Old Friends — RICHARD SCHULMAN

One day I will look back on my moment making portraits. One day all of my portraits will become ashes. One day all of the people who once posed for my films or digitals will have passed.
Today my images (all 80,000) have become my old friends.
Everyday before I begin my blog, it is as if my negatives imitate dancing butterflies. Almost as if my negatives like the butterflies realize their final resting place. I dance amidst the negatives like butterflies forming a kaleidoscopic display flittering into the skies. The continuous circle vanishing breathlessly into the waning light of day. The rites of seasons live in me everyday.

Imagine a 6 cylinder car that I drove like a 12 cylinder car. Two cars in one I told the officer.
I used to drive regularly west on Sunset Blvd. Sixteen to twenty-four years of age were fun driving years. I set every speed record that I could imagine. I imagined a lot while unintentionally finding my car side wheeling while banking on Sunset Blvd
You remember when you had the wind knocked out of you. It feels like you have been punched hard below the solar plexus. You rise slowly. You focus. You breathe and gingerly move forward. The opposite occurs when you are making an accidental side wheelie. The earth spins a thousand times faster. But suddenly your mind slows and you see and feel your options. You lean to the right. The car bounces a few times. You realize you are steady on all four wheels. You turn the dial on the music up a few notches and scream; “I can do that!!!”
I was just a few years older driving west on Sunset Blvd. I was heading to the Palisades to photograph the famous “Color Field” artist Richard Diebenkorn.
I drove casually which might be construed ( in some circles) as wildly. I remember thinking that my eyes saw more on that day than ten times Ed Ruscha’s “Every Building on the Sunset Strip”. By the way Ed Ruscha, if you are reading this, you owe me a copy of that book.
I arrived:
I entered Diebenkorn’s painting space. He looked like King Richard, Richard the Lionheart waiting for one of his gallant knights to report on the Crusades. In a parallel universe this Richard was hoping I was his knight gallant. The two Richard’s had much in common. Both were stately. Both above the fray. Both comfortable in their skin. The “King” Richard I never met. But eyeing this artist Richard I can certainly say that Richard Diebenkorn was more like a gentle, kind and super smart courtier. He was like a great leader ready to pounce on anything that sounded disingenuous. He was armed and ready for a session among like minded men: Men who were curious about the art world and it’s inhabitants.
For the better part of two hours, his ears embraced everything. He wanted a report card on the status of art and artist in his realm. When I told him I photographed the artist Joyce Treiman his neighbor across the street his ears and eyes perked up. He looked like a naked Caracal Cat with Jack Nicholson’s mad man teeth from the Shining. He wanted to hear gossip immediately: “What is she working on? What a sweetheart. What a wildcat. What a terrific artist”.
Diebenkorn wanted to hear about Dekooning and Jasper Johns. His brain was filled with excitement. His earnest love and appreciation for his peers was unparalleled. Simply, his thirst for information ran through his brain as if sitting on the earth’s axis. Round and round he seamed to spin with each bit of word from other lands, (aka) artists studios.

When our shooting session was over, I mentally bowed, but physically I extended my hand in gratitude. It was a beautiful moment for me. I was in my twenties, he was just sixty. I felt as if I had just met Santa Claus in Macy’s. If I wasn’t so big I was certain that at any minute he would have asked me to sit up on his knees so we could exchange more stories.
When he died in 1993, I was sad that I had not visited him more often. When I think about him, it reminds me of old friends.

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The images below are examples of “Old Frends” and more that will be appearing in my upcoming blogs