Percy Shelley and Lord Byron: Rape, Murder and Greed. The Life of a Romantic: A Photographer’s Life.

I placed my hands inside the listless body atop the funeral pyre. The heart was within my grasp. I placed two hands under it and lifted the burning heart to my lips. My hands seemed charred to the bone. I inhaled the powers of another. I preserved the heart into a box. I awakened in the night: My dream, poet Leigh Hunts’ reality.

My dreams have had me wearing many guises. I always thought I was a photographer running with Kerouac and the Kesey boys on the bus. I always thought I was the adventurer Sir Richard Burton, steps away from Mecca. I always thought I was Henry Miller in Clichy. Youthful imaginations seem to give a life, promise.

When I look in the mirror I see an Irish Wolfhound/sighthound in heat. I imagine standing on the roof tops of cars, trains and planes howling. I howl to nobody in particular; But for joy. A great moment of being alive is when the secrets of hearts and minds are on the roads ahead.

“The road is where life begins”. The howling sighthound is only a guise for someone of a certain age who imagines secrets are there to be discovered.

 I have known since my earliest photographs that the destination was a forgone conclusion: what transpires would amount to great cultural stimuli. But the road was the place where the wildest of imaginations materialized. For seconds and minutes, real events, real discoveries were painted like frescos dancing in the skies.

One day I read a particular book. I can remember the premise and some particulars. I cannot remember the title or where the book hides. 

There was a death that occurred between Casa Magni and Villa Dupuy: The homes of The Romantic Period poets, Percy Shelley and Lord Byron respectively.

I was in Italy for work and vacation. I visited with friends in Lago Maggiore, Italy. For a French magazine I photographed and interviewed artist Fernando Botero in Pietrasanta, Italy.

This journey was also of personal interest. The English Romantic’s in Italy always seemed so alluring: a life of leisure and grapes from the earth. Aside, I had a more pressing motive. I could assume the roll of Monsieur Maigret. I needed to solve a murder.

For days I raced alongside the Ligurian Coast from Pietrasanta to Livorno. I would pass by Lucca and Pisa, and make the u-turn back to Pietrasanta. It  became like  a game of “Jacks” or “Pick-up Sticks”. My camera grabbed every whitecap to the west and every building to the east. Every movement had a clue to how Percy Shelley died at sea.

I reimagined the history; The moment I heard the screams from the bell-tower. All of Italy went silent. The whole country wore Caravaggio eyes. I could hear Frankenstein’s creator Mary Shelley’s dark premonitions: Murder was in the air. 

My camera has its own intuitive reflex. My camera’s film absorbed what I needed to see. My Nikon and Pentax saw prostitutes, damsels and sailboats everywhere. Ghosts hid in the shadows of the coastal architecture, sculptures and landscapes. There was an Italian whisper in every corner.

I slid out of my car as a Formula One race driver might at a pit stop. I listened to what my own voice whispered so slightly; “Just do what you are doing”. I remember what Ted Kennedy said to me. I remember what Joan Didion said to me. I remember what Gore Vidal said to me. I remember what a thousand subjects said to me: “Just do what you are doing”.

In the coming weeks I will continue with the untimely murder of Percy Bysshe Shelley.




Photography’s Voices Reveal Architecture’s Episodic Moments

Thomas Phifer’s North Carolina Museum of Art

My feet move to an everlasting waltz. My brain seems to be soldered to a shortwave radio. My mind can’t settle on a particular frequency. The loud confounding static has my mind spine-tingling like a thousand spider paws tickling all of my neurons. “Inhale” and “exhale” I bellow. I need to slow the universe down. I need the camera’s aperture to slowly capture every living moment.

Snohetta:Hunt Library Raleigh, North Carolina

When I travel to a new destination, I often ask others what I should see. I am usually in a hurry. I try to grab whatever information I can and step on my accelerator. It is not always wise for a photographer or a traveler to race through unchartered territory: There is a lot to miss. There is a lot to see. I have discovered that I should be more like an astronaut landing on the moon: set your flag and explore the universe. Time and patience might be our friends, with luck.

When in need of inspiration I search for voices across the cultural divide: Italo Calvino, Bruce Chatwin and Walter Benjamin usually stir the pot. Their observations on the banal and the extraordinaire help me see. It is not just seeing, but their words inform the way I compose myself and my photographs.

Certainly it isn’t merely three voices that I hear: I hear thousands. The poignancy of Thomas Mann’s reflections on the effects of war in Munich; or the inspirational voices among the shadows that haunt spydom’s Le Carré’s novels. Maybe it is the naked truths that sear and trigger my imagination while reading the novels of Roberto Bolano’s Latin America. It’s just possible that the imagined guttural screams  from Yukio Mishima’s act of Hara-Kari freezes my heart and soul. I am then driven. Passionate realism begins to breathe new life into my photography. 

There are  ghosts. Ghosts from our histories that I imagine hearing while I am awake and while I sleep. I may be communing with the souIs of revolutionary Russians, French or Americans. But today I hear the Confederates’ and Yankees’ shout and scream across the lands. 

Thomas Phifer’s Raleigh North Carolina Museum of Art

Lincolns’ North and South Civil War voices speak volumes about our history. I hear what I need to hear. The buildings in Raleigh, North Carolina sit miles apart. They are home to a spectacular museum by Thomas Phifer and a spectacular collegiate library by Snohetta.  

Snohetta’s Hunt Library in Raleigh North Carolina

I stand alone before my camera. My mind suddenly feels stripped bare inside the cacophonous ding, ding, ding of a penny arcade. I search for my calm of necessity: the spirited mist caresses the oceans’ white caps. I begin to make a photograph. I have a few hours to imagine how much more I will see. But Nature’s light is unpredictable. My hours may turn into seconds. If the the light vanishes, I will have to search for new ideas. I listen for the everlasting waltz.

In the end, there was my camera, a library and a museum. Voices lured me to what I needed to shoot. Voices and ghosts from unique places in my mind, in my history are always there for me. It might be the only way I can successfully articulate my visual thoughts.

Thoma Phifer’s North Carolina Museum of Art

Thomas Phifer’s North Carolina Museum of Art











The French Artist Arman: deconstructions/recomposition of objects:  Trojan War and My Soupe de Poisson

Arman in his New York Studio 1993

My mind and body raced from London to Paris to Rossiniere, and south to St. Paul de Vence. It was an exciting piece of my life. I seemed to be living a lifetime of nano seconds. I felt as if I was static. The earths’ rotation was circling faster with every revolution. It must have been a dizzying sight to see from outside the universes’ snow globe. In another way, it was like tumbling down a one hundred foot wave into depths unknown. Neptune empowered  every fish in the sea to freeze. The stars in the universe, the ocean’s stillness, allowed my mind to focus on the important things: Taking moments with my camera.

When my mind finally rationally slowed, the world slowed. I was standing across from James Baldwins’ home. I was waiting for him to peek through his window. But my taxi arrived first. The twelve minute ride from St. Paul de Vence to Vence was riddled with esses. These road trips no matter how short or long always remind me of George Orwell. I conveniently borrow parts of his titles: ”The Road to…”, “Coming Up for Air”, “Homage to…”, Down and Out…”. The adventures and the self examinations seemed to stir my heart and stimulate anything I have left in my brain.

With Orwell in mind, everything seemed to slow and fall into focus. Not just my eyes but what my day might be like. Sadly I did not know what to expect. So I anticipated the return to my little hotel on the hill of St. Paul de Vence. My favorite soupe de poisson with a saffron Rouille and Gruyère would be my reward.

Father and Son: #Antonio and #Arman Fernandez

When I arrived at the estate/studio of the famed French artist Arman Fernandez (Arman), I was greeted by his father Antonio. He walked me into the property. Everything about me seemed electrified. I was realizing that not only was my drive a spectacular visual, but my photo session was going to be thrilling.

Most people don’t realize that as a photographer in foreign territories I am alone. Alone has a massive appeal, because it is like facing a dinosaur: You only have what you know and the rest you will learn over time to fend for yourself. If you are right now asking, “Does the author talk to himself?” The answer is “constantly”.  Thank god I am the only one who can hear my thoughts.

Arman in his Vence, France studio

#Arman #artist #french

Arman introduces himself. He acknowledges the introduction from the New York Times critic John Russell. Though I have traveled thousands of miles for this photo opportunity, Arman seems anxious and in a hurry. So we begin.

The morning dew winked at me from the tops of just about every garden delight. We began our session inside one of his studios.

Most of my subjects deflect questions about their worlds. They beg me to fill in the eloquent emptiness between two artists. So I talk about the artists I have photographed. I feel if it keeps the session flowing then why not.

I continue my snippety snap snaps and share moments that I am particularly aware that Arman would appreciate: stories about New York and Andy Warhol, Cesar, Kurt Schwitters and Pierre Soulages.

After a bit of time, the father (Antonio who lives on the property) invites us for a bite. We share a cold burgundy and nip at fresh Tuna Nicoise. We seemingly talk for hours. We are acutely aware it is time to call for a taxi.

Arman leads me over to a dark wooden box. He suggests that I close my eyes and place my hands inside. It reminds me of when I was at the Menil Collection in Houston. The curator invited me to place my hands inside various Joseph Cornell boxes. She urged me to move pieces around. It was an extraordinary feeling of power and imaginary forces at work.

So here I am in Vence, France, playing a similar game. Arman suggests I pick out what I can’t see but what tactilely sensationalizes the moment. I lift Achilles’ sword from the box. Yes there is no truth in this. I am today a fabulist. But a sword I did hold. Apparently I raised a warriors sword! Why not assume it was Hectors’ or Achilles’?

Arman explains that he and many art world “talk of the town” personalities went on an archaeological dig. The dozen or so travelers brought back treasures from another time in history, from another time in fiction.

So today I won the battle. I was a photographer alone in the French wilderness. I had a memorable day. I stepped into my taxi. I began to dream of Trojans, Greeks and Persians as my taxi hit the curbs around the esses. My dream vanished like Barbara Edens’ smoke in “I Dream of Jeannie”.

I stood in front of James Baldwin’s home with my Trojan weapon from antiquity in hand. I yelled. “Jimmy I will find you one day”. I took a nice long shower. I sat sipping from my spoon a delicious “Soupe de Poisson avec Saffron Rouille and Gruyère. I dreamed of The Trojan Wars. I dreamed of  Homer’s Paris. I was momentarily Achilles. I was in the most inestimable way a chronicler of our cultural history.

One more glass of regional red wine allowed me to sleep with my dreams.



#Arman #ArmanFernandez

Fusing Architecture, Art and Design

Brancusi

“Excalibur”, I breathlessly breathed. My little feet carried me to the ends of the earth. I wielded my magical sword toward the skies. Knights followed behind me. I was Arthur, King Arthur of my backyard Realm.

T.H. Whites’ “The Sword in the Stone” has had a secret hiding place in a hemisphere of my brain. The story’s (and of course others) revelatory dreamy heroics rescued this child whenever I was in need. Every child has secret treasures hidden in one lobe or another. At five years of age one doesn’t know the secrets exist, yet.

Age five was a magical age. But for me five might as well have been yesterday or possibly today. I am still tempted to wield my Excalibur toward the skies. I dream with every breath. With every breath I dream. I hold my magical Excalibur close. Everyday I search for some magic. My camera is my Excalibur. 

Sometimes I imagine I am like towers of ice crystals pirouetting across highways and landscapes.  Refracting lights luring me towards new exploration, new discoveries. The lights led me to Artists, Architects, Designers and so much more. The discoveries led me to the art of science, the science of art. A seismic shift entered my life.

There are people who are made to explore: creators who are crossing lines and challenging disciplines. da Vinci was a unique beast. There is almost nothing that he couldn’t master. Others are comfortable narcissist. Some are bored and need to move on. Then there are those who genuinely have the wherewithal to put the challenge to the test. Plainly said, I have been introduced to some of  “the extraordinary”.

                                                                                   I Have Seen Their Secrets

#Thomas Heatherwick#London



My camera has found good fortune by luck and sometimes what might seem like a fribrillator.

When on a commission in London, I was racing with equipment strapped to my back. I was to meet a client at the London Paddington Station. “Late, late, late I screamed. Suddenly there was this Thomas Heatherwick. I had left Heatherwick’s office the day before. I had a list of his “pieces” locations. Here I was just about running like Buster Keaton smack into his sculpture.

Out of breath and late. My mind begged for a fribrillator. I knew I had to shoot it and sacrifice my appointment. I snapped and screamed again; “I can make it, I can make it”. A bit late but there I was.

#HerbertBayer #Artist

I had spent a shooting session with Herbert Bayer. He had suggested that he would like to see what I come up with shooting his outdoor pieces. My life was about knowing his photographs. But I was to discover his brilliance on a Los Angeles boulevard by accident.

The music in my car was caressing my temples, soothing my angst. Traffic was one thousand cars trapped fender to fender. My first Bayer appeared suddenly. It was strange, bright and waving hello to my camera. The light  turned green. I selfishly stood up in my sun-roof. I held up a thousand cars while a snippety snap snap snapped. The fm radio cranked. I breathed and thanked a million motorists. 

#VitoAcconci #Tokyo

Vito Acconci was known for his performance and installations. While shooting his portrait I told him about my book. He stood away from my lens and said;” Please shoot my store in Tokyo. Please  include his Tokyo architectural design in my Portraits of The New Architecture 1 book.

Tokyo was new to me. I was lost. It was my last day. I had so many things to accomplish. But I promised I would take a look.

Tokyo is not a city one can cross on foot. But run I did. From one corner to another, from one ward to another I ran. Yes the train or a taxi might have worked out better. I thought I was near. But being wrong isn’t a terrible thing in a new city. I felt as if I had my face in the middle of  Hallmark flip cards. One hour later I stood in front of my Acconci. For me in that moment all of the sweat that poured across my forehead was worth it. I stood, framed and made my Vito Acconci. I was proud. I never learned if he was.

My subjects have sought the special in the ordinary, and have made the ordinary extraordinary. 

#RossLovegrove

I have engaged every moment as if it is my last. There are only so many moments in a lifetime. What does it say about the curious: those who investigate possibilities.

My camera has been in thousands of moments where the fusion of art into science, design into art, art and design into architecture. Then I rewind. I replay every moment that  has shattered my expectations

My friends Greg Lynn and Ross Lovegrove have enabled me to tackle their brilliance.

#GregLynn #sailboat

Or in their words: “do whatever you want”.  My camera slows the earth’s revolution. My camera stands front and center. My mind sees the extraordinary in the ordinary. My camera wields like “Excalibur’ to illuminate their magic.






















Stairway to Heaven: Mahler's 9th meets Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Page

#artist #RobertRauschenberg


I have often danced naked atop the white cresting waves of the the “Seven Seas”. I have often used the moment to assimilate sailors climbing the rigging to get a better look at land “ahoy”. I have often wondered what the Blue whales thought; as massive waves draped them. The waves rise and fall

I am still atop.

The people who have lived in front of my camera represent moments. I estimate that I have had more than eighty-thousand moments in my photography days. I have always wanted those memories to reflect on my kinship to Don Quixote. More and more I feel that I have married the sensibilities of two women; Patricia Highsmith and Flannery O’Connor. I have read thousand of stories. But only these two women shake me throughout the night. It is not merely the words, but the darkness within their light that stirs me.

I read something about Mahler near his death. He was composing his “Symphony No. 9”. He would beg for silence. He would  plead for quietude. Each note had to be heard separately from the one before and the note that follows. I breathed. My god, that is like my 6x7 Pentax shutter; so loud, and separate from all other sounds; Until it goes off again.

I have always understood Highsmith and O’Connor to manipulate their words and provocations in the same manner as Mahler’s “9th”: A quiet power reigning over our minds.

Jimmy Page stood. A single chord was heard around the world. The opening chords of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” followed. My fingers flailed on to my computer keys like a turtle swiping at the sand preparing to lay eggs. Mahler, O’Connor, Highsmith and Page gathered in my dreams. Mahler and Page stepped a minuet.

Not a day goes by without a vigorous repetition of “Stairway to Heaven” dancing in my ears as I write. It is almost my personal anthem. My headphones will swear by it. When my ideas get strewn throughout my brain, I begin to hear Mahler’s “9th”. It slows me down, paces my thoughts. Maybe it is me imagining wearing Mahler’s long black tailcoat atop the ocean’s waves that bolsters me. I am cautiously focused. “Stairway…” still plays on.. Somehow, someway the song helps me write about a life lived. It helps me see the artist striking a pose, It helps me see the light that bends buildings. I dream about many things.

Lately I have been dreaming about many of the artists who have stood before me, and now have passed away. I think that is where the words of Highsmith and O’Connor come in. There is so much grand storytelling to do. But a shock of life’s expectancy carries the day.

#Artists #AnneMadden and #Louislebrocquy

The artists Anne Madden and Louis Le Brocquy entertained me one afternoon. My camera made sounds. It was there wonderful raconteur that I remember as their accents lilted through the rooms.

The art critic John Russell had introduced them to me. He warned me to beware of their mystical transcendence.

I left their place late afternoon wondering what had happened what was said. Mostly I remember my smile. When I received their invitation to visit a summer in France, I guessed that all went well with our session. 

When I met with the artist Jack Tworkov, his studio was filled with art and barely a whisper. There was something painfully empty in our moment. Maybe it was our age differences. Maybe our histories didn’t mesh. Just maybe something was amiss. When he invited me back for drinks and cookies, I guessed that it was a very good session. Why wouldn’t I want to share time and try and add a voice to an empty room.

#artist #Jacktworkov

The life photographing artists was obviously a ton of fun. At first so many were much older that I was. I felt that death would catch them before I saw them again. Even when the sessions were electric like with Bob Rauschenberg who was mostly like an “African grey” on steroids. I loved every minute of his scat. Maybe I was impressed with a refrigerator filled with Sake. Maybe it was sharing the sake.  I wondered if that glorious day was the last.

When the sessions were my final moments with art stars and excruciatingly talented men and women who lived a life just to be an artist, where is the down side. 

Philip Pavia asked me, “ How long is a great life anyway?” The voices keep coming at me from every direction.

I keep fielding them in my mind because they are like Odysseus’ sirens reminding me of the days…

#artist #Philippavia




#artist #PhilipPavia

I Can See the Secrets: Road Trip

Noguchi Cube New York City

My life is a massive road trip. Every single day of my photography career has been a road trip. Every single day of my career has been a day that I have seen what I have never seen before; Think Hopper, Nicholson and Fonda; Think“The Lost City of Z”. Take a moment to measure the full moon. Take a moment to eye the sunset and sunrise along the horizons. The enormous collection of adventures, has influenced my manner of taking pictures.

I begin everyday as if it is the “Ruy Lopez” Chess opening. It is among the most famous chess openings for a reason. The discipline plays daily. Begin your day with an opening move that will prove successful. Then imagine the next twenty-five moves before sunset. It is merely what is essential to being a photographer.

I took the 6 train to Fulton Street. An early morning assignment landed me at Broadway and Fulton Street/Liberty Plaza. I walked slightly out of my way to revisit Noguchi’s Red Cube. The Cube is something to commune with. (I have communed with the works by Alfred Stieglitz, David Smith, Jean Tinguely and one thousand more creatives.) It is like having a conversation with Noguchi’s ghost from another time. He was brilliant. I photographed him twenty years prior. Dancing with his ghost is an essential Merlinesque moment; The magician validates my existence- Linking the years past and present together. Standing alone in the skyscraping wilderness of Manhattan can bring out the dreamiest thoughts and sightings. Celtic Faeries often appear in every nook and cranny along the avenues.

I left the “Cube” and strolled. I felt a bit empowered as I stepped onto Pine street. I knew I was entering foreboding glass towers. I could see them waiting for me. But what was next, what might my next move be? My dreams are filled with oddities, but they are my realities.

Harry Cobb: Bank of China #BankofChina #HarryCobb #PeiCobbFreed

                                                 A most endearing memory 

Many significant architecture firms were in downtown New York. I.M. Pei, Harry Cobb and James Ingo Freed were a major firm. We scheduled three one hour sessions over a few weeks. Each portrait session was a magical meeting with a gentle giant. Each architect was sublimely extraordinary in their own way. When you consider their success and influences, it might seem as if they were matched through algorithms. Each was unique to the core. Each was a champion of their own work. They were a force to wrestle with. I adored each session.

#IMPEI I.M. Pei

I am always the guest. So over three separate sessions almost like with “Stepford Men” we chatted. Legs crossed, a cup of coffee in hand and my time face panicking in my heart. Three intriguing architects held me spellbound. In each case almost to the minute I had to interrupt a beautiful mind. I needed to pause in order to make a picture. I would need a lifetime to entirely enjoy their gift’s. I needed to recall a lifetime of photography to make a bit of magic in fifteen minutes. Wow, those moments caress my heart.

A few minutes past the hour I headed towards the FDR Drive. It was a walk I needed, to separate a photographers’ dream from the shutter screen closing. The portraits were seemingly fast as a thunderclap. I knew I was finished but what was I to make of the day. I might exhale if my eyes could see the thunderclap.

I headed north. I gazed east towards brick faced housing projects. My camera snapped towards broken down cars. My camera gazed west towards midtown bridge suspensions that carried promise. Abbey Lincoln’s “Let up” whispered. 

I arrived home with Pei, Cobb and Freed completed for my book: “Portraits of the New Architecture.

It would be hard to imagine 7,500 days just like this one.




#HarryCobb Harry Cobb #architect











A Symphony of Artists: How I Found My Sway

Robert Mangold #RobertMangold #artist

                               A Man in His Own Heaven

 I was younger than young when I began entering the studios of artists. You should have seen me. I stood six-foot-three and as they say in the NBA, “ready to go to the hoop”. 

My time on the streets of New York was focused on carving out a career as a photographer. My playgrounds in NYC were never traditional. They were habitats of others.

I felt as if I had on elevated “toe shoes” when I entered Willem de Kooning’s studio. My gawky gait wouldn’t suggest to anyone that I could dance in the ballet. Nor did I ever own a pair of toe shoes. Psychologically I tried to imagine a more suave presence. It didn’t work. The church of my new life was suddenly overwhelming. My shoes were whispering for me to relax. Not only was de Kooning among the most famous living artists, but he was my first recognized portrait.

#willemdeKooning #artist #abstractexpressionsism

I cannot overstate the feeling. I felt as if I was in an unparalleled universe ala Marc Chagall’s floating dream. Profoundly religious air made me timid and alive. I was handling paintings and sculpture by the most famous artists. That day I caressed de Koonings’. The gods of modern art were waiting for me to make my camera go “snippety snap snap snap”. I was entering a description of my descriptive memory.

My memory of photographing artists is like a  Queen bee or a  Beyoncé  BeyHive; remembering the names of the 80,000 or 80 million worker bees is impossible. Yet the stories never cease to enliven my day. If I were to die after my last artist portrait, I would say that I died “a man in my own heaven”. 

I lived in the church of art for ten years. 

I found something as a photographer. I realized at twenty-five that if I could hear the music, I would find the picture. I started not only to see, but listen. Listen to what the artists’ shared but also listen for the music. The words, the music, the space and film became my own Rubik’s Cube.

I  have continued to spin for forty years. I am not Yo-Yo Ma.

One evening I was making snaps of Yo-Yo Ma. I asked him when does he practice. He said that he performs Three-Hundred and Sixty-Four days a year; That’s his practice routine. Now of course I am no Yo-Yo Ma but I have never missed a day even taking a snap.

Photographing artists’ lives has been a symphony of amalgamated sounds. The studios neither resembled a Sunday Gospel nor any diagram of lines and spaces on a musical stave. Music became my preeminent way of movement towards my subject. Music became  my preeminent way of comprehending where I was. Music became my “ Star Trek”: “Where no man has gone before”. Music traveled through my eyes and into the moment. If you have known hallucinogens in any context, then you know.

Sandro Chia (who I have photographed three times) always had something echoing through his vast studios in New York and Italy. David Salle who posed twice was master of the classical seduction.

Jeffrey Koons and Robert Longo tunes had bombastic bass drums influencing something.

Hockney was losing his hearing, but his Mendelsohn rested my soul. The temples of Reuben Nakian, Larry Rivers, Henry Moore, Claes Oldenburg, Rauschenberg and hundreds more echoed sounds of change. This very young naivet was along for the ride.

#JonathanBorofsky #artist

#Robert Therrian #Roberttherrian and #Juliabrownturrell

One day, I photographed Jonathan Borofsky, Robert Mangold and Robert Therrian. I realized there was a certain photographic motif reigning in my world. It was time to step aside and move on. I was done.

I left their studios with a little “Cheshire” from ear to ear. Ten years of photographing artists was an incredible introduction into the church of art, and the music that developed my photographer’s sway.

#peterBlume #artist #american #surrealist

Marco Polo Knows


The name Marco Polo has been positioned in my brain since I was a toddler. The shallow end of the  Las Vegas Tropicana Hotel pool was a playpen for the most spirited “Marco Polo” splashers. When you heard “you’re it”, little people with piercing screams scared the bleary eyed at the craps table. I was one of the screamers.

I can’t remember when I first dreamed. But I can absolutely agree with myself that cinema’s“ The Great Escape”, “El Cid” and “Godzilla” had a lot to do with it. I was once that young.

My enthusiasm was/is always maxed out when watching “against all odds” characters. I too imagined a career challenging great odds. I imagined seeing the great wonders that had not been seen. I was “Huck Finn”. I was “Kim”. Yes I was even Robert Mitchum in “Out of the Past and maybe even “Mouse” in Mosley’s “The Devil in the Blue Dress”. For two hours on a screen or hundreds of pages read I can walk in step with great fictitious characters. I wanted to be them if only for a moment.

Great wonders may be far and away, or they may be something small and intimate. When I became a photographer I discovered the hinterlands. My hinterlands were places across the continents. My hinterlands were spaces rarely visited. My hinterlands were unique conversational exchanges. My hinterlands were moments that a brief snippety snap snap snap produced a lifetime of happiness. When I returned from the hinterlands I had something to share.


                                                         Experiences May Lead to Privileges

The real Marco Polo crossed the hinterlands to meet and greet the great Kublai Khan. The job I wanted was to march across continents with Ghengis Khan. But Kublai Khan will do. I imagined Marco in the guise of Gary Cooper’s euphonic telling of his visits to the hallowed grounds reigned over by Kublai Khan. I imagined George Barbier as the great Khan. I imagined the great dance between the two cultures. It is what I have dreamed about for decades.



Jean Michel Basquiat in Warhol’s studio

Today I look in the rear view mirror. I can see Andy Warhol whispering significant nothings. He stood nose to nose making sure I knew what he needed. I stood with politicians. Most were sure I knew what they needed. I stood in grand rooms with art collectors. They knew I knew.

The intimate moments, my dance with Khan’s from another time was a blessing of experiences. But who might I share this with?

I stood in the middle of the earth one morning. Samarkand was not the middle. But I was alone with my Pentax. More importantly I was alone with beckoning mosques. I felt the chattering  voices espousing their fervent devotion. They sounded like a gathering of nations, but in my passionate ears I listened to the pitter patter of idle children. But who might I share this with.

I was invited to photograph the art collector Baron Von Thyssen, But who might I share that moment with.

Marco Polo had nations to share his stories with. But when I look back I held up my images as if a jeweler might hold up a new found stone of distinction. The sparkle in his eyes, were like mine. The stones’ colors dancing in the light were like my projected images against naked walls. The beauty was in the moment, but who might I share that with.

#JohnRussel #NewYorkTimes #artcritic

and

#RosamondBernier #Art #Artlecturer

One day the New York Times critic, John Russell and his wife Rosamond Bernier invited me to their home. Nips of scotch in sublime silver goblets touched our lips. A few hours later, I realized what a web of intricate cultural design looked like.

I will never be Marco Polo, but I have volumes of memories to share.






#RichardSchulman #SaintPetersburg#Russia

#Yusuhara #YusuharaJapan #Japan

Old Friends

#RichardDiebenkorn #Artist




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.

:::

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

#ARTCRITIC #ARTLECTURER #JohnRussell and #RosamondBernier

#Artist #NamJunePaik

#artist #RobertMangold

#artist #BruceNauman

#Artist #WayneThiebaud

Secrets told to me by Architecture and Portraiture

#Guggenheimmuseum #NewYork #FrankLloydWright

PHOTOGRAPHY IN A FRENZY


#AndreKertesz #Photographer #photography

I walk through the doors of history. I empty my camera equipment. My subject raises an eyebrow or two. I began to waltz into position. I wish I had had the guts to do the Watusi. 

My heart beats. My eyes spin. The atmosphere is one of composed excitement. My eyes were fixed into the gaze of Andre Kertesz. Kertesz was one of the world’s great photographer’s. My heart paused, the shutter clicked. The quiet breeze that prevailed was as close to a death knell as I have stood.  Kertesz’s life with us on the planet was to soon pass. 

He lived a great life until he didn’t. He migrated from Budapest to Paris and landed in New York with more creative energy than most. He ended up a disgruntled artist who felt his fame had been taken away from him. He could not understand what it meant to be forgotten. He spent his last years alive asking “what happened?”.

For two hours Kertesz dissected his life in photography for me. He loved his work almost to a fault. In some ways he was as admired as Picasso. But when  he came under the wing of Alexander Lieberman. Then the story becomes he said, she said…and the truth will never be known.

I knew Lieberman and I knew Kertesz. The verdict is still out.

My time in his studio felt like a mentorship. He wanted me to understand who he was. He wanted me to understand the life of a photographer through his eyes. Today my work reflects his in only the manner of exploration. If I were to credit anyone with the expression “angle of repose”, I can remember John Ruskin’s writing. But I can also hear Andre Kertesz’s accent purring with urgency the benefits of those words.

When the session was completed I asked Andre if I could have the photograph on the wall. He asked me why I would want that one. I told him because the “Dancing Faun” reminded me of how I wanted to travel across the planet; dancing like a free spirit. I never got that picture. But it is probably best. If you knew me and my mind, you might realize that I crossed the planet more like a “Sally Lightfoot” than “A Dancing Faun”. 

My frantic mind has always treated  photography like a racing contest: How many seconds does it take to process ten-thousand  memories into one single frame. That is what it feels like I have been doing since my camera started chasing Sanderlings across Southern California beaches.   

Architecture has kept my photographs honest. I remember telling Frank Gehry, that if it wasn’t for photography, he might not be famous. Photographs share subliminal messages. The architectural designs are usually pronounced. But no pronunciation is valued without exclamation points.

A photographer nurtures the light as if in a Petri dish. The lens bends to bring the image to life. In the Petri dish we see through the evolution of light and chemistry something like a miracle. Then we manner the image. That is the way of photography that is the view of architecture.

Sometimes the architecture of museums look as if they are mausoleums, crypts, and tombs.The museums  are homes to  magical séances, whisperings between the dead. Their stories are life experiences. Imagine the Prado at midnight: Imagine a bromance between Goya, Velasquez and Picasso. The canvases are interlocutors for their stories and their egos. Only the grand spaces can be home to history’s conversations.

#TheTateModern #London #Herzog&deMeuron #Architects #Architecture

The whisper starts. The camera sets up before the museum. The museums beg for a kiss but the film may only caress its veneer. It is a romance that begins with perceptions. How does the camera, lens and film perceive personal narrative that derives from the architect and the spatial footprint. What speaks to the camera. When do Louis Kahn, Frank Lloyd Wright and Herzog & de Meuron whisper to me “shoot Richard shoot!” “Never”. I have seen Frank Gehry react to photography. I know at some point that at the very least the architects will allow me to whisper among them.



#KimbellArtMuseum #Dallas #FortWorth #Texas #Architect #LouisKahn

Bruce Goff #HardyHolzmanPfeiffer #LosAngeles #LACOUNTYMUSEUM

GUGGENHEIM

The Designs: Plus Bearded Monkeys and More…

#Cesar Pelli’s #PacificDesignCenter Detail #Los Angeles

#MartinPuryear



The truth lies in the experience. Once your eyes vanish into history’s mirror, you will never see the world as you once knew it.

For many years I felt like I was dancing off a Brownstone stoop like the photographer Helen Levitt’s masked children. I was alive and anonymous with camera in hand. The “Whole Earth Catalog” and the universe it revealed between covers was my world. Everything that was here, there and everywhere was a magnet to my lens. But then, like a symptom of “Sleep Apnea” my world froze. In one of life’s infinitesimal hellos, I realized what about photography mattered. I was seized, and motionless by objects to behold. The deepest imaginable inhale placed me seconds from faint. My camera goes “snippety snap snap snap”. The “snap” can change your life forever.
Thousands of designed objects that measure our world history have held my gaze for almost one half century. My camera affixed to my hand, I stand eyes awaiting, adjacent to Frank Gehry’s Disney Hall in the rain. I stood elbow to elbow with many Oscar Niemeyer’s and Zaha Hadid’s. I drugged every living electrolyte in my body as I married my mind to Louis Kahn’s Bangladesh National Parliament. I ran naked around an industrial warehouse in Shenzhen, China. My heart paused in London one day while inexplicably witnessing the best designs by Ross Lovegrove, Ron Arad and Marc Newson. The camera lingers near the Architect Cesar Pelli eyes. He wondered what I might do with his Pacific Design Center. Every architect is cautiously curious to see what my lens might see.
Every single moment alone with my objective camera is my experience that marries my eyes to my past, present and future visual endeavors. The lessons learned from my deep water dive into my archives are that my photographs unbeknownst to me are immersive in design. Thousands of eyes pose for me. Thousands of places await the “snap”. From portraits, to architecture and anything realized with my camera is about design.
It is truly scary to know that your brain has independent functions: one oblivious to others. That moment when you realize that you were not merely photographing China, Turkey, Bangladesh, India, France, Italy or America. I was photographing every standing object in optical arms length.
Somehow I think my visual agenda was initiated by some sort of dance with psilocybin and the written word. The literary quadrants that inhabit my mind have clearly influenced my brains intersections; Tolstoy intersected with Hemingway; Flannery O’Connor intersected with Edna O’ Brien; Gore Vidal intersected with Christopher Hitchens; Geoff Dyer intersected with Walter Benjamin, and Joan Didion intersected with everyone. Every image I have made is inevitably connected to the existing quadrants, to my past and what the future holds.
The moment I realized Neil Degrasse Tyson and Richard Schulman were on the same wavelength: (Neil wrote about “Thinking about objects through time”). He mentioned the Brazilian capuchin monkeys making tools. My mind flipped to “2001 Space Odyssey”: One troop of monkeys attacked another with weapons that were bones. I couldn’t help think about the simplicity and history of tools as objects of design. I must have thought about Neil Degrasse Tyson’s essay while being airlifted into the clouds above Brazil?
We all wonder where we came from, where it all started. I always suggest Walter Benjamin’s “Arcades”. My images reflect his stroll, his memory as flaneur visiting galleries that have disappeared but once held a reflection via mirrors of windows into a history; a history that only exists in books, art and design.
My heart breaks when I feel constrained, when I realize I can’t expose all of my eighty-thousand images in one grand narrative. My heroes, Fenton, Marville, Brassai, Brandt, Koudelka and and and Also designed their imagery. So I follow in the line of two hundred and fifty years.
The bearded Capuchin paved the way for design, and image makers like myself just let the camera go snippety snap snap snap.

#Shenzhen #China #Industrial #warehouse

#MARCJACOBS #Jaklitsch #Gardner #Architects #Tokyo

#RENZOPIANO #TheShard #London

#DonaldJudd #Art

The Red Balloon and Hair beget David Bowie

#AlexKatz #artist #RedBalloon



Sometimes when I recall my past, my mind shifts to an underused overdrive gear. It makes

my brain feel like a giant balloon thrusting, squealing, whistling helium like a spirited banshee. My eyes then partner with ten thousand bunny rabbits dancing the watusi. 

I search deep into my hippocampus. I espy amber like prehistoric DNA detected naked under a Madagascar lava rock or possibly a millennium of Antarctic ice tundra. Everything I wish to see is archived in my brain and coated virtually in my lens. I merely need a jolt or a tickle to awaken the vault. So I begin.

When I was a little boy I dreamed of dreams that would follow me.



Some of my most inspired film negatives come from my sessions with artists.  My memories of Alex Katz and Jim Dine reveal my sudden awakenings and link to Nadar’s potent history in photography. My Alex Katz portrait begged for a single element of color in his studio. I placed a forsaken red balloon in the window. Katz paused and asked if I was a fan of the movie “The Red Balloon”. I certainly wasn’t thinking in that way. I was merely recalling the dozens of frames of artists in which I included an article of red in the frame. I was simply thinking about imitating Yves Klein’s artist leaping from the balcony. I only wanted a question mark to rise into the viewers’ mind.

Looking around Alex Katz’s New York Soho studio, one would undoubtedly feel the space needed a pulse. Alex’s art was/is about the amplification from within. The red balloon always felt like a gentle nudge, a mild absurdity that still screams Yves Klein.

I love Hans Bellmer’s La poupèe series. The series reminds me of the friendship between the artist Jim Dine and RB Kitaj. I traveled to conquer London’s art world so many years ago. I made about one hundred portraits. Two American artists captured this young naive photographer’s heart. The predictable artists’ garrets were merging my present with the ideal  of lives of the artists. 

#JimDine #London #artist

Like Bellmer and his niece (the raison d’être for his poupèe series) the two famous artists were a wall apart. The two were anxious and  fabulous. They would listen for each other’s footsteps. Ears attached to the wall, jealousy and paranoia prevailed like school children tattletales. Bellmer’s issues were more of a sexual nature. Dine and Kitaj’s were infantile and speculating. The two artists were brilliant and interesting. I was merely the photographer.

#RBKitaj#artist #art#Americanartist

one of four Jim Dines I made over a decade

#JimDine #NewYork #Artist

Jim Dine’s art piece titled “Hair” became the titular musical famously alive for the Aquarius generation.  Most second half century musicals were measured by that generational success.

My red balloon is a surreal cadence spoken in the church of Katz. 

The 1956 short film and the lofting color red remind me of a time when I was young and I could playfully morph into that child.

Artists in my time reached for something J.M Barrie wished for all creative stylists: a bit of pixie dust that allowed everyone to fly.

Shall we sing:?

“lets dance

Put on your red shoes and dance the blues

Let’s dance…” 

David Bowie

#JimDine #artist #art #London #american

#AlexKatz #Americanartist #NewYork Art

  My Eyes on the Art World.  How Did I Get Here From There and Back

Sidney Janis: Extraordinary Art Dealer

One night while dreaming about nothing, I realized I had inadvertently stepped into a ballroom dance hosted by Scientists and Sorcerers. Is there such a thing as a reality check occurring in a dream? They were odd consorts, but I was beginning to realize, that a “Rubik” mix of diversity is what made New York so unexpectedly exciting.

The very next day I received two commissions: One was from a scientist who was developing a laser for the military to shoot down enemy planes. The second commission was to photograph twenty-five famous art dealers from New York and twenty-five famous art dealers from London.

I cannot show you the laser pictures because they belong in the category of UFO’s abound. But a 3 person sampling from the 50 art dealers is a breeze.

The day started out looking like Thomas Edison’s master plan for illuminating all of New York City. A wave of circuits quietly coming to life across the city’s morning rise before the grid exploded tickling every sleeping feet in the metropolis. 

I stood on the North-West corner of Fifty-Seventh and Fifth Ave. It is among the most remarkable corners in the world. Behind me sits Bergdorf’s. East of me sits Louis Vuitton. South-East sits Tiffany’s and South sits Bulgari. The cacophonous New York norm was about to envelop the city.

I seemed to reach to the skies and touch the floating holiday snowflake hovering above the four corners. Could New York’s  world be mine. It sounds a bit like a science fiction conjuring with the help of a friendly Merlin. But my realities are almost always married to some kind of futuristic dreamscapes. I can’t fathom why my brain works that way.

Art Dealers have a bit of sorcery in them. They seem to magically make art desirable to the world. It is odd how some terrible artists become famous. But a bit of sorcery goes along way.

I remember listening to a dealer one day. He was explaining to a client, how fabulous the intentions of the artist were. He said to the client: “Now just watch this canvas. You will be startled to see the transformation of the artist’ palate change before your eyes. Now just watch the canvas. I am going to turn the lights all the up. I want you to see the colors as bright as possible. Voila! You see how yellow the yellow is with the lights so bright? Now I am going to dim the lights. Now pay attention! Watch how the colors remarkably change when the lights are dimmed? Now pay attention!! Voila! Can you see how the yellows in the painting have changed? That was an impossible feat by the artist! Like magic he transformed the colors before your eyes. All you have to do when you have this painting in your home is make certain you have a dimmer switch. You will then be able to entertain your family and friends with this same remarkable reality the artist has created. You cannot forget the dimmer switch!”

Arne Glimcher: Extraordinary Art Dealer

Three Generations of Art Dealers:

My day With Sidney Janis, Arne Glimcher and Mary Boone was another reality. But instead of mumbo jumbo from a conning art dealer, their conversations with me were about artists who transformed the idea of artist in the second half of the 20th century.

Sidney Janis shared his heart on his sleeve and passions for Pollock, Guston. Kline and Motherwell. Arne Glimcher was a listener. He wanted to know about me. But he also wanted to know what I thought of Louise Nevelson, Rauschenberg and Dubuffet. Mary Boone was raising the temperature in the art world representing Basquiat, Bleckner, Fischl and more. The dealers talked about art that mattered. They talked about the present state of art as it spoke to the past and the future. All I had to do that day was follow their lead and listen.

My early days as a photographer of people are remembered by me almost as an apparition. The days were so remarkably real. They were so long ago it is hard to believe how illuminating those moments were for me. How the days and sessions affected my perspective and emboldened my march forward is amazing. It was just a day with three remarkable art world movers and shakers that spilled over into a lifetime of memories.



Mary Boone: Extraordinary Art Dealer

The Blank Canvas and The Vanishing Artists

John Baldessari

“AHA”.

Upon exiting the studios of artists,  I felt like the great tenor, Enrico Caruso indelibly printed on a celluloid sheet manning the helm of Fitzcarraldo’s “Aida”.  My personal dreamscape seemed like  thousands of capillaries steering their way across avenues reaching from New York, Paris, London and Moscow. They obliged my temporary reverie as stand-ins  for Werner Herzog’s “Fitzcarraldo’s” Peruvian Amazon. I was emboldened. Caruso bellowed, I bellowed, thousands of jungle species quivered; we all  listened to Verdi’s Rigoletto.  

My cameras have made portraits from Harlem, to the Lower East Side, across to Soho and TriBeCa. I have looked south from NYC’s 95th and 5th, west from Long Island City across the East River or across the Atlantic from trains heading south to north and east following west. Visceral thrills made a home inside my heart. I realize pictures in my mind every waking moment, and most often asleep with my dreams.

Richard Serra

My artist portrait series began, with two reins held like divining rods guiding me like parallel forces towards the most significant art world of my times. In one direction youthful brilliance artists like Keith Haring, Jean Michel Basquiat stood before me with galvanizing energy ready to slash and cover canvases with tantalizing exuberance. In another direction aged artists: Moore, Masson, Miro, and hundreds of aged maestros fifty and sixty years my senior frailly looked to challenge their waning faculties unless  they were lucky enough to take a bite from the heart of Picasso: “Age only matters when one is aging. Now that I have arrived at a great age, I might as well be twenty.”

My vanishing present/past seems to race towards a far horizon like  the speed of two chickens feigning orgasms

When I was impressionable, I wanted to be on a page inside Joyce’s Ulysses and feel what it was like to dance the dance with Joyce’s imagination. I wanted to be on a page of  Homer’s Odyssey sensationalizing epic adventures. I wanted to be on a page inside Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast, mingling among the interesting. I wanted be inside Proust’s mind while he remembered “A Remembrance of Things Past”. I wanted to be among those who told the stories about lives lived. Those factual fictions belong to others. I belonged more to the school of Walter Benjamin’s “Arcades”: Not a story but the Bible on seeing photography. The Parisian Arcades held stories of relics from our vanishing history. I realized my vanishing past too held stories of another history: The history of artists. I photographed  a legacy of creators. I remember holding their hands. My camera held the stoic gaze of fantastical beings. They are vanishing. Their remains are hidden like whispers inside my archives.

Brice Marden

The archives define me to some degree.  I rise every morning as if I am in a hurry to meet and welcome my friends past and present on the playground. Many had famous names: Miro, Johns, Warhol, Moore, Haring, Basquiat, de Kooning, Noguchi.  Less famous: Pavia, Cavallon, McNeil, Tworkov, Pepper, Graves  and thousands more are part of my history. The memories and images are my historical artifacts. I celebrate the living past in the kindest way.

Old Friends

I remember photographing Keith Haring. One half dozen images later I was done. There was an assembly line of photographers almost like paparazzi waiting for their turns. They sat with a dozen cameras and a thousand rolls of film. Nobody knew that Keith’s flame was about to be unexpectedly extinguished. While I was putting my equipment away, Keith asked if I was finished and do I need anything else? I looked at him, and the painting behind him. I took a quick two step to the canvas, and slid the back of my hand across the finished work…and sauntered out. The artist posed. I stole a surreptitious caress. It was the only way I could say goodbye to the day.

I have teetotal-led and exhaled a few cigarettes with thousands of people. I have become acquainted with what the last breath might look like. Yet I always snapped just the few needed frames and left the session behind me and marched forward like the ambitious misguided dreamer  Fitzcarraldo.

The blank canvas was something the aged struggled with. I always thought of a blank canvas as euphemism for a rallying cry: something to challenge my day. My life has been imbued by life experiences. Shooting portraits produced indelible images that brandished my life’s visual sensibilities. I celebrate the fascinating chaos that it was,  like surfers stepping into liquid.

Keith Haring

Me, Mark Twain, Jackassrabbits, Baseball, Santiago Calatrava and The Museum that Flies

Milwaukee Museum of Art

I began to run. I imagined I was a combined  Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams from Chariots of Fire  “Chariots of Fire”. I wasn’t serving or chasing God in any fashion. I just  needed to run faster. I was in a race against the clock. My head flailed, and my hair flapped from side to side. My legs felt like they were hurdling Maya Lin  “Wavefields”. The summer heat, the sweat, every pore of my body was working overtime. I leapt one more time and stopped.  My lungs were protesting. My heart pronounced “finished”. I was processing that I had arrived. I let go of two fifty pound camera bags to the ground.

Was previsualization to become a reality? I ran to the museum entrance. The sign said “closed”.

I saw my reflection. “Lamentable”. I looked like Mark Twains’ “jackass rabbit”; “… three feet long, has legs like a counting-house stool, ears of monstrous length, and no tail to speak of. It is swifter than a greyhound, and as meek and harmless as an infant”. { Mark Twain, “Roughing It”}

2003 was my “jackass rabbit” year. I covered more than  fifty thousand miles without exhaling. Today I had just completed photographing a couple of projects in Chicago. The summer in one of my favorite American cities can be painfully hot. With every step  I felt the need to shield my head and eyes from a sun I couldn’t see. I ducked into the shadows. I stepped into air conditioned  spaces along Michigan Avenue for a reprieve. The heat made the the gods laugh across the universe, “we are going to fry another one”.

Burning and sweating I began to reconsider my options for the rest of the afternoon. Option One: I could have a couple of martini’s and explore the city at night.  Options two: speed up to Milwaukee for a dream assignment: Capturing Santiago Calatrava’s Milwaukee Museum of Art take off like a bird across Lake Michigan at sunset. I mistakenly hopped on to I-94W at rush hour. The two hour drive turned into four hours. I pounded the steering wheel. Air conditioning blasting, windows down, heart afire.

Interior Milwaukee Museum of Art

I arrived too late for a twilight shoot. My museum had its wings and beak tucked away for the evening atop the lake. I stood in place for quite sometime. I imagined I was a rookie baseball player arriving to the “SHOW”: (To get called up by an MLB team, you need to be the highest-rated player at your position). I made a quiet pirouette. It allowed me to take in the magnificence that will be a glimpse into tomorrow’s future. I need not be reminded that every time I make a photograph, I am blessed. I hardly remember what boys and girls dream about. Sports, photography and life come to mind.

I checked into my hotel. I had my last meal before my performance. I sat in the window looking down the hill towards my tomorrow’s moment and sipped a few cold drinks. I felt like one of those summer “Magnum” photographs of New York summer tenement images; sweltering heat pervading every breath. I scanned the immediate Milwaukee signage; Harley Davidson, Pabst Blue Ribbon and more.

My motivation today for tomorrow was enlivening the reason I became a photographer; something was out there that needed a “snap”. It ain’t like hunting the wilds of Africa or…But I do like knowing that the word “anxious” sits inside my head every moment I am a photographer.

Morning arrived. I grabbed  one hundred pounds of tools and ran down the hill.

I set my position and mentally knelt in prayer. If the wind was beyond specified knots, the wings would not open. I was a one man wall preventing any tourists from stepping in front of my viewfinder. I heard a powerful “OH”. I turned and there were my wings rising. The great engineering 

feat unfolded before my eyes. My camera had seconds before I could not hold off the massive group of people who wanted what I had…and then one hundred people poured past me.

My prize was inside my film.

I went home that day to New York. Days later I was fortunate to get past Santiago’s “Gatekeeper”.

We spent 3 hours talking about his work and my experiences photographing his working more of my journeys. He gave me a few treasured gifts. I left his home for mine. Years later he trusted me with a secret that I have kept for almost twenty years. His works have intertwined with my life as a photographer for most of my career as a photographer. In a way, Santiago Calatrava is to the twenty first century what Mark Twain thought Baseball was to the nineteenth century: 

Baseball is the very symbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming nineteenth century.” -Mark Twain

Portrait of Santiago Calatrava at home

New York Oculus and WTC

Oculus Interior

Celebrating Barcelona Olympics 1992


Turkey on the Rise: The Cats of Istanbul and more...

The last night I played spin the bottle:

I remember leaving the party. I started to walk home like Jim Hutton in the movie Walk Don't Run (1966) -. By the the time I was a block away, my gait morphed into an Usain Bolt imitation. I was running  through the dark streets as if a thousand shadows were chasing me. It is a neverending out of body experience to recollect the fears of a child… I was eleven.

When one is young it might be uncommon for a rich imagination to recall the Bible’s gentle mentoring about magical truths: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,…” It would be  appropriate for young and old to consider while traveling the unknown. 

Magical truths have lured me towards life’s possibilities in ways Monty Hall game show contestants dreamed what might be behind curtains One, Two, or Three? 

Today while chasing more important magical truths hidden among the shadows, I realize my photography empowers me to walk alone with no fears, along thoroughfares and into darkened alleyways. Bits and pieces from that childhood remain.

Photography Visual Mentors:

I can sit in my apartment window everyday of my life as if my camera, soul and eyes have been transported into the  Edward Hopper canvas:  “Red Painting Woman on Bed Looking out the Window”. My body remains still. My eyes are like a hawks’ panning the horizon for something to eat for something that matters.

I can imagine making hundreds of photography books by merely shooting from my window overlooking a specific New York footprint. I would hardly need to move a few small measurements from my windows to capture a hawks’ meal with my eyes and camera in place.

 “It doesn’t matter that the psychology of my photography or Hoppers’ psychology are not as one. But the nature of this youth evolving into a visual person and marrying the light and shadow living inside a Hopper, is scary. Yet it is the bedrock for what I need to be apart of my everyday. 

As we landed in Istanbul I asked myself why I need to travel on to far away continents. An immediate answer might be the excitement one discovers when you land in a city married to its rich ancient architecture, and the architecture of the living and what may become.

I soon found myself stepping down from the unique enclave “Akaretler Row Houses”.  I could almost smell the Bosphorus Strait as it posed almost like a periwinkle sand painting framed  against the hills of Europe. I saw the Bosphorus Bridge to my right, the Sultanahmet Palace to my left and seemingly all the significance of Istanbul as I was descending  tap dancing down an imaginary double helix stairway from antiquity into modernism. The twisting breezes stirred me as I stared across the “Straits” white caps.  Europe and Asia were connected like ascending/descending landscapes. It  was mysteriously exhilarating.

I felt a cinematic pull from John Ford’s and John Waynes “The Searchers. I felt a similar pull from David Lean’s and Peter O’Tooles “Lawrence of Arabia”. (I have used these films for prior visual support in my blogs). Each film has crucial narrative moments of tremendous expanses. The films have contributed to my raison d’etre as a photographer. They confirm for me that without going forward you are not traveling you are not discovering. They allow my sensibilities to share a wee bit of bipolar sense: Hopper painterly truths on one side, and heroic cinematic sequences on another.

For me to conquer Istanbul I would need all the visual mentoring I could conjure up.

As I met the Bosphorus I heard the chants from the Minarets all across Istanbul. It was one of the few times that the sounds passing through the skies pillowed my anxieties. I remember once in Samarkand, Uzbekistan the chants airing on whacko static speakers made my ears feel like they were being boxed by punctuated cacophony all day long. But today’s Islamic tranquility chanting begged for calm. I began to think about pictures.

My Istanbul expectations were high. For the weeks I was there I was bowled over by the exceptional. It seemed that all of the relics of Turkey’s ancient history appeared to be present in my mind and eyes. In a glance, all of Istanbul felt like one Grand Bazaar begging to be discovered. My camera found the contemporary and the ancient, the charm and the magnificent. But my lens seemed to rest on mosques and palaces and the trappings of hundreds and thousands of years before this day.

Ancient markets ancient prisons are the discovered luxuries of the adventurous mind. Rugs, and tapestries, were hidden in plain sight under every artifact overwhelmed by man made dust and dust accrued through the centuries. Your eyes move furtively through the Bazaar, furtively through the streets, furtively behind every window display, furtively under every stone you step upon. You want something you didn’t have before. You want a piece of someone’s past and your present. You know the game: You discover something in the present to show someone in the future about the past. You travel to see what others have, how others live, but you might really travel to discover something about yourself. The vault in your mind is waiting to be unlocked to lock something anew inside.

 It just might be the “Hookah” talking.

Istanbul’s Colony of Cats:

 Black Cat by Rainer Maria Rilke 

“…She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen

into her, so that, like an audience,

she can look them over, menacing and sullen,

and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;

and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,

inside the golden amber of her eyeballs

suspended, like a prehistoric fly”.               

On our last evening in Istanbul, we sat listening  to film noir jazz in a stylish Turkish brasserie. We had a terrace view of a landscape and evening lights. After a bit, the owner brought us a couple of glasses of wine to compliment what we were already drinking. I invited him to join me and my wife for some wine.

We shared our dining and wine experiences with him. He said that we had an exceptional itinerary.

We told him our  adventures had so many unexpected wine and culinary pleasures.

We raved about walking the streets and the pure pleasure of discovery.

Then we mentioned the cats. Cats live on every doorstep, windowsill, rooftops,and a host of unimaginable comfortable spots that clearly say, “Do Not Disturb”.

If George Orwell had visited Istanbul I might imagine a book title something revolutionary: “The Rise of the Cats”, “Humans Beware”, “The Rights of Felines”.

We chatted a bit about the history of cats among the ancients and in present day folklore.

We mentioned that from our dining table, we could see what looked like thousands of cats that seemed to call the park their home. We wondered what the residents of the homes along the park thought about the smells and noises. ( I personally love cats) but the pure quantity was astonishing.

The proprietor said, that the cats are almost like citizens. Nobody bothers them and they don’t bother anyone…”though”.

There used to be the town crier. He ranted and raved about the cats. He tried to get the cats removed from the park. He went to the government. When they would not help him, he took matters into his own hands. He carted away and tried to kill as many cats as possible.

When the local residents who lived along the park or used the park for activities got wind of this story, they were furious. One night they took matters into their own hands and ambushed the “town crier”. Most people suspect that retribution was in order. The man was never seen again. You might imagine what happened to him. The story had some frighteningly similarities to a number of historical troubling events. The owner swore the story was true.

Why do I mention this story?  It seems like it might be analogous to an “ Aesop's Fables ” or “Watership Down “, ”Animal Farm “, or a dozen books by Gabriel García Márquez 

The magical truths may be just outside our front door in the safety of what we know. It is likely that the unimaginable stories will occur while traveling afoot crossing new boundaries.

New Blog: Los Angeles is a Giant Gated Community that in Some Ways is Akin to JK Rowlings "Fantastic Beasts..." Meets Thomas Pynchons' "Inherent Vice

Howard Hughes Studio

Howard Hughes Spruce Goose Hanger

Los Angeles Mural

Ed Ruscha

Writer Michael Crichton



When I hear Alicia Keys Symphonized “New York, New York” I automatically replace New York with “LA LA”. And sing it. LA is really the city of dreams. It is where you go as if you are John Wayne and Ward Bond in “The Searchers”. You are on a journey for destiny. Thank you photographer Edward Curtis and Director John Ford.
One day my arms spread east and west, and my head rotated from to north and south. I needed to see and touch the ends of greater Los Angeles from Thousand Oaks to Riverside to Anaheim to the Santa Monica Ocean. The present history is about to vanish and I needed to touch it and live it. Sometimes I realize I am living too fast like a whirling dervish dressed in a blur of spiraling symmetrical pastel patterns. A photographer has to take a deep breath and merely snap. Not spin like a top.
One day I imagined standing hand in hand with Howard Hughes. Who else but history’s Hollywood icon would I want to be with? Where else would Hughes want to be other than at his 700 Romaine street Hollywood studio. The address is only a bit more than a hop skip and a jump from the center of the universe. There is a plaque in Franklin Canyon that marks the center of Los Angeles. The center of the universe for some is Los Angeles.
Late one morning I headed north from Romaine to the Formosa Cafe with HH. We gazed out over the city’s “Fantastic Beasts”: Los Angeles is a panoply of fantastic desirables roped together. It feels like the seams are coming apart in the worlds’ largest gated community. Cars sped by like cattle herds freed from fenced in pastures. I realized I had to get a move on, there was so much to see with very little time. My good fortune is that my photography agendas take me to every corner and all of the in between in Los Angeles.
In LA I see myself as a searcher: Japan Town for Frank Gehry, Venice for Greg Lynn, Culver City for Thom Mayne and Ed Ruscha, Downtown for Lita Albuquerque, Malibu for Lynn Foulkes, Sepulveda for Richard Meier’s Getty, Brentwood for Michael Crichton. I am really like a cast member in Ed Ruscha’s book “Every building on Sunset Blvd”. Racing through the city I always have Ruscha in mind. I would stop in the middle of the street for a snap of something I didn’t want to miss. I would hold my camera through the sun roof snapping at what I thought the camera could see. It is what a shutter-speed is for.
One day I remember taking a photography break in Echo Park. I was watching the birds and the boats in the pond. I had my feet up like Lewis Carroll sans Alice. In that momentary mind bending bucolic setting, I leaped up and said I am not here for rest and peace, I am here to race on jet skis across the city and capture, capture. So I raced to Richard Diebenkorn’s home in the Palisades, and raced to another portrait session and so much more snapping. Still I can hear the symphony of “Keys “LA”. It all makes sense. The spurts of flaming madness trying capture the city’s more than 500 square miles with all of its “Fantastic Beasts and destinations was driving me crazy.
In some way I was trying to emulate Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne’s weekend sojourns through the undiscovered realm known as Los Angeles. Their journey was to see what the city looked like. Mine was capturing what artists, architecture and streets and parks and memorials and all of the physical I could see.
I always feel as if I am running a steeplechase when I land in Los Angeles. Thinking back on all of the cities I have been to, I realize that is my Modus Operandi. I cannot settle for a mere portrait session. It is not enough to merely have my camera define the dream of architecture. I must walk further, I must drive further to capture what I need.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I just want to park my brain where I hear Keys sing “LA” and I move on from Howard Hughes to Thomas Pynchon and his “Inherent Vice” denizens and meet up with with Billy Bob Thornton’s Goliath and call it a day.


Detail of Frank Gehry’s Boat

streets of LA

Richard Meier’s Getty Museum detail

Greg Lynn and family

DownTown Public Library

Venice Mural

Something I Have Seen in Architecture

Sir Norman Foster Gherkin in London

“I am the Empire at the end of the decadence.”

(Paul Verlaine)

Godzilla’s image is a reflexive reminder of things past. My photography reflects in the smallest way Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past”. It seems almost impossible to mention the future past without mentioning Proust.  I saw Godzilla when I was four or five. That joy and horror stamped across my eyes remains a constant reminder of the visual impact that all creative efforts need.

Generations disappear, legacy’s impact remains.

The bible seems to play a small role in my collective archives. There is always a “beget”. Like babies airlifted by storks in Walt Disney animations, one architect begets another and as soon as you know tribes are founded. 

Architects are sometimes like  “birds of a feather…”. They are in constant motion, creating legacies and  histories. Their present is a link to our past and to our future: they design the footprints for our lives. Their constant motion is an attempt to create different ways to accept and apply new spaces. It is almost like watching a new embryo grow in a Petri dish.

I have photographed hundreds of architects and thousands of examples of their works. But what is the most compelling, is that like embryos, the architects ideas and concepts start with their own personal  “Oz”.

The United Nations and more…Oscar Niemeyer

Oscar Niemeyer in his Rio Studio… A most magnificent day

Le Corbusier and Iannis Xenakis 1958 Expo Philips Pavilion

The genius ideas of Corbusier, Mies Van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn and more are generational giants who hover over contemporary giants  and who in turn share the past and like great mixologists creating patterns of change for the future.

Naïvely I have asked every living architect I have met: Who are your heroes, who are your mentors? Sheepish responses break the tensions between strangers, but something remains: The four names above are connected to almost every voice working today. It is just possible that there might be a few who hesitate to utter Oscar Niemeyer.

I have learned the architects yearn to meld their fresh ideas into intriguing concepts until yet again a new brood assumes the leadership. The embryo continues to produce  new generations, children from our past become the mentors and the cycle continues.


The Aged Architect


I don’t know our built empire well enough to critique it. Sometimes I see work that fails to live up to what I embrace as greatness. Sometimes there are secrets to why an architect may fail to live up to his/her reputation. Maybe the work is hindered by money constraints and  money overlords.

I remember a very famous architect  breaking down and crying while relating a story about a patrons abuse. The architect knew he had something special. He knew this new design could become something to appreciate for quite sometime. The patron ridiculed and abused the architects character and design. The work became harnessed with restraints. The work never became the great ideal.

The powers that sometimes rule over the creative genius who sometimes resides in chaos can be demonic. The architect an aged giant  became a child and teared up, he felt remorse for sharing the intimacy. But with all my heart I know the intimate share allows me to appreciate the visual experience in a new and evolved way. I can shift the share to my lens. The voices of all architects and architecture became motivational. I now see beyond the facade of the man or the work. And try and infuse my pictures with the layers of others.


Edward Hopper

Ricardo Bofill Barcelona


I find myself feeling “Hopperesque” looking out at the world’s great game of architectural “Blitz Chess” filling the city’s footprint. When a commission or a great day for photography is not in my calendar, buildings old and new seem to dance in my sights. Tall ferocious structures, seem to reign. Old Lillian Gish like brownstones hold court while others decay. Somewhere tall sleek and new to town rises a thousand feet into the sky.

Architects are amazing creators. Every fete creates new challenges for the next new design. After awhile the conversation turns to the new theoretical children. Their legions begin to move up life’s ladder. From my vantage point It is exciting to observe. The personal and public narratives get a bit louder. Decades pass and new conversations arise, new embryos, and a new favorite child is born.



Herzog and de Meuron sit atop Anish Kapoor 56 Leonard Street NYC

The Growing Menagerie: The Shah of Iran's Physician's Son, The Impressive Lillian Hellman and the Lives of so Much More.

Joan Didion

I remember a 1980’s commission to photograph the impresario and manager Dee Anthony. He was a modern Oz looming over dozens of performers (Grateful Dead, The Who, Peter Frampton…). The client he had in his fold that day was the entertainer from Australia Peter Allen.

His apartment  collection of accolades that were plastered along his walls and ceiling was the best part of the session that afternoon. When I was finished, Dee suggested I go across the street to La Goulue. “Tell Jean Denoyer I sent you”.

The East 65th street La Goulue Restaurant was as trendy as trendy could be. On any afternoon between 3:00 and 5:00 You might see Jackie O, Catherine Deneuve, Joan Didion, Peter Frampton, Springsteen and a host of personalities from the townhouse set.

This first introduction for me had my eyes filled with stars. I suddenly felt like Bernard Malamud’s protagonist, Roy Hobbs. Roy stood admiring the field, dreaming and demanding to being the best the “Game” (Baseball) had ever seen. Surrounded by New York chic royalty, my camera in hand like Hobb’s baseball I thought I might be the next photographer…

Standing in the middle of the restaurant I began to dream a bit as I made like Baryshnikov in pointe shoes, spinning with a dream of destiny in mind. I quickly wiped away the fairy dust from my eyes. No Roy Hobbs here. All these years later, I realize that I am merely a good photographer who wouldn’t trade this impossible life for anything else.

Later that night on East 65th street and fifth ave. I was sitting in the library of the Shah of Iran’s physician’s son’s apartment.

I initially thought my evening could be a share about life with the Shah and Persian secrets.

The night was festive. My host noticed me swirling my ice sans scotch. He offered me a refill. He noticed I was staring at his library. “Are you pleased?”. That is sort of like asking a pig if he is pleased with his “sty”.

I was bug eyed over his walls of books about Hollywood. My host was ga ga over Hollywood. 

A once very handsome man, he had stories about starlets, Orson Welles and more. A life/career in Hollywood was not to be had. The Persian hand back in Iran was mightier than the passion. It is not that he suffered, instead, homes in New York, London and more seemed to comfort his lost youthful dreams.

My host noticed that my eyes rested on Lillian Hellman’s “Pentimento”. I mentioned that it was Pentimento and later Gore Vidal’s Palimpsest that I wanted to marry in style to make my own book: Reflecting on a life lived, and the people that made  life rewarding.

My host was so thrilled to hear Lillian was one of my favorites. Before I could begin sharing my enthusiasm, we were told to finish our drinks, because we had reservations at La Goulue. When I had told him I was introduced only that afternoon to the restaurant he looked at me as if we had been friends from another life.

Denoyer was very excited to see this group, and of course surprised to see me again.

The focus on Hellman was certainly a terrific dinner conversation. Hollywood and favorite personalities and movies also filled in the nights chat.

Later that night when all the guests began to leave, for some reason my host said, “I have a feeling one day you will have a menagerie of experiences to share. Your contribution to the evening was special. We will be friends for a lifetime”. 

Jean Michel Basquiat

I never saw or heard from my host nor his guests again.

Today I might recall  Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi. “Rumi” said “If you find all your roads and paths blocked, “He” will show you a secret way that no one knows”.  Who knows, just maybe in hindsight that day and night experience might have been eerily prescient. Possibly part of an imaginary witches brew that set my destiny towards amassing my menagerie of dreams, people and experiences. Maybe that fortuitous evening was part of a larger plan. I have no god in my blood but just maybe “Rumi” in my heart.

When I walked home I began to dream about what it might be like to be photography’s Roy Hobbs. Youthful aspirations has a way of confusing dreams from reality.

Where do I see it all come together? Do I begin with Francis Bacon screaming on the phone where to meet him at the “F..kin bar. Maybe when the Surrealist Peter Blume peed in his pants from laughter when he heard me shrill in horror from the shock of lightning hitting so close to his studio. Maybe de Kooning greeting me like long lost friends. Maybe it was my Hockney and Tchaikovsky moment. Maybe the night I got stoned with Jean Michel Basquiat and shared a bottle of Russian Pepper infused Vodka with him. Maybe it was the novice in me believing I could drink five glasses of scotch by noon with the famed art critic Clement Greenberg. Maybe it was imagining  photographing Philip Johnson naked posing for my camera. Maybe it was Oscar Niemeyer’s holding my hand down on the sheet of paper while while we  made a drawing together. Maybe while standing in front of Louis Kahn’s Bangladesh National Parliament Building, or one thousand other pronounced moments when I realized my dreams of grand experiences can come true.

The maybe’s are legion and delicious to remember. They have allowed me to develop an empirical observation of the human condition and collect a menagerie of visual experiences that have supported a lifetime of dreams and recollections.




David Hockney

Louis Kahn’s National Parliament in Bangladesh

interior of Parliament

Revisiting Kyiv’s Babyn Yar

Russian Orthodox Church

I stood atop the Babi Yar monument, alone.

I remember I had arrived at the Kyiv train station from Moscow during the spring of 1985. The early morning hours are never my favorite. My sleepless ride made my muscles feel like a bunch of listless pillows fading left and right.

I was there to make portraits of Ukrainian cultural elites. My handlers, a communist Russian and two Ukrainian associates met me at the station. Upon greeting me, they immediately said that they wanted to share a special moment with me before my portrait schedule began. Because I am Jewish they thought I might find this particular slight detour to be a treat. They wanted me to see Babi Yar.

I was curious. My mother’s father had told me about Babi Yar. He was born in the designated gray area “Beyond the Pale” (pale). He wanted me to visit to search for long lost relatives. He knew the geography and the time would not permit. But he yearned for the notion of his past if only to dream in the moment.

But in the moment at hand it was as if one saw Yo-Yo Ma naked on the stage with his cello. I would want to know why he was naked merely to get to the crux of the matter. I could always listen to his performances another time. I needed to see Babi Yar. I could then think about its significance in the  aftermaths… It is not a perfect analogy, but the spectacle of the moment jolted me out of my morning slumber.

Our car arrived. The three suggested that I take the walk alone. I appeared from behind the trees tiptoeing above the blades of grass. I stepped up to the monument wondering if I might be trespassing. I was the only person within view. I began to realize that in that marriage of seconds the universe was revolving around me and then stilled.

The writer/poet  Marianne Moore had once said that it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing, but you cannot stand in the middle of this. She was referring to the seas. I was clearly in the middle of something, maybe middle earth for all I knew. Before and after that very real moment, life and death’s “Two-Step Dance” has never haunted like it had atop the Babi Yar monument. 

For too many seconds I felt as if my mind was locked inside one of the exhibition displays at the  Musée Dupuytren Paris. I stood in place and felt the earth tremble under my feet. My immediate nightmare was to wonder how many souls were still alive. Am I traumatized today? Maybe. I don’t live inside a nightmare, a nightmare does not live inside of me.  But a certain triggering brings me front and center. Even two to three shots of something strong does nothing but intensifies the waves of anxiety that are cornered somewhere in my cranial nerve networks.

In all of the years since 1985, it has been something like a nervous tick that comes and goes. When I read about the bombing at Babi Yar just the other day, I saw everything I never wanted to remember, and so it goes.

In the past when I recalled the stories of the Germans taking aim at their Jews and prisoners, I have tried to imagine the space between the rifles clicking before the silence. I thought their might be a horror, a frozen moment. How do you hear silence.

Just maybe an analogous image might be the 1820 attack on the 87 foot whaling ship, the Essex. When the 85 foot sperm whale breached at the hull of the ship, the survivors recalled the screams when the whales’ nearly 6 foot wide eye peered over the hull and then the silence. Nobody heard the whale come crashing down nor the mayhem that followed.

Detail Babi Yar Memorial

Days later I visited the Russian Orthodox Church in Kyiv to photograph the Easter services. The Patriarch greeted me before services began. He made me promise I would make very good pictures.

He was told I had quite an experience at Babyn Yar. “Maybe because you are unshaven, but it seems you have regained your color. I am glad you have had success here. We will drink some wine following the services and I would like to hear about all of your experiences in Kyiv”.




Artist Eugene Gondietz

soprano Tourchek

conductor Tourchek