Bobbi Stamm. Canon 5D mark ii

As promised, I finally put the Holga down to play with my new Canon 5D mark ii which has been sitting unused since I bought it in March. I think it’s fitting that the first image I’m posting from it is of my stepmom Bobbi.

Bobbi Stamm came into my life when I was so young that I can’t ever remember a time when she was not there. She married my father when I was seven years old. We lived in the San Fernando Valley of California. She turned the garage into a photo studio. She made a darkroom out of a tiny closet just off the kitchen. There was always the distinctive sour aroma of chemicals when she was working. I remember scorching summers where she would be in that closet for hours. She would emerge drenched in sweat with her black and white photos developed and printed. When I was a teenager Bobbi showed me how to shoot and develop film. She taught me how to work the enlarger and how to dodge and burn photographs by waving our hands around beneath the enlargers light, manipulating the way the image was exposed to the print. She was the first photographer I’d ever met.

In January with help from my brother I was able to go to New Zealand to see my sister Shawnee. Due to the advanced stages of her cancer, I thought this would be the last time I’d ever get to see her again. The visit was amazing and emotional, life changing really. When we said our goodbye’s at the airport, both of us crying, Shawn said not to look at it as goodbye, but I think both of us suspected that it really was our last moment together.

Thanks to Bobbi, Shawn and I had a chance to be reunited last week! Bobbi had won through her work a free trip and hotel accommodations to anywhere in the world. She chose to give the prize to my sister so she would have a chance to come out to California and spend some time with our Dad who she hasn’t seen in years. This amazing selfless gesture suddenly prompted a thrown together family reunion.

Bobbi has truly been an inspiration in my life. I remember as a kid her telling me that she didn’t want to replace my mother. She said that she would like to be my friend. She helped me through so much as a teenager. I remember us having long talks in the car while she drove me around Hollywood. Well, actually I remember myself talking, about school, music, movies, comic books, girls… pretty much everything. She was always there to listen. She was always giving her time to me. I had all these ideas that I’d bounce off her. Ideas for stories and plays, or movies that could be made some day. She’d always react by saying, “Do it!”

Now in her sixties, Bobbi is still one of my true inspirations. She’s non stop! She works full time during the day, and at night she works in Hollywood’s theater community. She acts, She sings, She dances, and she helps produce small plays around town. For as long as I’ve known her, she’s never once in her life stopped being creative or stopped helping others with their creative projects. In so many way she’s helped to make me who I am today. I’m so honored and blessed to have her in my life as a friend and mom.