Blog | Jakob Berr Photography

Tonight, Amanda and August invited Taylor, Eve and me over to carve pumpkins. I had never done it before, so it was kind of exciting. I picked a skull pattern and actually succeeded in carving it out. Hooray! Here are some shots I took over there:

The one with the skulls on the top left is mine…

This afternoon, Valeria took me to the place on 512 Mary St. where Deandra Buchanan shot and killed her daughter Angela almost to the day ten years ago. She had a little bouquet of flowers with her that she laid down on the sidewalk where Angela was found. The house where the shooting took place still stands, but has now a wooden exterior rather than a brick one. It doesn’t look like someone’s living there now, and trees and bushes grow all around it. It looks kind of creepy, and I’m wondering if I should go back when it’s dark to work out that aspect. I’m kind of torn apart about it, though, because I’m not sure if it might come across as sensationalistic or editorializing. I’d be glad to hear some other thoughts on this.

I’ve done a re-edit of the story on hospice care, cutting out about half a minute and making it a little more to the point (at least I think that’s what I did…). Please let me know if you think it works better this way!

Joseph Snow, 78, is suffering from COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), an incurable, progressive lung disease that causes severe breathing difficulties. After several trips to the emergency room and a severe pneumonia that he only barely survived, Joe’s doctor told him that it was time to go on hospice, a recommendation that is usually given to patients with a life expectancy of less than six months. That was in June, 2008. Since then, thanks mainly to the competent and compassionate care he received from his hospice nurses, Joe’s condition has improved dramatically. Today, despite his still terminal condition, Joe is enjoying every minute of his life together with his wife Pat and their family. Besides their love, the great force that keeps him going is his unswerving faith. As one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Joe believes that after his death he is going to be resurrected into a cleansed earth. “I have no desire to go to heaven. I don’t know what I would do if I went to heaven,” he says. “This is where I belong – on the earth. I don’t belong in heaven.”