Last November, during the LEND A HELPING CAN Radio Auction, I offered to get a tattoo and have a listener get one as the same time as me. Our friends at Vital Ink were IN as soon as the words left my mouth! Vital Ink has done work on Roadkill forever, and some of Kayla's as well and I've known them for a long time. So - Tom, the listener who won the auction, and I headed over the Vital Ink Tattoos in Barrington NH to get the work done on Sunday.
I said from the start that I was not getting a giant tattoo, because that just isn't me. I had an idea of what I wanted, but didn't tell anyone what it was.
So - heres a video we put together of the whole thing today to kind of take you along for the ride....
Tom and everybody at Vital were awesome. We had a lot of laughs, and it didn't even hurt. I love how it came out too.
Tom had several designs for me to choose from, but I wanted something simple. Just like it is on the camera. If you watched the video, you know why I chose "f/8" as the tat I wanted. It's the aperture setting on a camera that controls how much light gets into the lens. F/8 is the setting at which you often get the best focus on your subject. There's a saying called "f/8 and shoot" - and it means that if you set the camera to that setting, and just shoot, you're likely to get the best focus. And like so many things I've learned in photography - that's kind of a life rule for me: remember to balance light and dark - or good and bad- when you want to get a clear, focused view on something.
I didn't want to get an eagle (like so many thought), I wanted a message that would serve as a reminder when I saw it. A reminder of how to view all things.
So there's my long answer of why I got the tat I did. Some may think it's bullshit, but they'd be wrong. It's not to me.
Here's a couple other pics -
It was nice of Roadkill and Kayla to show up to support me! (Did I say "support"? Haha- I meant MAKE FUN OF ME!!! haha)
And here's the first stencil Tom made up for my tat....
Just a LITTLE BIT too big...haha'
Tom's a master, by the way. Very informative, and he lets you know everything he's doing and why. We had a lot of fun and the tat came out just the way I wanted. Simple, but cool.
Thanks to Tom, Eric, Lindsey, Candace, Gabe, Kristina and Mark from Vital Ink for the day, and ESPECIALLY to our listener Tom (the guy without a shirt, he was still getting worked on when we took the pic) for donating a lot of money to help feed families in need!
Fun day. And unfortunately for the world, now that I have a tattoo - they apparently are no longer "cool". According to Roadkill.
(Have I told you how much I dislike that little prick? haha)
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