hat (why?).  Two completely unrelated items, yet they fit so perfectly together on Tori.  Then she began climbing the bed and then jumping up and down like a kook.  I got what I needed and headed back downstairs.

I'm glad Jen asked me to shoot the photos.  It means a lot when somebody thinks your work is worthy of hanging on the wall (and they have really good stuff on their wall) and every photographic interaction allows you the chance to capture the soul and essence of your subject.

And if you're lucky, you get to work with angels.