Saturday Morning by the Creek

Joy Eckstine, Elle and I met yesterday for another of our morning photo expeditions. Our goal was to capture about five photographs of Boulder's homeless. We came away with three pictures and agreements for stories to be told after an enjoyable couple of morning hours along Boulder Creek.

Different from our visits to Pearl Street Mall, the Boulder Library and the Band Shell, yesterday we toured Boulder Creek - the location of the inspiration for this project. (See the early blog posts for that background.)  Turns out that a higher percentage of the homeless population on the creek early in the morning are less inclined to be photographed than those where we have earlier worked.  That's the reason that we had hoped for five participants and getting only three.  It wasn't because Joy didn't greet her friends along the creek!

While there will be three interesting stories coming from the two morning hours along Boulder Creek between the library and the Justice Center, I'll introduce one of them here.

I photographed Mark and Elle interviewed him. Mark just arrived in Boulder a couple of days ago after having traveled from Alaska and Texas.  To help him carry his possessions, Mark has designed an attachment for his backpack to which he can lash bags of clothing.  The attachment has wheels so that it can be towed when Mark is walking.  Mark believes the idea is worthy of a patent.

A memorial to Mark's mother can be found at the San Jose Rose Garden.  She started the nation's largest food bank during a career that included work in a circus (as a lion tamer!) and sheltering indigent women that could not qualify for public assistance.  As a testimony to his mother's passion for others, Mark wants to do work that somehow helps the homeless while he stays in Boulder.

Terri at the Library

Had a quick portrait session with Terri at the Boulder Library yesterday. Thanks to Tomas deMers, a writer with the Denver Voice (www.denvervoice.org) for connecting us.

Terri's history includes playing violin professionally in concert settings in Boulder and San Francisco.  However, when her locker at the Boulder Shelter was cleaned out according to schedule a couple of years ago, and Terri wasn't present, her violin was discarded.

She is no longer homeless and has an apartment. Terri works with the arts program at the Carriage House.

Terri is in the process of writing her story. Like the stories of so many others, I am very eager to read it.