"Children of Light"

I first photographed the "Children of Light" in 2006 and recently went back home to take some portraits of them again. I intend to photograph them once or twice a year from now on. Throughout my teenage years, I lived only a couple miles from this group of people who call themselves "Children of Light." They believe to have been supernaturally chosen and called by God in 1949. The group originated in Canada and thru visions of God ended up in a secluded area of the southwestern part of Arizona in 1963. They acquired 80 acres of land and built their own homes, planted gardens, fruit trees and live a vegetarian lifestyle. They are also "Eunuchs and virgins for the kingdom of heaven's sake." Although they are a religious group they don't claim to be a certain religion instead they say this is a way of life that they've chosen to live. Elect Star, Elect Philip & Elect David are 3 of the original 18 members who remain there. If you would like to see the photos I took in 2006 please visit www.martinezdesign.net and go to the "exhibits" section. Thanks to Sara Placey who joined me on this trip and helped w/the shoot.

–eu•nuch [yoo-nuh k]
A man who has been castrated, esp. (in the past) one employed to guard the women's living areas at an oriental court. In some societies, the notion of eunuch has been expanded to include men who are impotent with women or are simply celibate.

"Children of Light"






"Elect Star"




"Elect Phillip"




"Elect David"




"Way of Life"

DATELAND (this post JUST for you Chad!)

This weekend I went back home to Dateland to take some portraits of the "Children of Light" (which I will be posting in the next coming days). My friend Sara and I left Phoenix at 4:15am to catch the sunrise there and stayed till the sun went down. It was a long, cold & very windy day but the sunlight was perfect and made for a lot of photo opportunities. On our way to see the "Children of light" we were distracted by this abandoned marine bus and took a few shots. The 1st photograph of me was taken by Sara Placey and the rest by me.

Deerhunter / Times New Viking

A couple weekends ago I went to Modified to see Deerhunter, which was a very interesting show. After Deerhunter's set the lead singer decided to use the audience as guinea pigs for his new project which now I can't remember the name of it .. maybe it was called Slow Riding or something like that. After that very short set the band decided to all play musical chairs and switch their roles around for yet another set that they made up and got one of the girls from the crowd to sing while they played. Times New Viking played too here's some photos from the show:

:TIMES NEW VIKING:






:DEERHUNTER:

Arianna's Yearly Portrait

I have a beautiful daughter that I don't photograph enough. She was a really good sport this past weekend when I took her out to my new favorite spot and photographed her for about an hour w/out a sweater on a really cold evening, she even had goosebumps .. poor thing. She needed very little direction and mostly just did her own thing, she even suggested most of the poses herself.