This latest interview is with my friend Ash with whom I went to high school. I think he was a year younger than me, and we didn’t hang out much ourselves back then, although we ran in the same circles-we had friends in common, we both were in theatre classes and plays, and we both worked at the Arizona Renaissance Festival. We once drove to Colorado together.

I recently spent a day hanging out with Ash and his fiancée Kendra at the Renaissance Festival. (I decided to work/volunteer on President’s Day). We had a lot of fun, and I was reminded that people always surprise you. Ash turned out to show a super sensitive side when he encouraged a young love struck girl to forget the dumb boy that was ignoring her.

(aaaaaawwwwwwwwwww! so sweet!)

JM: Tell us a little about yourself.

AR: Oh man, where to even start?  I’m currently thirty-one.  Sorta.  I think that on some levels I’m a very crotchety eighty five or so (if I had a lawn I would sit in a chair on it with a hose so I could yell at kids to stay off of it).  On other levels, I’m about five.  Given the chance and lack of supervision, I will absolutely eat chocolate until I’m sick and I think pretty much all vegetables are gross.  Then again, I’ll always be seventeen or so . . . because boobs are AWESOME.

I live in Mesa, Arizona, which is somewhat embarrassing to me because it is the town I was born and raised in.  I always swore I’d get the hell out of here, and I did, I traveled and lived all over, but I ended up right back here and when you encounter people from high school and they say “oh, you’re living in Mesa, huh?” it’s really hard to get out “but no!  I’ve lived in California!  And Tucson!  And Denver!  And I traveled the country!  And I have a Master’s degree in obscure historical minutiae which I got while living in Scotland!  I just moved back here because I was fucking COLD!!!” before they have turned and walked away.  *breathe*  Whooo.  Sorry.  Got a little worked up.

The rest.  OK, well I work in the Internet field for a relatively large company which you’ve probably heard of (which is why I usually can’t mention it online).  Yeah, you noticed that, huh?  Get my degree in history, go to work on the Internet.  Welcome to the 21st Century.  Hey, at least there are benefits.  I also work at the Arizona Renaissance Festival and have for the better part of two decades (other than the 3 years I took off for the whole getting educated abroad bit).  Out there I am a street entertainer and an occasional part time photographer.  I also managed to meet and wrangle myself a fiancée out of the gig, so it’s really not all bad!  Like I mentioned, I also take the odd photo, but that is unfortunately rarer than I would prefer.  And that is me.  I work, I sleep, I eat things I shouldn’t, and then I repeat.  It’s not a lot, but it’s a life!

(this is me and ash, photo credit goes to David Rubinstein)

JM: What’s the name of your renaissance festival character and what is he like?

AR: Ahh, that chap would be Lord Archibald Agincourt, the Earl of Bath.  Or just Archie to his friends and his . . . friends.  He is the eldest child of the Duke of Somerset and is therefore set to be one of the wealthiest men in Britain.  Likely richer than the King (which honestly is hardly difficult these days, now is it my dear?).  Archie is only vaguely interested in all of that . . . drivel.  He is much more fascinated in what you are up to tonight.  Honestly, how are you, my sweet?  Still taking those lovely little photos everywhere?  You know, there are so many wonderful uses which you and he could put that camera to . . .
Soooooo . . . in short Archie is a professional perv.  But just a bit of one.  OK, a lot of one.  But he really is harmless.  OK, he’s not at all harmless.  But for REALS, at least he’s a lot of fun.

JM: When you were younger, your parents had you attend etiquette lessons. Can you describe what that was like and how it affected the rest of your life?

AR: I can only apologize entirely too late to those poor instructors.  It must have been frightening.  We were all thirteen and fourteen mind, so the air was thick with too much cheap cologne/perfume and barely repressed hormones, and yet all of us were (sometimes literally) scared stiff of the opposite sex.  Were the lessons still going on now (they’ve been canceled due to a lack of interest after having been run for decades), I have no doubt that things would be quite different, but back then there was an invisible dividing line between the boys’ and girls’ seats and nobody even dreamt of sitting on the other side of that line.  The classes themselves were amazing though.  Surreal if you think about it.  We had lessons on how to dance, how to ASK a girl to dance, how to eat properly in a formal setting . . . all the skills that are hardly even missed anymore but were once vital to a young person’s education.

The entire thing definitely gave me a certain perspective on life.  For one thing, it dispelled certain teenage romantic comedy myths before they were firmly rooted in my brain.  Let me assure you all, when the “ugly duckling” girl blossoms and becomes a swan later in life?  Yeah, she definitely doesn’t remember the one boy who always made sure he had time for her.  I always asked a girl (we’ll call her EH) to dance.  She was . . . large.  After about sophomore year, she suddenly became one of the major hotties at school.  Our shared laughs at Junior Assembly did nothing to make her even acknowledge me after that.  *sigh*  John Hughes, you’ve lied to us once again.

Really though, I’d say that the main thing I took away from those lessons is a really healthy respect for, well, respect.  That’s partially how I was raised (obviously, I was sent to etiquette lessons!), but we never got anything without a “please” and a “thank you,” and it drives me a little insane when it goes unsaid in the day-to-day world.  I’m not so silly as to think it would solve the world’s problems if everyone showed those small kindnesses, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt either.

JM: How did you develop an interest in photography?

AR: This one’s easy.  I was engaged to the first ex-Mrs. Rhodes (happily there’s only been one ex-Mrs. so far, but you never know) and she was a rather accomplished artist of all sorts.  She could write, paint, draw, draft, and had even had a comic strip which she did with a friend in high school.  I however was limited to stick figures.  Lopsided ones.  I was always fascinated by art in all of its forms however, and photography was no exception.  Watching her create beauty out of nothing made me want so badly to be able to find my niche.  Out of a certain naiveté, I thought that since I didn’t have to hold the actual brush/pencil, photography would be easy to pick up.  *sigh*  I got my first camera of my very own (a Nikon N75) for Christmas that year.  I probably took 10,000+ images (I don’t want to think of the development cost) before I upgraded to a digital SLR three years later using what was left of a student loan check.  I’ve been inflicting my photos on the world ever since.

So SO hard to pick one or two.  If I absolutely HAD to, I would say it would be one of them in my “Dark Portrait” series which I had to take for my first photography class (http://bhphoto.me/darkportraits) .  The first four are the originals.  They’re the four generations of women on my maternal side and then a group shot.  I continued the process for a while and still take photos whenever I get a chance.  Always the same method (black backdrop, natural light only, same camera, same lens, same after effects once I’m done).  In fact I would LOVE to shoot you some time.  Just a nice simple shot of you looking somewhat serious (if you can manage it) wearing a black top.  You’d look gorgeous.

Anyway, of those four, I especially love the one of my grandmother (this one).  I think she looks so beautiful.  I also like the one of the four together (der, this one).  That was the original inspiration.  There was once a picture of my great grandma, my gran, my mom, and my baby sister which hung on our fridge (just a snapshot), and I wanted to do an artistic recreation of that.

So there you have it.  I have loads of others, much more colourful, which I really enjoy.  In fact, that’s rather my thing.  I tend to bump the vibrancy and occasionally nudge the saturation up a bit to really make the colours pop.  Lovely.  And yet my favs are these desaturated photos.  I’m weird.

Thanks so much for this fun experience!  Let me know if you’d be willing to sit for a quick snap or two.

JM: Would you like to share an internet link?

AR: Really, I think the thing I’d like to share most is stumbleupon.com.  If you value your free time at ALL however, you will not install that on your browser.

Thanks so much, Ash, for participating in my interview series! Please feel free to ask him any questions in the comments!

Follow Ash on twitter! (he’s fallen off the wagon a bit, so perhaps this will be the nudge he needs!)

His photography website can be found here.