Tracy Bookman Photography

What the future looked like in the 1960's

Every Monday morning, I receive a business coaching Email from MondayMorningMemo.com. This week’s Email was pretty interesting to me because I have this love-hate relationship with all things technological, AND, I’m old enough to remember 1969.

Here’s a tidbit from the Email.

Had you asked us in 1969 to describe our vision of 2009, we would have told you of flying cars, driverless cars and carburetors that would get 200 miles per gallon.

If you told us the cars of 2009 would travel at the same speeds and get about the same gas mileage we were getting in 1969, we would have rolled our eyes and thought you a fool.

Once, at a friend’s house, we pulled out some articles from a 1960’s-era Reader’s Digest which predicted this very thing by the 1990’s. The illustrations were great. Think Jetsons.

One other quote from this Email caught my attention.

(Few) in 1969 would have said, “In 2009 we’ll carry cordless telephones that will have TV screens in them and all the world’s knowledge will be at your fingertips because you’ll be connected to a thing called the worldwide web. And that TV screen will show you any movie and let you listen to any song, any time you want. And you’ll be able to tell it where you want to go and the screen will show you a map of how to get there. And as you travel, the map will continually update to show you where you are. The map will even talk to you and tell you where to turn. And there won’t be any long distance charges.”

But, it’s the Email author’s concluding question that really sums up the challenges we all face in our tech-mad world. His question should make us evaluate what’s real and what’s really important to us.

When’s the last time you had an extended, face-to-face conversation with someone who was important enough to you that you turned your cell phone completely off, rather than just setting it to vibrate so you could check to see if the caller was important enough to interrupt the conversation?

I even see people doing this in church, of all places. They just can’t bear to turn off their phones, afraid of missing some meaningless, trivial text message or phone call.

Some of us can remember “front porch” days, when people would sit on their front porches and have real, meaningful conversations with their families and neighbors, and there were actual relationships and connections made with people.

Let me put in a little plug… In a way, this is what portraits help you do. They help you connect. They help you remember. They help you remember relationships and connections. Especially family portraits. So, while I’m not exactly pushing family portraits in this message, I am encouraging all of us to once again cultivate the relationships in our lives.

Thanks for reading my muses today.

-Tracy
The Colorado Springs photographer

Are you North America's Cutest Family?

Hey everyone. I thought I would let you know that as of last Saturday, we are participating in the International Charity Model Search to select North America’s Cutest Family and to raise funds for the non-profit Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation. (NILMDTS.org)

Do you think that you and your family are North America’s Cutest Family? Well, we’ll give you the chance to prove it! Many exciting prizes will be awarded and the Grand Prize Winner will receive a new car!

Here’s the Model Search Special:

$30 entrance fee includes a 30 to 40 minute model session and one image submitted to the national gallery.

Finalists will be determined by online votes. Each vote is $1 (no limit on the amount of votes you can cast), and all proceeds from votes benefit Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (NILMDTS.org).

Grand prize international winner will be determined from the 52 city finalists. The winners will be selected from the finalist gallery by photography and modeling industry experts.

Call us at 719-749-0043 or Email us now to enter your family in this great and exciting contest.

Thanks for reading!

-Tracy

The Colorado Springs Family Photographer

*Contest open to residents of the US and Canada. For more information, visit http://sandypucmodels.com/.

Some of the cattle at Lasater Ranch

As many of our clients and friends know, I love farming and ranching, and would love to live and work on a farm or ranch. We currently have dairy goats and we’ve had meat and egg chickens in the past. This is something that I really enjoy.

Well, in the summer of 2007, 3 of my boys and I spent a night at Lasater Ranch in eastern Colorado. At the time, I was planning to write a freelance article about Lasater, but our photography schedule, and life in general, kind of got in the way. I still hope to write the article about Lasater, and will look for outlets to publish it, so I thought that I would share some of the images from our time at the ranch.

Our visit to the ranch was very enjoyable, and I would encourage anyone to take advantage of the “Field Days” they have there to see for yourself what a real, and health-promoting, cattle ranch is like. Andy Duffy, the ranch manager, made us feel like old friends coming out for a visit. He showed us all around the ranch in the Lasater Suburban, a beat-up old SUV that seems like it might be held together with duct tape and baling twine. We got to see many of the pastures where they rotate their herds and got lots of great information about the ranch. Andy showed us where we could go the next morning to get some photos, and told us how to get in and out of the pasture. It was great to feel so trusted on his ranch to be able to come and go into the pastures to get our photos.

Andy Duffy, Lasater's ranch manager, shows us some of the cattle just before dark

I really like the philosophy of the Lasater operation. Not only do they NOT use any medications which are so ubiquitous to the industry, but they allow the herds to start and finish on grass. This gives their beef a distinctive flavor that you don’t find in feed-lot beef. We visited the ranch a couple years before, and Tom Lasater made us a pot roast lunch that our children still remember!

But, that’s not all that distinguishes the Lasater operation from every other ranch. Their cattle are bred for disposition and are “gentled” when they’re young.

My boys and I let ourselves into the pasture in the morning and found the herd. We were a little nervous about it all because we’re used to goats, not cows and bulls! But, the cows were all very curious about us and just wanted to come see what we were. As you can see in the photo,

Aaron feeds some of the Lasater herd

Aaron, who was 8 at the time stood in the midst of them and fed and petted them. What a great time this was for all of us! I’ll be very thankful to Andy and Lasater Ranch for a long time, even if I never get my article written!

Hopefully you enjoy the photos that we were able to get that morning. It was definitely an experience that we all loved. By the way, here’s a little plug for Lasater… you can buy their beef at Whole Foods.

If I am able to get the article written and published I’ll be sure to mention that here and let everyone know where they can get the publication.

-Tracy
The farm-and-ranch-loving Colorado Springs Photographer

Noah's 12 month session

The years just fly by now! We just completed another 1 Year Wall Panel program for one more client. This time, it was Noah. You can see Noah as a little 1 month-old and as a 6 month-old at our display in Chapel Hills Mall. Here is my favorite portrait from his recently-completed 12-month session, as well as a teaser slideshow.

Our style of baby’s portraits is really evolving to reflect the lifestyles of our clients. In fact, we even call these sessions “Lifestyle Sessions.” They’re intentionally laid-back and use much of the environment of the client’s home, whether indoors or outdoors. The child is WAY more relaxed in such a setting.

So, enjoy the show!

Thanks for reading.

-Tracy
The Colorado Springs Baby photographer

The value of an eternal soul, or simply a “choice”?

This video needs no description.

Thanks for watching.

-Tracy
The Colorado Springs Photographer

We love the Denver Zoo, but it’s a long way away, and it’s expensive to take a large family, so it was with much excitement that we all headed out for the Zoo’s FREE DAY!

We went with a neighbor family who has 8 children. Only 6 of them were able to go though, and we were missing one of ours, but we still had 11 children in tow around the zoo. Surprisingly, we were only asked twice if all the children were ours… it was fun to tell  them that only half of them were.

It was nice and relaxing to have a day off finally. The weather was perfect; the park looked beautiful with the fall colors; and we saw everything we planned to see. It was a perfect day, and felt good to have some time away from photography. Nope… I didn’t even take my camera with me, though I did take our camcorder.

Thanks for reading.

-Tracy
The Colorado Springs Photographer

I cannot believe it’s already October. Where did summer go? We spent the summer photographing weddings and high school seniors, and now it’s time for family portraits. But,  I did get a few opportunities to get out with the children for their “Days with Dad.” Each of the children get a turn each month to go out with me for a day and do whatever they want to do. Kramer, Benjamin, and Josiah each wanted to hike Pikes Peak. Kramer (17) and Benjamin (13) both made it all the way to the top and down, while Josiah (11) made it up, but we had to hitch a ride down. His hike was in August, but above timberline, it was snowing and 24 degrees. He was pooped, so we found a ride. Last week, I made the hike myself, and the autumn colors were great. This was probably the last trip of the year up Pikes Peak. If you have never made this trip, and are thinking of doing it, here are a few tips.

• Take cold and wet weather clothing. Light shells work best. I’ve been snowed and rained on in June, July, August, and September.
• September is the best time to go.
• Take lots of water and food.
• Wear good shoes or boots. The climbing is rugged. There’s only about a stretch of 3 to 3.5 miles where the trail is easy. The other 9 miles of it are moderate to difficult climbing with lots of rocks, roots, and snags. Above timberline is the hardest part. You have 3 miles of climbing over rocks so you are exterting the most at this point, PLUS,  the oxygen is very thin here.
• Take lots of breaks.
• Don’t depend on someone being able to pick you up at the top. If the weather turns bad, they close the road and they don’t care what the driver’s excuse is - they won’t let cars up. If  you climb to the top, and you’re expecting a ride down, be prepared to climb back down if you have to. That’s reality.

I’ve seen a lot of unprepared people try to make it to the top. There was the overweight guy from Florida who was practically crawling up the trail above timberline. Two GI’s from South Carolina who told the Barr Camp staff that they were really fit and would have no problems. When I encountered them above timberline, they only had 1.5 hours to make it to the top to catch the last train down (this was their plan). By the way they looked and the distance they had to go, I knew they wouldn’t make it. There was the 20-somethings who met me at Barr Camp on the way up. They asked me if I was headed to the top, then they said, “We’ll see you there, we’re going to beat you.” I took a half-hour break at timberline, and a half-hour break at the summit, then met them as I was coming back down. There were at least an hour behind me. Then, there were the Amish girls from Iowa who had no food, no warm clothes, and were dressed in their Amish garb. This was on the 24 degree day. I never saw them again after I passed them. So, go prepared! Thanks for reading. -Tracy The Colorado Springs Photographer

Yes, you read that right. We have 6 new kids here.

Of course, they’re real kids - meaning, goats, not children. You see, aside from being a wedding and portrait photographer in the Colorado Springs area, we also have our own micro-farm. It’s just enough to provide for our own family.

Any way, we had 5 female goats (does), and 4 of them were/are pregnant. Last Wednesday morning, around 5:00, I went out to check on the goats. Behind the barn was a new little kid with its mom. Behind them was another kid and mother goat. So, I dashed back into the house to prepare two 1-gallon buckets of molasses water (molasses water provides minerals, nutrients, and energy that the mom needs after birthing).

When I returned to the barnyard, there was one kid nursing on each doe.

One doe, named Jubilee, is a light brown with a white belly (this will become important soon… keep reading). The other doe, named Achsah (pronounced Ak-sah) is dark brown with black markings. Any way, Jubilee had one and Achsah had one, and both kids were hungrily nursing.

The next day, I noticed that Achsah’s kid was showing signs of weakness. Through talking to some other goat people, we determined that she was not giving enough milk and that the kid was becoming malnourished. So I rushed off to the feed store to get all the things to deal with the situation: electrolytes for the kid, a nursing nipple and bottle, as well as some medicated balm to try to stimulate the milk production in the mom. We tried a couple times to bottle feed the kid with no success, and I couldn’t seem to get much milk out when trying to milk Achsah. Weird. Also, both sides of her udder were the same size. That’s unusual because a kid will normally have a favorite side and so we have to milk out the other side to keep production up. But, hers were balanced and not very full.

So we worried about all of this for a day, then on Friday of last week, I came up with this crazy theory. Jubilee’s kid was dark brown with black markings while Achsah’s kid was light brown with a white belly. Achsah was also still VERY wide. Combining these details with the fact that she wasn’t milking out very much led me to conclude that both babies were actually Jubilee’s and she had rejected one, and that Achsah had adopted it and was trying to nurse it, which wasn’t working well due to the fact that she hadn’t birthed yet herself. But, then we thought about that and decided that was too crazy to be true.

The next day, however, Achsah gave birth to her own set of twins! So my crazy theory had been correct. Hence, the little white-bellied goat we named Annie, after Little Orphan Annie. Now Achsah has her twins and an adopted kid to care for, Jubilee just has her one, which we named Abby (for no particular reason), and one of our other goats, Joy, has her own set of little twins. We still have one more due to deliver. I’m guessing that it will be today, and that it will also be twins.

I’ll let you know!

Thanks for reading.

-Tracy
The Colorado Springs Photographer

I don’t know why I keep doing it… trying to climb Pikes Peak. Perhaps it’s because I am a Colorado Springs native, and I had never climbed the Peak and come back down all in one day. There was the time when I was 15 and my friends Dave and Jeff and I climbed it, but we camped overnight, went to the summit the next day and came back down.
Then, about 10 or 11 years ago, I tried it again with some different friends, but one got a very bad case of altitude sickness and we had to get him on the train and get him back down as fast as possible.

Then, 2 years ago, my oldest son, Kramer wanted to try it. After only about 4 or 5 miles, he pulled a muscle, and we had to turn around at Barr Camp (about 6.5 miles from the trailhead).

So, last year, Kramer and I tried it again. He pulled the same muscle, thought not nearly as badly. So we kept going. This trip was in September, and right before tree-line, it began to snow. Then it turned to a blizzard. Like a dummy, my warm weather clothing consisted of only a heavy cotton sweater which soaked up every snowflake. Suffice to say that with the hypothermia which was beginning to set it, that if not for the Lord’s help and the recognition that if I quit moving, things may have gotten quite ugly.

Yesterday, we made sure we had adequate clothing in case of cold weather (it snowed and temperatures were in the upper 30’s). But, about 1.5 miles from the top, a bolt of lightning came out of nowhere with no warning, and landed somewhere in the vicinity of where I was on the face of the Peak. Have you ever seen a 45 year-old man scurry like a chipmunk under a rock? That was me.

Well, we made it to the top, rested for an hour in the gift shop, then nearly ran back down the trail to get to timberline again. All the while another thunderstorm brewed at the top of the mountain. I felt like a skier trying to outrun an avalanche!

My other boys may have to find someone else to take them up this homicidal mountain!

Thanks for reading,
-Tracy
The Colorado Springs Photographer