The Red Dress

Cleveland Photographer photographs red dress 7Artistic works are filled with images of women in red dresses.  We are not talking about the red in the movie “Annie” that signifies the exuberance and hope of youth.  No, we’re talking about the seductress Charlotte in the movie, “The Woman In Red” or the woman that Chris de Burgh longed for in his song, “The Lady In Red“.  Sociologists call it the Red Dress Effect, where women automatically seem more appealing because of the effect of red on the subconscious, the more vibrant and bold, the better.

Cleveland Photographer photographs red dress 8Cleveland Photographer photographs red dress 9Cleveland Photographer photographs red dress 12The reality is I don’t think that Renee gave critical consideration to the implications of red on the unsuspecting public.  In my mind, La Modèle en Rouge, saw a beautiful dress in a store window and thought, “the only thing that would make that dress better would be me in it!”.  Tell me what you think, was Renee right?

Cleveland Photographer photographs red dress 11Cleveland Photographer photographs red dress 6Cleveland Photographer photographs red dress 10Cleveland Photographer photographs red dress 14

Health is a staircase, not a doorway

Tim Smith smiling

Tim Smith and Kim
Tim and Kim look over the flavor intense sprouts. Various sprouts provide a new year around crop for CGP. Soon sprouts will be available to restaurants and the general public.
Zoning laws in Cleveland allow chicken aiding CGP in becoming a multi-opportunity urban farm
Zoning laws in Cleveland allow chicken aiding CGP in becoming a multi-opportunity urban farm
Tim Smith and his chicken
Celebrating a healthier and thinner Tim!

The guy in the photograph above is Tim Smith, and one of the reasons he might look so happy is that he’s changed his life for the better.  For years, Tim has been promoting healthy eating through his urban farm initiative Community Greenhouse Partners, (CGP) in Cleveland’s St. Clair – Superior district.  Now, Tim isn’t just talking about healthy eating, he’s become a living example of health by losing more than 80 pounds since the fall of 2015.

As the face of CGP, Tim’s two-pronged approach of educating the public about the importance and viability of locally grown food, as well as producing products for market, took a lot of effort.  The CGP campaign also took a toll on Tim’s health; as a Type I diabetic and weighing more than 330 pounds, health problems would often hospitalize him or have him recovering for extended periods of time.

After health screening and clearance in the fall of 2015, Tim underwent one of the most extreme elective body modification surgeries, a Roux-en-Y laparoscopic gastric bypass.  Now, Tim is physically limited to the amount of food he can consume, because surgery has reduced his stomach to the size of an egg. This food restriction, coupled with regular exercise, puts Tim well on his way to next weight loss goal, losing 100 pounds.