Personality Portrait

For this assignment I had to shoot a personality or environmental portrait of someone.

Mylee Francisco has been dancing for 17 of her 23 years, but didn’t start belly dancing until she was 13 years old. “My mom was in a [belly dance] class before my hip hop class, so I had to wait and watch,” Francisco said. “I started to like it; I thought it was really cool.” Her mom told her she could do it, and she has been ever since.

Francisco said she had a lot of confidence from young age, belly dancing at her middle school and high school assemblies. “I had balls of steel,” she said. “I look back now and am like – whew – where’d that come from?"

Not only does Francisco dance, but she also makes her own costumes to perform in. She doesn’t like the current fashion of belly dancer costumes, which she said are incredibly tight-fitting and gaudy. “It’s like dancing in a platinum tube sock,” she said. Francisco said her own style is more subtle and classic, a 1960s, belly dancer meets James Bond look. The resources to create homemade costumes are vaster that they once were, she said. “Ten years ago [the costume] was like a bra with some ridiculous, gnarly-ass sequin from Jo-Anne’s.”

Francisco teaches classes at the Blue Moon Ballroom, located on Cornwall Avenue in downtown Bellingham. Her next class session begins May 10.

Icebreaker Assignment

For this assignment I had approach random people to take a nice mug shot and ask a question: "What would you never consume again and why?"

When 3-year-old Aida Ellsworth was asked what food she didn’t like to eat, she first said eggs and avocado. But according to her parents, those are two of her favorite foods. When asked again, she said salad. Why? “’Cause I don’t,” she said.

Dave Vaugns, 36, said he took a bite out of a deep-fried Twinkie at the Puyallup Fair a few years ago and would never do it again. “It was tasty, but some things are just wrong [to deep-fry],” Vaughns said. “As my friend proclaimed – ‘Yes, this will kill you.’”

Clarence Younge, 60, said he had a near fatal accident about seven years ago while eating at Cicchitti’s, a pizza shop in downtown Bellingham. “I was eating the cheese pizza, the sausage pizza; everything but the pineapple,” Younge said. Younge said he’s on medication and is on a bland diet, so he isn’t supposed to eat spicy foods like pizza. “It almost killed me,” he said. “I had to go to the hospital.”

Disposable Camera Assignment

For this assignment I had to find and shoot a picture with a disposable camera.

Bree Bachtel, 21, and Nico Gomez, 31, stop to pick up lunch at a hotdog stand located on 12th Street in Fairhaven. The owner of the stand, Cory Bakker, 40, offers all beef hotdogs, polish sausage and three varieties of veggie dogs at his stand. Bakker said his regular customers get the polish sausage with relish and mustard, while those from the East Coast make their dogs with just mustard – no ketchup. Though the polish sausage is the most popular, he said he does get business from vegetarians daily as well. “I get five to eight [veggie dog customers] a day,” Bakker said. “When I first started I didn’t have veggie dogs, but I’m in Fairhaven – I have to.”