There aren’t many things I know I want in life. However something I do want is to be able to travel every year and dedicate two months of time working for a non-profit or on some sort of humanitarian project/story. Last year, I made a voyage to Nicaragua and helped document the Chronic Kidney Disease epidemic for La Isla Foundation. This year, I’ll be spending two months in the northern province of Uttar Pradesh, specifically the city of Varanasi, documenting the Indian healthcare system.

Derek Treatman

During my graduate-school days in France, I had the pleasure of meeting a global traveler and free spirit, Derek Treatman. We eventually began nurturing an idea for a project in which we would travel the world together telling stories, he writing, I taking photos.

Like many dreams, life ends up distracting us and we both went our own ways, keeping in touch and seeing each other whenever we could. Derek eventually ended up in India, working for Dimagi Software Innovations, developing mobile healthcare infrastructure. And, as I approached another crossroads in my life regarding my work, I decided to pay Derek a visit in India.

CommCare & Dimagi

In 2005, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) of India envisioned a nation-wide change of the rural healthcare system with the instantiation of its Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) program.

As a community healthcare worker, an ASHA’s job is to connect the families with health services and to promote healthy behaviors in her community, for which she receives small monetary incentives depending on the service provided. Over 150,000 ASHAs have been enrolled to date, however challenges including limited training, supervision, and support restrict the program from reaching its full potential.

In 2011, a number of NGOs working alongside the NRHM including Save the Children, World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, Intrahealth International, Pathfinder International, and CARE India launched pilot programs to evaluate the use of an open-source mobile phone platform called CommCare as a job-aid tool for ASHAs. Using their mobile phones, ASHAs store details about pregnant women and new mothers in their communities and use the application’s illustrated images, audio messages, and videos while counselling women on maternal and newborn healthcare. The facilitating NGOs monitor incoming data for supervisory purposes and can configure automatic SMS reminders to ASHAs for events like a pregnant woman’s upcoming date of delivery or round of vaccinations. Since the initial pilot phase, each of these NGOs have scaled-up their programs bringing the total number of ASHAs using CommCare into the hundreds.

This is where Derek comes in. For the last year or so, Derek has been developing this CommCare system by designing the interface, testing it, training ASHAs and implementing the system in various rural cities in India. Furthermore, Derek was recognized as one of the Top 11 Innovators of 2011 by the Rockefeller Foundation and mHealth Alliance for his work integrating multimedia into the CommCare platform to promote its use as an educational tool in low-literate communities.

The Project

Although the work I’ll be doing isn’t very clearly defined yet, my goal in going to India is to document not only Derek’s work, but also the Indian healthcare system, specifically the roles of the ASHAs in that system. I find that, by not planning my work too much, and not limiting myself with what I will and won’t cover, I’ll be more open and flexible to capture the events I’m experiencing. Naturally, there will be plenty of other beautiful and exotic sights to capture along the way including Holi, the Indian festival of color. I also hope to begin building up a library of stock images which I can then sell on sites like iStock.

Following Along

Even though I’ll be in very remote and poor areas of Northern India, I will be blogging as much as I can detailing all the experiences I’m having. There are several ways you can follow along as I journey; you can:

• check back on my blog and see if I’ve updated anything
• sign up for RSS email notifications — do so simply by entering your email on the right side of the page under the heading Subscribe or click here
• if you have a favorite RSS feed reader, you can simply subscribe to my RSS Feed

Indian Healthcare Photojournalism Project Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

Model Shoot Olia Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

Elizabeth Turner Style put together a little collection of her clothing for a lookbook she needs. Makeup by Lindsey Stevens and the model is Turkmenistan born Ogülbäbek Khan Annayeva.

Model Shoot Olia Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

Backup Your Website and Database on GoDaddy Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

This post, unfortunately, is not about any photographs I’ve created recently, but is rather tailored to photographers who are looking to automatically backup their website. I’m writing this because recently I had to setup an automatic backup of the Intertwine website. After googling around, I didn’t find a complete enough example of how to backup your website and database automatically and daily on GoDaddy. Sure you can find pieces of how to do just the website in some places, and other pieces of how to backup any database you may have, but a complete guide doesn’t exist. So, in hopes of driving more traffic, and helping out those that are not IT and web experts I write the following.

To begin with, this process will only work if your site is currently being hosted on a linux server; if you are on a windows server, then I highly recommend switching it (it’s quick and free to switch). I won’t go into the details of the advantages of one over the other, but you can get a quick answer here.

Next, for my example, I have to assume some sort of file structure on the web server; since everyone’s may be a bit different, your mileage may vary, but if you following along closely, you shouldn’t have any problems adjusting this process to fit your needs. So, I’m going to assume the following file structure:

In the above structure, the highest level directory to which we have access is within /html/. In there, you may have any number of other directories and files, but I’m going to assume you have at least the directory /_db_backups/ and /images/ as well as some .html, .php and .css files.

The way we are going to automate the backing up of our website files and any database we have is through something called cron jobs; cron is basically a time-based scheduler which will run any specified script (a list of commands) that we, the user, will define for it. In our case, we will define a script which will tell the server which files to backup and to where to back them up. So, there are two parts to this automation process:

1. Writing the script
2. Scheduling a cron job

Let’s begin, shall we?

1. Writing the script

The script consists of a series of commands written in a language the server will understand. We will be creating it as a simple text file, however I recommend you use notepad++ to do all the editing of the script. This isn’t required, in fact any text editor will do, it’s just that notepad++ makes things easier with features like syntax highlighting, etc. If, instead of copying and pasting yourself, you’d like to download the actual file, then click here. Now, let’s start scripting! Open notepad++ and paste the following code into a new document:

So what’s going on here, what does it mean? Any line of code that is preceded with a hash (#) symbol, is considered a comment and won’t be run by the server; it’s a way in which we can write descriptive text regarding what the code does. So, in these three line of code, we only actually have one that does anything: the very last line. This line of code tells the server to remove (rm) any files with an extension .gz that reside in the /_db_backups/ directory. We’ve written this line because we want to delete any old backups (.gz files) we have and keep only the latest one.

Next, paste the following after the lines we’ve already pasted:

This is the part where we tell the server to begin backing up our database (such as a WordPress database), and this is the part that will required you to put in information specific to you and your database. First we define a variable, NOWDATE, and set it to the current date. Then, we tell the server to dump (download) all the data of the specified database, then it gets compressed (gzip), named db_back_date.sql.gz (where date will be the current date) and placed in the directory /_db_backups/. Each of the underlined words in the above line of code, will have to be adjusted by you with the information pertinent to your MySQL database. To get this information, login to your GoDaddy Hosting Control Center, click on your domain name, then choose MySQL – located within the green Databases tab found at the top of your screen. Once there, press the ‘Edit/View Details’ (the icon that looks like a pencil) button of the database you want to backup. Here you’ll find the ‘Host Name’, ‘User Name’ and ‘Database Name’ which you’ll need to use and replace the underlined words in the code above. The password, naturally, only you should know and will not be shown.

Moving on, we will tell the server to backup our site files, paste the following after the lines we’ve already pasted:

Here, we are doing several things. First, we create a new directory (mkdir) called /site/ within the /_db_backups/ directory. Then we copy (cp) any .html, .css and .php files to this /site/ directory; the same goes for the entire /images/ directory. Once we have a copy of all our site files (located in /_db_backups/site/) we compress them (tar), name it site_backup_date.tar.gz (where date will be the current date) and place this compressed file in /_db_backups/. Finally, we remove (rm) all our site file copies since we’ve just compressed them into their own file.

And that’s it for the script! All that’s left is to save it; so click File, Save As… and choose any name, just make sure it ends with .sh. In my case, I’ve named it backup.sh. We now have code that will backup our database and site files. If, instead of copying and pasting yourself, you’d like to download the actual file, then click here.

2. Scheduling a cron job

Still with me? We’re almost finished! We now have to tell the server which script to run and when to run it; but before we can do that we have to actually put the script on our sever. So, in your GoDaddy Hosting Control Panel, click on ‘FTP File Manager’ found as the third entry in the green ‘Content’ tab located at the top of the page. Once there, click on the /_db_backups/ directory, then click on the Upload button and choose your backup.sh file. If done correctly, this will upload your script to the /_db_backups/ directory. You can see in the following screen shot that our file uploaded correctly to the specified directory.

Once we have our script in the proper directory, we have to give access to the server to allow it to actually run the script. So, while still in the FTP manager, navigate to the /_db_backups/ directory, check the box located to the left of our backup.sh file, click the permissions icon towards the top of your screen, and then make sure the option for ‘Executable’ is checked. Now click save and you’re all set to go!

We can now finally setup the cron job. In the Hosting Control Panel, click on ‘Cron Job Manager’, found as the first entry in the green ‘Content’ tab. Once there, click on ‘Create Cron Job’ and fill in the ‘Cron job title:’ with any name you want, specify the ‘Frequency:’ as daily, and for ‘Command:’ browse to your backup.sh file in the /_db_backups/ directory. Before leaving this page, you may want to set an email address so you can get notified of how this cron job is doing; set your email address towards the left side of the screen.

And that’s it! Your site and database will now be backed up daily to the /_db_backups/ directory.

Backup Your Website and Database on GoDaddy Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

West Model Jentri Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

I got the opportunity, the other day, to shoot West Model Jentri; of all the models I’ve shot, she has been the most captivating and the most beautiful. Styling was grace à Elizabeth Turner and makeup/hair was all Lindsey Stevens.

West Model Jentri Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

Creativity and learning Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

I’ve been saving the following gems on creativity and learning for a while, waiting for more inspirational material to come through either my stumblings on the internet or from others around me. This follows from a previous post Inspirational Words for Success.

The following is taken from Scott Dinsmore

The 27 Principles to Teaching Yourself Anything

1. Theory is optional. Practical application is mandatory. Constantly ask yourself whether or not this new knowledge will make you more useful – both for helping others and for pursing your own dreams. Practical application rules the world. That’s what going to get you a job. It’s what will get you a promotion. It’s what will get LiveYourLegend.net – @_Scott_Dinsmoreyour idea off the ground. What will get you funded. It’s what will make you money. It’s what will actually help people. Feel free to learn the theory too if that’s your thing (at times it can be fun), but never at the expense of learning what’s actually usable.

2. Showing up is just the beginning. It’s no longer enough to show up to class, do the homework and take the the tests. That’s table stakes. This is as true for formal education as it is for life. You must be willing to take what you learn and test, experiment and apply it to things that matter to you so you can see what actually works, what’s worthwhile and what’s a waste. No one else can do that for you.

3. Put yourself in situations where learning is required to survive and thrive. If your job, hobby or passion doesn’t require you to constantly learn then something’s wrong. Make it a must and you can’t help but grow. Sitting around pounding a keyboard and taking orders doesn’t require many new ideas. Changing the world does. Take the right risks and create the proper environment. *Thanks to Anne Samoilov for inspiring this one.

4. Learn who you are. Know your strengths, passions, weaknesses, talents, gifts, values, experiences, successes, failures. Dig inside yourself and test it all. I’ve spent the last ten years going to school on myself and I’m only just beginning. This is a constant. It’s exactly why I created the Live Off Your Passion eCourse. Becoming a self-expert should be a required minor (if not major) for every university student.

5. Learn what you love. This is the next step in knowing yourself. Constantly pay attention to the things that excite you. The people who inspire and motivate you to be a better person. The business you wish you would have started. The tasks and jobs that you get absolutely lost in. Watch closely.

6. Learn what you hate. The “I hate to do” list can be just as powerful as the “I love to do” list. Notice the things that make your hair stand up on end. The activities and personalities that make you want to vomit. Avoid these like the plague. Society does not benefit from you spending more time doing things you hate or getting better at things
LiveYourLegend.net – @_Scott_Dinsmoreyou suck at. That is not what improvement is about. It’s about taking the best of you and making it better. The world will be better for it. “90% of my education was outside of the classroom.” -Paul Jun, LYL reader

7. Don’t take anything for granted. Go out and test it all. I’m talking everything. This especially goes for those lessons, suggestions and “social norms” that seem completely ridiculous. If something tells you there must be a better way, there likely is. Go out and find it. Just because it was done one way for 30 years, does not mean it has to be done the same way tomorrow. In fact, the longer something has been practiced, the more it should probably be questioned.

8. Record everything. What you love. What you hate. What you’re good at. What you suck at. What inspires you. What depresses you. Every emotion and lesson, positive and negative, write it down and understand how it’s forming your story and how you can use it to better learn and apply going forward.

9. Be careful who you learn from. My personal rule is: once three trusted and admired people recommend something, I do it. The only problem with our new world of self-guided education is that there is more absolute crap available to learn than ever before. More books are being published, more blogs being created and more courses being offered than ever before. By default this means the sheer number of mediocre or downright bad content is going through the roof. Your time and your mind is precious. Find a way to filter what you consume.

10. Analyze every investment. This and the above go hand in hand. Our time is priceless and our money comes in at a close second. For every dollar and every hour you’re investing, be sure you’re getting a return. That could be in the people you meet, the business you build, the skill you acquire, or anything that you attribute genuine value to. LiveYourLegend.net – @_Scott_DinsmoreIf more people scrutinized their investment in education like they do in the shinny expensive trinkets they buy, I bet we’d have a lot fewer folks walking around looking for jobs with theory-filled diplomas and a mountain of debt. In order for something to be an investment, it must have a return. Keep your standards high.

11. Teach others. There is no better indication of true knowledge than when you can genuinely help and teach someone else the material. Give, give, give. The high is unreal. Yesterday morning I interviewed Simon Sinek (author of Start With Why) for Live Your Legend (it will be live in mid January). He hammered home the fundamental truth that we are here to serve and help others. Nothing makes us feel better. Check out Simon’s recent talk If You Don’t Understand People, Your Don’t Understand Business, for an added kick in the ass. You know things that others want to know. Identify that and find a way to offer it. Use a blog, the web, a community group, your family, anything. Trade knowledge. If you can teach something to someone else, chances are they can teach something to you too.

12. Build things. This starts from day one. If you are reading about how to write, then start writing. If you’re being taught how to interview, they go find some job openings. People dramatically overestimate how much time them must spend learning before they start doing. The answer is exactly ZERO. The moment you start learning is the moment you must start building and testing.

13. Break things. Don’t expect everything you build to work. In fact most of it won’t. That’s where the best learning happens anyway. It’s in the screw-ups and the failures and in what you do as a result. The Wright Brothers were rumored to have brought five sets of parts out for every attempted test flight because that’s how many times they’d fail before supper. James Dyson when through 5,127 prototypes before he invented the first vacuum that didn’t lose suction. The people who break the most things, tend to experience the most success. LiveYourLegend.net – @_Scott_Dinsmore14. Make money. Most people don’t make money from things that are fun because they either think it should take much longer or they never ask in the first place. What if you put a price on your experiments from day one? I bet there’s someone who will pay you. And it’s not until you have a paying and satisfied (or unsatisfied) customer, that you really start to learn if your ideas are worth a dime. Does it help people and will they pay you for it? That’s the ultimate decider of whether your ideas and education have merit.

15. Efficient is not the same as Effective. Just because you can hand address 1,000 envelopes in an hour, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t just use a template and print them out in five minutes. And just because you can print 1,000 envelopes in five minutes doesn’t mean you shouldn’t scrap the snail mail altogether and take to Youtube, blogs or the web where you can get some real leverage (although I’m a huge fan of the thoughtful hand-written note on the right occasions). For some reason we’ve become obsessed with efficiency. But that’s the very thing that
might be killing us. Being Efficient is doing things right. Being Effective is doing the right things. There’s a massive difference.

16. Most education happens outside of the classroom. Useful products don’t get built inside your four walls. Learning doesn’t happen inside a 15-pound textbook. The rubber meets the road when decide to step out of what’s comfortable and actually start interacting with the real world. That’s where the data, the improvement and the magic happens. “If you want to write your own life, I suggest you start by googling a course on something interesting to you.” -Eddy Azar, LYL reader

17. Explore. My best education to date was the couple years I spent studying at the London School of Economics (in a hands-on learning environment) and running a small business in Sevilla, Spain. That changed my understanding of the world in a way that I never could have dreamed of. It made all the difference. World travel ought to be a LiveYourLegend.net – @_Scott_Dinsmorerequirement for everyone. Take a year less of school if you have to to save money. It’s that important. Explore everything. Yourself. Others. Ideas. The world.

18. Connections are EVERYTHING. The people you meet influence what you learn, what you believe and who you are. Constantly evaluate what relationships best serve your goals professionally and personally. Keep the best and fire the rest. Everything magical in the world exists because of the people who came together to make it possible. The world begins and ends with your relationships. This is actually the next course and book I’ve already started working on for all you (tentatively titled Connect With Anyone – more on that soon).

19. Don’t assume anything. You may learn your most powerful lessons in the most peculiar of places. Expect this. Search them out. Have fun with it.

20. What if everyone had it backwards? Every so often, sit down and ask yourself: What if everything I’ve been told is completely backwards? What if the pundits are wrong? What would that look like? Invert everything. If you think you need a year of experience to do something, think about what would happen if you started attempting it with only a day under your belt. I’m not saying you do it but at least think about it. See what comes up. Ok, then maybe give it a shot ;). After all, what’s the worst that could happen…

21. Try every medium. Read books and articles, listen to tapes and seminars, watch videos and presentations (TED Talks are a great place to start), write down ideas and stories. There are so many ways for us to learn. Find those mediums that resonate most. Focus your leaning there but then take in the others to turn things on their head from time to time.

22. Get in arguments. Perhaps ‘discussions’ is a better word. With friends, with smart people, with experts, with everyone. Find people who will test your ideas. People who will question your beliefs and help you see things from angles you may have been blind to on your own. It’s amazing how certain we can be of things right up until LiveYourLegend.net – @_Scott_Dinsmoresomeone provides a more compelling answer. Be confident enough to stand up for what you believe, but be open enough to know when you’re wrong.

23. Find people who think you’re crazy. Don’t just surround yourself with people who believe exactly what you believe. If you do, you’ll never know if your ideas are truly objective. Good friends, mentors and models are often good at serving the role of devil’s advocate. You want these people around. They make you better.

24. Seek out different ways of doing things. The online world makes this endless. There are a million ways to make a living, change the world and help people. Notice all the ways people have been successful. Find the tools that suit you best. Devour them. *See the end of this post for a free PDF download on some of the best online learning tools I’ve found.

25. Everything is a lesson. Every person. Every experience. Every hardship. All of it is your teacher.

26. Nothing is certain. Beware of those who are overly sure of themselves. There’s often other ways. Don’t be naive.

And finally…

27. It never ends. There is always more to learn. There’s always more to discover. The learning never ends. Never. I don’t care what your age or stage is. If you’re not learning your dying,
literally. The choice should be pretty clear. Develop a passion for learning like you would for anything else you love. Learn the things that interest you and apply them in ways that make you and others happy and you’ll become addicted in no time. The only option is to make learning an obsession. And there you have it.

Creativity and learning Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

Headshot Ian Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

My little brother Ian came around to watch me shoot Drew's headshot, so after we wrapped up with Drew I had him step in and did a couple quick snaps. This kid could have a modeling career in his future…

Headshot Ian Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

Missing Missy Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

Often times, our primary function as artists or creative professionals is to bring to life the ideas, desires and hopes of our clients in a visually stimulating way. However, often times, the client doesn’t have a clear notion of exactly what they want thus shifting our role from XXX to mind reader. Shannon (the secretary) has lost her cat and has asked David (the graphic designer) to help with a lost poster. This is their email correspondence…

From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 9.15am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Poster

Hi
I opened the screen door yesterday and my cat got out and has been missing since then so I was wondering if you are not to busy you could make a poster for me. It has to be A4 and I will photocopy it and put it around my suburb this afternoon.

This is the only photo of her I have she answers to the name Missy and is black and white and about 8 months old. missing on Harper street and my phone number.
Thanks Shan.

From:David Thorne
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 9.26am
To: Shannon Walkley
Subject: Re: Poster
Dear Shannon,
That is shocking news. Luckily I was sitting down when I read your email and not half way up a ladder or tree. How are you holding up? I am surprised you managed to attend work at all what with thinking about Missy out there cold, frightened and alone… possibly lying on the side of the road, her back legs squashed by a vehicle, calling out “Shannon, where are you?”
Although I have two clients expecting completed work this afternoon, I will, of course, drop everything and do whatever it takes to facilitate the speedy return of Missy.
Regards, David.

From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 9.37am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Poster

yeah ok thanks. I know you dont like cats but I am really worried about mine. I have to leave at 1pm today.

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 10.17am
To: Shannon Walkley
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Poster

Dear Shannon,
I never said I don’t like cats. Once, having been invited to a party, I went clothes shopping beforehand and bought a pair of expensive G-Star boots. They were two sizes too small but I wanted them so badly I figured I could just wear them without socks and cut my toenails very short. As the party was only a few blocks from my place, I decided to walk. After the first block, I lost all feeling in my feet. Arriving at the party, I stumbled into a guy named Steven, spilling Malibu & coke onto his white Wham ‘Choose Life’ t-shirt, and he punched me. An hour or so after the incident, Steven sat down in a chair already occupied by a cat. The surprised cat clawed and snarled causing Steven to leap out of the chair, slip on a rug and strike his forehead onto the corner of a speaker; resulting in a two inch open gash. In its shock, the cat also defecated, leaving Steven with a foul stain down the back of his beige cargo pants. I liked that cat.
Attached poster as requested.
Regards, David.

From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 10.24am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster

yeah thats not what I was looking for at all. it looks like a movie and how come the photo of Missy is so small?

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 10.28am
To: Shannon Walkley
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster

Dear Shannon,
It’s a design thing. The cat is lost in the negative space.
Regards, David.

From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 10.33am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster

Thats just stupid. Can you do it properly please? I am extremely emotional over this and was up all night in tears. you seem to think it is funny. Can you make the photo bigger please and fix the text and do it in colour please. Thanks.

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 10.46am
To: Shannon Walkley
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster

Dear Shannon,
Having worked with designers for a few years now, I would have assumed you understood, despite our vague suggestions otherwise, we do not welcome constructive criticism. I don’t come downstairs and tell you how to send text messages, log onto Facebook and look out of the window. I am willing to overlook this faux pas due to you no doubt being preoccupied with thoughts of Missy attempting to make her way home across busy intersections or being trapped in a drain as it slowly fills with water. I spent three days down a well once but that was just for fun.
I have amended and attached the poster as per your instructions.
Regards, David.

From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 10.59am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster

This is worse than the other one. can you make it so it shows the whole photo of Missy and delete the stupid text that says missing missy off it? I just want it to say Lost.

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 11.14am
To: Shannon Walkley
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster

From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 11.21am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Poster

yeah can you do the poster or not? I just want a photo and the word lost and the telephone number and when and where she was lost and her name. Not like a movie poster or anything stupid. I have to leave early today. If it was your cat I would help you. Thanks.

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 11.32am
To: Shannon Walkley
Subject: Awww

Dear Shannon,
I don’t have a cat. I once agreed to look after a friend’s cat for a week but after he dropped it off at my apartment and explained the concept of kitty litter, I kept the cat in a closed cardboard box in the shed and forgot about it. If I wanted to feed something and clean faeces, I wouldn’t have put my mother in that home after her stroke. A week later, when my friend came to collect his cat, I pretended that I was not home and mailed the box to him. Apparently I failed to put enough stamps on the package and he had to collect it from the post office and pay eighteen dollars. He still goes on about that sometimes, people need to learn to let go.
I have attached the amended version of your poster as per your detailed instructions.
Regards, David.

From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 11.47am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Awww

Thats not my cat. where did you get that picture from? That cat is orange. I gave you a photo of my cat.

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 11.58am
To: Shannon Walkley
Subject: Re: Re: Awww

I know, but that one is cute. As Missy has quite possibly met any one of several violent ends, it is possible you might get a better cat out of this. If anybody calls and says “I haven’t seen your orange cat but I did find a black and white one with its hind legs run over by a car, do you want it?” you can politely decline and save yourself a costly veterinarian bill.
I knew someone who had a basset hound that had its hind legs removed after an accident and it had to walk around with one of those little buggies with wheels. If it had been my dog I would have asked for all its legs to be removed and replaced with wheels and had a remote control installed. I could charge neighbourhood kids for rides and enter it in races. If I did the same with a horse I could drive it to work. I would call it Steven.
Regards, David.

From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 12.07pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Awww

Please just use the photo I gave you.

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 12.22pm
To: Shannon Walkley
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awww

From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 12.34pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awww

I didnt say there was a reward. I dont have $2000 dollars. What did you even put that there for? Apart from that it is perfect can you please remove the reward bit. Thanks Shan.

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 12.42pm
To: Shannon Walkley
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awww

From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 12.51pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awww

Can you just please take the reward bit off altogether? I have to leave in ten minutes and I still have to make photocopies of it.

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 12.56pm
To: Shannon Walkley
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awww

From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 1.03pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awww

Fine. That will have to do.

Missing Missy Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

Wedding in Mexico Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

When I was living in Mexico, I made a very good and close friend: Efrain Berry. A few weeks ago, he sent me an email with the wonderful news that a date had been set for his sister’s wedding in Mexico; so, since it had been almost a year and a half since I had last visited, I decided to spend my weekend with his family.

I had shot a Mexican wedding before, but it took place in the States; so this time I was wondering what would be different about a real Mexican wedding. Since the Mexican are devoutly Catholic, the ceremony didn’t deviate much from what I had already experienced, the only exception was the wearing of a giant rosary around the shoulders of the couple. Another difference was in the way the wedding flowed; there was no unnecessary stress put on the timing or even in all the smaller details. The wedding started almost an hour late, in typical Mexican fashion. After the ceremony, the legal union took place at the location of the reception: a beautiful hacienda, an old converted mining location built in the 1860, located in Santa Maria de Regla, Pachuca.

I do have to admit I liked the organization of this reception much better than what I’ve experienced before. Dinner was early, around 5, and lasted through four courses until about 7 followed immediately with everyone dancing. Then, at 9, the wedding cake was served, followed by more dancing, and at 11, Chilaquiles were served. I hear the party ended at around 2 in the morning; of course, many things get exaggerated in Mexico…

Wedding in Mexico Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

Business Headshot Drew Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

Several months ago, a beautiful young couple asked me to shoot their wedding reception at Lumen in downtown St Louis. The groom Drew, is a hairdresser for L’Oreal and was in need for business headshots; so he came to me to get things done. I hope you enjoy.

Business Headshot Drew Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

West Model Francois Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx

I continue with my test shoots hoping that the people at West Model Mangament like my work enough that they’ll send their models my way. This is West model Francois, my first male model. I have to say, I was impressed with Francois’ professionalism and sensitivity, this kid will go far in life! Styling all done by the fabulous Elizabeth Turner.

West Model Francois Photo CS Photo CS - St Louis Freelance Photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx