A Conversation With Myself: An Urban Safari

March 16, 2023

Silvetti and Machado: One Western Avenue at Harvard University

The life of a photographer in architecture is equal to a safari, an urban safari.

The imaginary landscape comes into focus. For a few minutes or a day I am Clark Gable in Mogambo.

It is not the acting or the cinematography that lures me to the screen. It is the sounds of the urban wilderness that alerts my eyes to the limitless unknown: The crackling sounds of man or animal in the midst, the howls of man or animal in the distance. My riveted but vulnerable imagination explodes. The sounds draw me to what I might see, what I need to see. I am on the hunt for an assigned agenda. But I am also hunting for the unexpected.

Imagination is my tool. I use it to explore. I use my imagination to make something more than what exists: something real and new. I explore the possibilities of photography in life and in architecture.

The most profound awakening: Photographing architecture is a brew of the loneliest and most exhilarating moments.

When you make a portrait there is a game that is played. It is fun and rewarding.

When you visit museums there is another game at hand: The viewers engagement in the dialogue between generations of art and artists: That is a great game as well.

But architectural photography is about the quiet luminescence of space. It is about the adventures of an “URBAN SAFARI”: It is a quest to reveal the secrets of history; The secrets of architecture.

Imagine reclining in a toddler’s bedroom: Ceiling mobiles and lights depict the stars of the universe.

Imagine reclining in a planetarium: The galaxies’ stars seemingly perform for our eyes.

Imagine the quiet of sound, the vastness of space, the notion of being alone.

Then there is a whisper. It is a whisper that I alone can hear. Because it is my dialogue with myself. The absurdity and the frightening notion that not another sound can be heard, but my own imagination tangling with the vastness of space and the reality of what my photograph may be?

This is how I stand before a building; This is how I set out to discover architecture.

I set out to see Silvetti and Machado’s One Western Avenue at Harvard University. It was an early Urban Safari for me. All I had was an address. All I knew was that I was about to see the spectacular. I was hoping, because there are no certainties.

It was something the architects chose for me to photograph for my book. I arrived. I stood alone. Minutes seemed like hours. What was I to make of this “catwalk”, this bridge. I had nobody to talk to: And so I composed.

A few weeks later I was on a train from London to Manchester. Daniel Libeskind’s the “Imperial War Museum North, Manchester, England awaited.

The train felt a bit like the puttering boat that Bogart and Hepburn road in The African Queen: It was a pleasure to feel the winds in my hair. What would I find? Something spectacular? Or something less than the hype?

The museum sits alone across a bridge from the train station. My english is good, but it “ain’t” Manchester English. I walked alone with few to talk to. A pub and a beer relaxed me a bit. Maybe a fantastic moment was near?

Alone in a foreign country or alone at a major university, I might as well be on a safari in Africa yet alone an Urban Safari. Safaris are journeys. I always embrace new moments, new travels.

Like all adventures the trick for a successful journey is to return with an accidental capture.

Strolling the streets of New York might be someone’s idea of a carnival life. But it too remains as quiet as a concrete jungle at night: as quiet as a river at night: as quiet as a safari at night. Yet all three have something in common; There is a whisper that alerts the camera to go “snippety snap snap”. The Rosehill building was not a choice, but the angle of repose needed to be realized.

All of the above is akin to my living history.

Film's Slow Demise

March 09, 2023

Rafael Vinoly

I have used film for my photographs for five decades. Film always reminds me of books I have read.

The memory of a book on bookshelf is a connection to things I have learned the things I have seen, things I have felt. One book cover allows me to recall a hundred parcels of passages that were meant for just my eyes, just my heart.

I can look at my acid-free photography archival notebooks and speak about each frame hidden among them as if the photo was made today or fifty years ago. Each transparency has a ten thousand word essay attached. My memories go places that are clearly present. The memories take me places so riveting that I can feel a hand I touched or see the color of a sky that I have not seen in decades.

When people die who have lived in my archives for a day or a decade, a part of me vanishes into a Bardo or a free ride along the River Styx. Funny, never above the clouds.

The lives of others live in some form of chrome: Kodachrome or something grander or even smaller. The life of others Iive with me every waking moment.

When the great Fred Astaire died my mind hovered somewhere, recalling the lunch by his pool. When the great Gene Kelly died, I just kept thinking about the hot dog barbecue I did not attend.

The events seemed insignificant at the time; But time changes the way we see our past, present and future in mysterious ways. Sometimes the emulsion shifts on those chromes, the memories remain,

They are life builders: Some of the most significant days of my life.

When death stands before me, I feel something broken in me. I want to recast the past, and make the past the present. Oh well, I am not Galileo or Einstein imagining the way we should observe the physics of the universe. I am just a guy who can remember every gesture, every space and every shard of light that lives on my film in my life. I just have a hard time letting go of my past. Even if I were to destroy the tens of thousands of images there is not a frame I would forget.

Vinoly’s Walkie Talkie:The Fenchurch Building

I was not close to the architect Rafael Vinoly. We met through the New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp. I met him again when he reigned with Frederic Schwartz over the “Think”

Group for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center.

Vinoly’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

I met a hundred architects in those times. There was something about Rafael. I went to his office to shoot his portrait for my book “Portraits of the New Architecture”. He understood the process. My process. I was documenting the world of architecture and the people who designed it.

While shooting, I realized I could have stood Vinoly on two naked donkeys braying David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and Rafael would have still gone along with my session. It was the same for Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly: they wanted to participate in my world.

When I read the Rafael Vinoly New York Times obituary, I was shaken, not because of a friend lost, I did like him as a person and an architect) but a unique and possibly a crucial piece of my world vanished.

The event reminded me of the Chinese game “Go”. “Go” is a strategic game. “Go” is a game where momentum is realized and rewarded. My life’s creation of thousands of playing parts (transparencies and negatives) has been about wild strategies and pivotal momentum. Possibly thousands of moves live within the game “Go”. Think about what the loss of a single piece, a single player in the game means.

Vinoly’s 277 Fifth Avenue dancing with the Empire State Building

The Greatest Days from A to Z: It is All About The Day and Edward Curtis

March 02, 2023

I have lectured about my photography. I always consider what I should talk about when I prepare a lecture about my photography. I always consider who I have photographed. I always consider where I have been. I always consider the experiences I have encountered. I know that people are attending to listen to what I might say about my history: They want stories.

I reflect on the thousands of portraits and the thousands of architectural designs. I stare at my archives. My mind weakens. My heart pumps. My ideas disappear.

I do have a failsafe method to recall what I need to say, what I want to share: I playCharades with myself. It is never about the words, names or places. Charades begins when a piece of celluloid or a printed image appears before my eyes. My memories shift into overdrive. I laugh full throttle. One single visual image triggers a line of thinking that on any given day can travel from a day when I was two, to a dream that I may have had and forgotten many years before.

I love the visual arts. I have seen millions of images from every medium. I adore a great handful of photographers. The image and the story that transports me across my photography universe, is from Edward Curtis’s Monument Valley series. The “Canyon de Chelly- Navajo”. The image is not even his best. But when I first saw it as an eighteen year old, I knew that was the life I wanted for myself. I wanted to be the one who made that photograph.

1904 was a bit before my time. But that image has penetrated my heart like few others. It told a story through the narrative of not just the location, but the techniques of photography. This eighteen year old boy was hypnotized. I wanted to be the one who made something that takes your breath away that steals something from your soul.

What Curtis really accomplished for me was something very simple and simple in a way that many photographers strive to do: He showed me the way to introduce my world through my photography.

I did not have any interest in recreating scenes like Curtis did. I wanted to capture what I saw in the moment and allow the spaces to speak for themselves. Curtis had a bit of the fabrication in his shots. He re-imagined the ways of the Indians. But most importantly for me, he was where the photograph needed to be made. I wanted that feeling of “being there”.

My architecture, my artists, my places are archived by my history. They represent a bit of my needs to be here, there and everywhere. It breaks my heart every time a place is demolished (Like the recently demolished Nakagin Capsule in Tokyo that I luckily did get to photograph) or a person or place is taken from the earth before I can make a picture that should not be missed. If an opportunity to make a moment is lost, I feel a bit lost. I feel as if I had not made the memory, made the effort to see what my camera needs to see.

I love photography, but there are times that I believe that it is not that the photograph matters so much;

It is the life that matters.

That is why Curtis’s Monument Valley image matters so much to me: I wanted to be there. I wanted to photograph my own monuments, my own valleys.

So I race. I race some more. I race until there will be no more breath to inhale. Then I snippety snap snap and allow the story to begin. I gather myself to discover another place and time. I continue to look for the valley, the image that stirs my heart and my imagination.

Museum of Contemporary Art by Alvaro Siza Porto Portugal

The Life Of A Portrait: Two Naked Giant Komodo Dragons Do The Dance

February 23, 2023

ANONYMOUS ARTIST

It was the season to touch your toes in the waters of the seven seas:

We were like two giant naked Komodo Dragons: We were like two dragons gnawing on the fat of a water buffalo: We were naked giant dragons hissing at each other like a giant gas leak before an explosion. We stood upright: The artist threw the whole alphabet of expletives in my face.

In more than four decades as a photographer, there has never been a more ripe time to shoot “the portrait”. It could have been a single frame from James Cagney’s “Man of a Thousand Faces”. Each arc of eyes, lips, cheeks and the flow of hair was made for a portrait moment: A portrait of an irrational man: The portrait of a nightmare: I finally saw the ego of a monster in the manner of a naked giant Komodo Dragon.

The photograph might have been a masterpiece. But that artist was dead to me. The portrait needs to be a celebration and dance between the camera and the subject who may or may not illuminate his/her colors. It need not be a confrontation of ego and art.

I saw the facts through my viewfinder. I saw what the portrait needs. I walked out of the studio that day sans portrait.

Street Portrait

Portraiture is akin to archaeology. You enter the mind and soul of a man or woman. You are digging to discover their treasures. Volumes of histories live in the person(s) whose emotional vault has unbeknownst to the self, suddenly and unmistakably open to be robbed of what is clearly part of the heart: The subjects’ vulnerability.

Philip Johnson

One of my most enjoyable days shooting a portrait was a symphony of pleasures. The wily genius of a man who shared his life experiences and intuitively begged me to realize that he was sharing all but his nakedness.

The moment a soul speaks to you, the camera, the portrait photographer has to recognize what is being shared and “snippety snap snap” a simple particle of whoever the self is, is captured.

Portraiture is the science and art of something that not a single person unequivocally understands.

But the relationship between the camera and the moments is the most unmistakable invitation to a dance that has existed for nearly three hundred years.

The moment with Philip Johnson might have been my “Zorba” moment. We danced. It was a mystifying pace that may be best seen cinematically. Yet each frame was an image about Philip and the photographer. The camera is quite equipped to capture a nanosecond. The camera captured many memorable moments. Philip was ninety years old. It would be impossible to say, “this was Johnson”. The reality reflected over five hours of a day was merely another film frame.

The Couple

The day I photographed Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne was about the meeting of fellow dancers. We did not merely share stories of the mind, but we paired our lives. We stood a few generations apart. We could have been dancing a Tango: A moment where Joan, John and Richard became dancers sharing of intertwining lives. Three travelers of minds, cities, countries and experiences made a singular moment in a single frame of film.

I have always thought that we were in the frame, not merely Joan and John. I participated. It should never be he or she, it is always we in the frame.

I have died a few thousand times when the portrait becomes human. I have only once encountered the naked giant Komodo Dragon. It was the most distasteful experience as a photographer.

Joan and John helped me realize that making a portrait can be a “soft shoe” a pirouette or an Astaire. Most importantly it is a symphony of movement.

Everyone I Have Known

Today I shoot everything architectural. When I think back on my mind as a portrait photographer, there is no single truth, there is only the ability to engage the mind as an archaeologist seeking evidence that the moment was there.

Is there a greater moment than the “aha” moment.

I would be lying if the tiniest moment of discovery was not worth a celebration.

Portraiture is not about the whole, it is merely about a kaleidoscope of microscopic windows.

Like A Fever of Manta Rays Pursued By a Combine Of A Dozen Orca Pods: Collecting Architecture

February 16, 2023

Oh to be free and not at the mercy of another: That is what Cyrano and Quixote may have bellowed into the winds.

I have landed in most cities with an agenda defined for me: Miami was part of my portrait session with TED Founder Richard Wurman. London was part of my commission to photograph one hundred buildings. Shenzhen was part of a lecture series. Dubai was associated with a lecture series in Bangladesh. Barcelona was a part of a mentor series. The list is lengthy but you get the point.

I pace my entry into countries and cities as if I am among a “Fever of Manta Rays” being chased by a combine of a dozen Orca pods. I may miss some potential gems, but my mind is constantly hosting a gallery of possibilities that my camera must adhere to. Like my equals, the Mantas, I am on the run.

I am an everyday bobbin boy collecting architecture. It can be exhausting, but it is the only way I know how to make sense of what needs to be accomplished. For every building I race to, I return many times during the course of a day of days to make sense of the light, footprints and perspectives. My feet in dozens of languages have asked: “aren’t you tired?”. I try and discover the heart of architectural design and history of most cities. I need to dot all of the “i’s”. I need not forsake the experience and the luxuries of travel. I need to share why I am lucky. To share what I see and feel. That is what my camera can do if I set it free.

Looking For Picasso

Nicholas Grimshaw: Philip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science :: Miami

“Run” says the hunter to the prey! In Miami, south of Collins Avenue I found Grimshaw. Across the globe I found Thom Mayne. Across the globe from him I found Nouvel, Adjaye and almost an inconceivable massive numbers beyond.

I have found masterpieces the way Ray Bradbury discovered Picasso: Bradbury’s short story “In a Season of Calm Weather”: It is essentially about looking for Picasso. My entire career has been looking for that “aha” moment in life and in photography. Decades into my photography career I have met the moment a mere few times.

David Adjaye: Photography Gallery; London

The focus on a considered collection of photographs has enabled me to discover where Picasso will appear in my camera. Yes Picasso is dead, but his greatness is the high bar for the past century.

So obviously whether it may be a person I meet or a descriptive built architectural design, I continue to measure my place in photography based on the Picassos I have encountered.

Greatness is relative. But it is alive in my cities and countries my camera has exposed.

The explanation for the blogs title? I am being chased by forces much greater than the reality of my imagination. All is for naught if I cannot outrun the demons and find what the Gods, Marco Polo, Charles Darwin, and Neil Armstrong saw.

Artists in a Bird Cage

February 09, 2023

I think my cultural memories have been the basis for whatever creative life I may have. So many cinematic and literary moments have adjusted who I was and who I might be. If you could only feel my pulse in those moments.

It isn’t the the actors Boris Karloff, Vincent Price nor Jack Nicholson in The Pit and the Pendulum that remain with me today: It is the haunting Black Birds.

The Birdman of Alcatraz was a great vehicle for Burt Lancaster, but for me it was “Strouds” passionate affair with the canaries that spirited my senses.

The book, “H is for Hawk” resonates with me for many reasons; But the affair between the hawk and woman addresses the inner passions that live within a sense of loneliness. We all need to discover our unique spirit to fly.

William Wharton’s “Birdy” fed into my imagination the most imaginable but unrealistic thoughts: That I could fly. But when I have considered what I might have to do to fly, I…

I certainly could write about ten thousand words about the culture of memory and how it relates to birds and my psyche. My memories are awakened by some electrical trigger function in my consciousness. So in a small way, you now know why I write these blogs: not only to share, but to tickle the dormant conscious to come alive to remember. It doesn’t matter what comes to my mind. I merely wish for you to see me as if you might see John Derian’s Phrenology Head: to read me is to know how my mind works.

Birds have always played an emotional and visual role in my life and career.

I remember running full throttle down a mountainside in San Francisco’s Muir Woods. Camera in hand I was racing like a teenager to make a snap shot of a Red Tailed Hawk. Run, run, run my mind screamed. I raced towards a cliff that I was not aware of. My Converse shoes braked just a few feet from the edge. Still I was unaware of my immediate danger until I snapped my shutter a dozen times like a gunfighter in a shootout emptying his gun to no avail: The hawk got away, my life was spared.

When I was very young, I wanted to move to London to work with a photographer who traveled the world photographing birds.

When my career was on the move, I made my first successful photograph of a bird: A dead bird in the hands of the artist Henry Moore. I only made one print from that experience: it is in the hands of a friend from my childhood.

When I peeked my head into the studio of the Italian artist Francesco Clemente; the first thing I noticed was my mind composing the portrait of the artist seated next to a Mynas’ bird cage.

When Andy Warhol suggested I photograph him with Jean Michel Basquiat; my eyes immediately spotted the lone birdcage in the studio.

When I scoped out the studio of the artist Terry Winters, there was this bird.

When I met with the artist Raymond Pettibon, a bird cage silhouette was placed prominently across Raymond’s canvas.

When I sat with the painter Isabel Bishop, I was struck by the shadow of a birdcage across her canvas.

A bird found its way into my portrait of the artist Vija Celmins.

Do I see my bird portraits as an homage to Cartier-Bresson? He photographed Henri Matisse with multiple birds. Or by chance, do I intellectually own these that I have seen and made over the decades?

I remember photographing together Isamu Noguchi and Alberto Burri. A fantastic moment for at least Art History’s sake: But the art dealer stole the role of film. Aside from that devastating loss was a seminal alluring call. The studio adjacent to the gallery: The artist Hunt Slonem supposedly had hundreds of birds in cages and among the rafters in his studio. While shooting Noguchi and Burri I knew the birds were cooing for me to swing the studio door open and “shoot”. The birds reminded me of the the Sirens who sang out to Odysseus.

All I could think about were the multitudes of bird poop. “Oh to be among them, among the living.

It was a dream at one point to stand in the center of “Hunt’s studio, and to point my 8 mm fisheye lens in the appropriate direction. I needed to capture the embracing encounter.

I never needed to visit the jungles on earth to marry with birds. But as a photographer of people and the known built environment, birds have always proved arresting, and placed my mind at rest.

A client alone in a vast part of America catered to the every need of his parrot. The parrot returned the attentiveness. Every time the owner of the parrot would walk by the parrot, the parrot would sing; “waddle, waddle, waddle where are you going fatty”.

Life of a House Part 2

February 03, 2023

Oscar Niemeyer’s “Strick” House Los Angeles

I will never be able to get Joan Didion out of my head

Reflections from a life lived

Sometimes I lie in bed with a bit of a panic in my mind. I consider thousands of architectural examples: Why have I traveled to hear them whisper What are my ghosts within telling me?

What were my instructions about photographing a famed Hollywood studio head’s home in Malibu?What is it about me that needed to capture the house that the Japanese Architects “SANNA designed. Why is Oscar Niemeyer always touching my cameras?When I traveled to Los Angeles and Tokyo, I think I found some answers: Joan Didion described what might be the potential murder and mayhem behind the white picket fences. Walter Benjamin once described the centuries of history behind the glass walls of the Parisian Arcades.

My camera needs to define “The Life of a House”.

The Charles Gwathmey Design:

I was given strict orders not to move or touch anything in the home. I wandered to the Malibu beachfront. I marched to the Pacific Coast Highway. It was like smoking a cigar. You need to get a feel and a smell for your moment.

Charles Gwathmey: Hollywood Producer’s Home Malibu California

I entered the house. I measured the degree of interesting wealth. I made aesthetic assumptions that only mattered in the moment. Most importantly, I saw the power of “Charlie’s” design. I made dozens of photographs thinking I was shooting to impress the architect, and the owner of the house.

Most importantly I found my gait. I stepped, strode, and tippy toed from room to room; window to window. I was like Magellan, I was an adventurer discovering the world of Charles Gwathmey for the very first time.

SANNA in Tokyo:

Before SANNA was a celebrated firm, they were merely a whisper among Architecture’s “exclusive”. It was considered a coup for me to have this opportunity to shoot their portrait, and examples of their work.

The pressure was in the time of the day. They (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa) were about to leave town (Tokyo) so my clock schedule for the day was in a state of anticipatory shock. They also were about to internationally explode not only into the minds of Architects and fans of such works. They would soon become among the “it” team across the globe.

When I was directed to photograph one of their earliest designs, I thought “hmmm, a house”.

When the rain stopped that afternoon one of their assistants let me out of the car in front of the non descriptive house. The assistant said she would be back in a few hours to pick me up.

The sun appeared. The shadows softened. The color of the light whispered. Joan Didion warned

me to watch out for the unknown; sometimes the simplest of moments can be the most harrowing.

I knocked at the door. Nobody answered. I heard sounds. I walked down and away on one street.

I turned back for one last look. I realized everything in the world of architecture and in the life of this house was beckoning my camera: Texture, narrative and maybe a quiet scream; “I got it” made my photograph. This tiny house was captured in one frame. I will never know if that is all I needed.

Oscar Niemeyer in America:

Oscar Niemeyer designed home Los Angeles California

Oscar’s lone free standing building in North America is a gem. Is it among his best or absurdly beautiful: No. But it is a fabulous cousin to some of his great works. One can easily understand why a few memorable architects like Zaha Hadid and Ma Yansong seemed to have have a touch of the Niemeyer DNA… and follow his tenets across the globe.

When I arrived at the “Strick” home in Los Angeles I felt like Jack Nicholson arriving at the hotel in “The Shining”; Excitement and danger lurked. My mind’s electrolytes lit up.

A lush garden, metal designed spears, and blinding sunlight welcomed me. Yet I had only to that point lifted my body above the eight foot wall. I wanted a sneak preview before my hosts gave me their tour.

Once inside, and after multiple days shooting, I realized after all of my years shooting fabulous buildings, it was the small things that mattered. It was Walter Benjamin whispering; “look, look for the history, look for the story, look for the reflections that will reveal even more if you allow your eyes to bend for the moment.

Listen for Oscar’s ghost”.

The Life of a House

January 26, 2023

Jaipur, India

I have been remiss a few times in my life. When I have missed an opportunity to make a photograph that matters, my mind sits in purgatory for a very long time.

It haunts me that I did not take control of the moment and stop the bus I was riding in Jaipur, India.

The bus raced along the river. I heard only the river’s calm as the water rushed past me. All keys of sound from within, were frozen.

I saw a kneeling woman dressed in a bright full red Sari. She bowed several times in the direction of the dead figure leaning against a tree wrapped like a mummy in white material. The tree appropriately and respectfully braced the body before either it was laid bare into the rushing waters or enkindled for the wishes and demands of the gods.

I merely pressed my face to the bus window. My mind knew that the rituals end was near. My heart broke. I could neither save a life, nor fulfill my desires as a photographer. I only had to whisper. “Stop the bus” before the body disappeared into the god’s house.

“Our house is a very, very, very fine house”. Written by Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

Buildings represent the transformation of the urban environment. But a house has stories: I seem to remember Joan Didion suggesting that beyond the white pristine picket fence of a suburban house, secrets may live.

When I first drove up to Philip Johnson’s “Glass House”, I thought about the naked ghosts who might been seen posing, strolling or dancing behind the glass walls.

I have walked straight into history’s architecture for decades. Sometimes the significant stories and myths become like blinders to the realities of the special. One becomes so mesmerized by the folklore that it’s becomes difficult to see the photograph that needs to be made; and so I shoot!

And then just maybe, there was Philip sitting in the corner with a bit of revealing Cheshire Smile.

The Glass House and Philip Johnson in one frame is probably an anomaly in modern architecture history. That kind of matters. What matters most is that the house became one of the most significant examples of a Modernist design in the twentieth-century. What embraces me is the knowledge that I can die knowing that for a fleeting moment, I danced with history.

My decades of photography have taught me that merely a handful of personalities become synonymous with greatness. Imagination gets the better of you. You start to imagine the worlds that came before you. What is it like to be grand, and adored. The company that mingles in those circles are fascinating creatures. Like with Philip Johnson, sometimes the myths overtake your vision. To be a photographer and separate myth from reality for audiences eyes is also a task to deal with.

Fame comes in many shapes and sizes. All I can do is shoot and hope history remembers the pictures not for what they become, but for what they were when I made them.

When I landed in Rio de Janeiro I had many agendas for my photography. I hoped that I would carve out enough time to photograph Oscar Niemeyer’s home: Casa das Canoas: Like Johnson’s house, this Niemeyer was and is Modernist history.

Upon arriving at das Canoas I felt a bit like Stanley and Livingstone. My assistant carried my bags as I pushed forward through one of the most lush tropical gardens I have ever seen.

Like all adventurers the word is “behold”. My god I was stunned to see the Brazilian coast and the house sandwiched together like a Jerry Uelsmann photograph. If only Oscar was sitting poolside drawing his plans for the brilliance that das Canoas would become.

Brazil is not Connecticut. I imagine exotic personalities in bikinis and dangling long black cigarette holders. I imagine the dance that exist in clubs and along the sands of Rio. Exotic travel can manifest many real hallucinations.

As for Oscar’s portrait I realized that in his Copacabana studio.

I have photographed a great number of Kengo Kuma’s architectural structures. But here was something unique to the landscape. I could hear Ennio Morricone’s The Mission (Gabriel's Oboe) - YouTube. I didn’t remember inhaling until I exhaled. I realized I had found a playground for my photography. Maybe this was something more, like a dream. Madhatters and Wolverines might have stepped through the trees and into the residence before nightfall.

I could hear the calm through the leaves of a thousand trees that encircled the house. There could be no discordant sounds. The conversation could only be limited to whispers. I can’t imagine fame nor exotica. But I could see period representation possibly from the Victorians through the Edwardians. Just maybe hallucinogens might have been passed around the table before dinner time. There are only a few architects like Kengo Kuma whose designs transport your mind to imaginary places that are real.

ZULU NATION and GERHARD RICHTER

January 19, 2023

I first encountered the Zulu nation in Michael Caine’s film “Zulu”. It was believed that the Zulu walked across deserts and mountains to hunt and defend and conquer lands. I too have walked across deserts, mountains.

I was not beaded or adorning weapons or charms. I walked among the concrete and glass mountains and valleys of cities. I walk and I dream. I dream of new adventures but I dream about what my camera may capture along the way.

There is no obstacle that can prevent my camera from seeing what is naturally mine to snippety snap snap snap. For seconds in everyday, I am Zulu.

The above is the way I have lived for decades. The above is why I have traveled across continents to make photographs of people and places that are inspirations to my way of living.

I am not a romantic. I am a twenty-first century clone for Thomas de Quincey,Jack Kerouac, Sir Richard Burton and Walter Benjamin: I roam, I race, I travel and I stroll.

Their pens have written about the way the world looks. My camera has attempted to imitate worlds, words and perceptions of the roads traveled.

I remember an editor of a Parisian magazine suggesting I take the Metro: “It will be faster”. I had no need for speed on my way from the home of the French dramatist Pierre Corneille to the home of the French surrealist Andre Masson. I had walked from Montmartre to Montparnasse, why would I need speed. Why would I want to be below ground when everything a lens needs to see is above ground. The few times I rode the Moscow subway I always wondered what was above ground. I crossed the Seven Hills of Moscow bellowing; “I am in Russia for god’s sake.

I remember walking along, across and around Dubai. I reminded myself that I needed to rest. But would T.E Lawrence rest? Rest for what.

I walk everyday with intervening pirouettes. My camera freeze frames everything. A crowd of people might hear my camera snap, and my feet spin. I animate my mind as if I am the animated Roadrunner racing above the valley with everywhere to go. Certain not to fall.

But what is the point of being somewhere if the life of the camera doesn’t engage the lights and places that you have never seen before. Maybe you are revisiting places you have been to one hundred times before. But even then there is magic not yet seen. Whether a fresh view of the land, or one visited many times, the camera is the divining rod, if you allow it to lead.

Then there was the artist Gerhard Richter.

I Imagined that I was walking almost naked down New York City’s Broadway one night to destinations unknown.

I landed at a Jean Nouvel building. I was seemingly staring into an abyss. The abyss was a boring staged interior in a Nouvel building. Suddenly a tv screen popped up. It was a bit like a twilight zone moment.

A handful of artists have been on my list for sometime. I have spoken to them on the phone at one time or another. I have reconciled with the misses; Their voices just awaken me from time to time. I just didn’t get them: Chagall, Freud, Bacon, Dubuffet, and most heart breaking, Jacob Lawrence.

There on the television with all of his powers on display was Richter describing his painting process. I sat in my near nakedness on a sofa. I almost cried. I have traveled thousands of miles. I made thousands of phone conversations.

And there was Gerhard Richter. A beast in the art world a living giant who I had pursued. Almost naked. Alone in my imagination. Here in this staged portal, I find one of my missing links on the tele. Here is my portrait.

I may never travel again.

A Journey Through So Many Places: Russia’s Potemkin

January 11, 2023

Lydia Tár said, “Hope is the last to die”. Every Ukrainian must embrace that notion.

Sometimes I believe that Vladimir Putin’s life is ripped from the pages of the Devil’s Bible: The Codex Ciga. How else can you explain the atrocities that continue to embroil the Russia today. Yes I watch from afar. Yes I read what I can. When I reflect on the five or six times I visited the former Soviet Union, I can’t help by feeling saddened by this present Putin ego driven catastrophe.

Enemies of the state are being thrown out of windows: poisoned with umbrella tips and obviously much worse.

The first Russians I encountered were from the pages of Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Pushkin Solzhenitsyn. And of course more. Their words made me dream about dreams. Their earliest passages froze a separate set of eyes inside my mind; To this day those eyes and my camera’s eyes still dream while I make photographs; I dream of the photographs I have taken and the photographs that will be. Maybe all Russians are from the fantasy village of Potemkin: Maybe Potemkin for me is my own Brigadoon

I remember riding along Tsverskaya ( Gorky Street) enroute from Sheremetyevo airport to the Hotel National in Red Square.

My taxi ride made me feel like an escapee from the 18th-century Potemkin: Centuries of Asia’s faces; Baltic, Mongol, Uzbek, Scythian, Slavic glossed over my right and left iris. The taxi ferried my comfort companions: Le Carré, Len Deighton and Michael Caine; voices and personalities who could guide me through intricate moments.

Espionage was in the air. My only instructions flying from New York to Moscow: Do not open the envelope. I carried an envelope from Industrialist Armand Hammer to a man in a very old building. A man who might have owned one suit. A man who seemed grateful to see me. I man who smiled broadly when he realized I had not opened the envelope. A man who hurried me out to the streets with a strict wave. John, Len and Michael asked me how the meeting went. I think they knew I was a pawn of some sort. But that exchange, along with sponsorship from Kodak and Nikon delivered six weeks of photography: I photographed hundreds of people: creatives, artists and ballerinas and the monumental sculptors, museum officials the mix was amazing.

caressing art at the Hermitage: Boris Piotrovsky

Then there were the moments. I reflect with joy and tears the immensely powerful experiences I had among so many in Moscow, Leningrad (now back to its original St. Petersburg) Kiev, Tbilisi, Riga, Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and more. I tried to meet Peter the Great but missed him by a few hundred years.

I visited many Russian laureates in (Novodevichy cemetery). I traveled to dachas and danced with probable KGB operatives. I was harassed by the KGB in trench coats.

Six weeks was my hello. Three hundred portraits was my hello. My subsequent visits were “so we meet again”.

Everyday my cameras were loaded for bear. Everyday my many hosts offered me some giggle juice.

Eighteen hour days: You might have found me just outside the dressing room at the Bolshoi or the Kirov. I cannot remember a day that I was not caressing the canvas of an artist’s work or near leaning into period greatness at a museum in any of the above mentioned cities. I share the above because I. Don’t want memories tarnished by today’s atrocities. I know that is a selfish way to think. But everyone should have a small selfish side. I wish that everything happening in the Ukraine is a Potemkin, a fantasy. I could then go back to embracing the past without seeing today’s blood in the news.

My memories are ripe and thoroughly enriching. Some days I look back on my experiences as if I was a naked Mouflon swirling round and round with joy: My curved spiral horns blessed in the winds of past, present and what may be the future.

Me Trying to gaze into history in St Petersburg

The Bridges Between Art and Architecture and…

December 22, 2022

The Bridge:

I stood naked in a room filled with art. I felt as if I had been captured in a chapter of John Fowles’,“The Collector”. I remember peering out of a silken clothed covered window. A new construct: Sir Norman Foster’s London Millennium Bridge floated a walking path across the River Thames. The English with a teacup in hand might have said, “splendid”. I merely examined the moment as a one of a kind. Years later, I realized that onlookers probably only saw my lonely figure, as I stood naked like a whale with suspenders.

The Galapagos:

From my very first portrait I felt like I had signed up to travel on Darwin’s HMS Beagle. I was searching for the origins of something; I didn’t have a plan. I was merely thinking about creating a chromogenic (genetic) map among the world’s creatives. I was tapping into the ocean’s currents to destinations unknown. I wanted to go anywhere and meet anyone. Those thoughts and beginnings led me to thousands of people and places that posed for my camera.

For my first dozen years in New York, I never said no. I was a white “go-ishi”: a white stone in the game of “Go”. With so many Go moves to consider, it was as if I attempting to roundup all of the atoms in the universe. I think this endeavor might have started with de Kooning or Noguchi;

The bridge before me, became a personal reveal. It dawned on me that I was witnessing life’s visual clarity. I had been tethered between art and architecture and more for decades. I was standing surrounded by art in an interior space. Looking north a creative marriage between artist Anthony Caro and architect Norman Foster splayed out beautifully across the river; The connecting architectural bridge became symbolic of my career.

Recently announced was the artist Kiki Smith’s adornments for the New Grand Central Madison Station. I recalled my portrait session with Kiki. I recalled all of the Grand Central Station photographs I had taken. I recalled the father daughter bridge between the artist Tony Smith and Kiki. The word bridge has so many connotations that my mind rests on connections.

I have photographed so many people and places that my photographs and experiences have roots in my past and present. I flood my pages with personal history. The word bridge keeps playing with my mind. The bridges between the arts.

Thousands of names, thousands of photographs have been bridging my life to people and eras; Roland Penrose, Salvador Dali, Man Ray, Oscar Niemeyer, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas. Like a dreamer I get lost in reverie. But the reverie only springboards me to another day another moment.

My photographs illustrate my careers bridges. Kiki and train stations, Caro and Foster, Oldenburg and Gehry, Heatherwick and Bjarke and more dance through my mind like notorious sprites decorating my brain’s dream lobe. They are constant reminders of my life’s standing. I am tethered to the bridges that have allowed my camera to criss cross like Cat’s cradle through generations of creators.

A Continent of Architects and Architecture

December 08, 2022

#EduardoSoutadeMoura #Porto Highrise #Pritzker Prize

Walter Cronkite, Anthony Bourdain, Sinbad and Antoine de Saint-Expuéry unwittingly influenced my visions for tomorrow: “You Are There” is sort of my raison d’etre to make pictures. I always wanted to be where there was. For decades I have wanted to offer my voice, and my eyes to share a vision of lives and worlds not often seen.

As I was landing in Lisbon my mind was mapping out my itinerary for Europe. I dreamed that I might use a gondola to fly above Europe’s 44 countries. I wanted to see what the clouds see. I wanted to listen to Milton Nascimento’s “Ponte de Areia” echoing between the Alps. I wanted to hear the great Brazilian singer whisper “Wayne Shorter, are you there”. Yes, it would be one of many sounds that would pace my days.

I made my way to Porto, Portugal to meet with Pritzker Prize recipient Eduardo Souto de Moura. I was not emotionally or intellectually prepared for my days in Porto, nor my day with the architect.

My battle plan for capturing Europe was about to become disrupted. I was not an organized man. I wanted to be like General George Patton or Field Marshall Montgomery racing to Berlin near the end of the war. But I am not. I too was eventually heading to Berlin. But not like the two military heroes who were vying to see who would wear Darwin’s crown for the “…fittest…”

I took a deep breath and replayed Nascimento in my head. I was about to have one of the finest days a photographer could have. It has not been uncommon for an architect to say;” Maybe we can reschedule for next year”. But that is not Eduardo. He is a prince.

He knew that this visit was my first of nearly 20 stops from Portugal to Finland. So when we met at his studio, I could not have imagined his plan for the morning and afternoon. I had already for two days documented Porto for what I needed. There is always more.

We were like two dancing bears in his studio. Both of us were being more polite than the other. It was a dance that cannot be forgotten; Two great girths immobilized, yet dancing like animated bears with grace. The session was a success.

We got in his car and headed to destinations unknown. We pushed past the prostitutes. We drove past the fish mongers. We looked up at the giant neon signage for the great port wines: Sandeman, Quinta. and more. We parked in front of one of his favorite restaurants for lunch. We may have had a 10 course meal. It might have been 20 courses. But who cares how much we ate or drank. The meal and hours of conversation about architecture and desires for a future was a sensation.

Apparently his scheduled plan for me was to share and endear. We drove to an apartment complex. We parked. He looked out the window of his car. He pointed to his apartment and to Alvaro Siza’s apartment and to Fernando Tavora: Three great giants under the same roof. I just wanted to organize a barbecue and invite the neighborhood. How great it was to hear how the three migrated to the same building: Became great friends. I snapped one building which three Portuguese heroes were linked like legos.

#FernandoTavaro #Eduardo #Siza The three amigos

After that we drove to two of his designs. After that he suggested that I might want to see a Rem Koolhaas music center. All the while Miles Davis could be heard on his car stereo. I have photographed Miles twice. Anything that connects people to the king of jazz is pure euphoria.

At every architectural stop he motioned me to get out and take some pictures; You should record what you see while you are here he said. So I snapped Rem, Siza and Eduardo in succession. I could feel Eduardo wondering what I might be seeing. He merely smiled when I returned to his car. His eyes asked me if I was happy. How could I not be: architecture, photography, travel, food and wine, what could be better in that moment for this photographer.

#Museudeartecontemporaneadeserralvesporto #AlvaroSiza

There were moments when I could feel the pull of my greats tasks ahead to make pictures across the continent. I had times and dates fleeting around my brain. I needed to meet my commitments.

But when I remember my day with Eduardo I sometimes wonder why I didn’t pause the earth’s rotation while in Porto. Eduardo’s world was enormous. I wanted more of it.

I had to quicken my pace. My European map was already inked. If I was going to charge across the hinterlands like Patton and Monty I would have to speed things up.

I flew to Provence for Kengo Kuma. I flew to Berlin for David Chipperfield. I took a train to Paris for Odile Decq. I managed my way to London for Grimshaw. I rested in Rotterdam for a bit before I photographed Winy Maas and MVRDV.

I think I framed more than one hundred buildings. I made one dozen portraits. I salvaged twenty images made for my book. Travels and shooting sessions are things the gods control. I was just along for the ride. It was an adventurous ride: If each one compared to my days in Porto, then I was living a dream.

All of the above names and places will follow in future posts. They are stories that I love to tell.

Across the Great Divide: Architect David Adjaye

December 01, 2022

#DavidAdjaye #SugarHillDevelopment #Harlem

I have photographed numerous Adjaye buildings

“Run, run, run” The Last of the Mohicans Hawkeye’s mind screamed. Daniel Day-Lewis and Hawkeye morphed into one. They (he) raced through the woods. Their strides never pausing until the Tomahawk blade was thrown-into his mortal enemy Magua’s skull.

“Run!!!!!” My mind screams as Burt Reynolds’s “Lewis Medlock” races through the forest. His strides never pause until he shoots his arrow through the heart of his mortal enemy and saves Jon Voight.

I have always thought that in a small way, the author James Dickey’s Deliverance echoed James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans. The two star protagonists shaped their moments similarly. Though Daniel carried himself like Steve McQueen and Burt looked like architect Peter Marino. I have an eidetic memory for such things.

#Portrait #DavidAdjaye in my #Newyork Studio

The stride:

Could I at one time run like Hawkeye and Lewis? Have you seen me run through airports and train stations and across roads halting people and traffic? With camera in hand sometimes I am carrying more than one hundred pounds of equipment across my body while capturing more metropolises than I can remember. I stride, I race. My neurons transfer successfully through a synapse. I hear snippety snap snap. The photograph is done. I can breathe. I am exhausted but happy. I need speed. I need adrenaline. But I think pausing is where the photograph lives.

The pause:

For years I have captured everything that reminded me of architecture’s beauty. But if I could stop time, like in Rod Serling’s “A Kind of Stopwatch”, maybe I could engage the world as a great architectural diorama. I could pretend I was like a Cuvier beaked whale; I could breach the surface from 2000 meters below sea level and feel myself blessed with air. I could simultaneously capture the rapidity of movement and the pause in one frame. My photographs would be like capturing Aesop’s tortoise and the hare at the finish line: The monumental built world in a single frame: The art of architecture frozen in time; my time.

I rode the subway about one hundred and fifty New York streets. The underground if only momentarily, manages to mask perspective and time.

I arrived at 155th street. I felt I was in Spike Lee territory. I was a foreigner in my hometown. My breath, my stride, my eyes were wide open like Alex in “A Clockwork Orange”. This was not rehab, this was Oz. Every building, every tree was like my first Canaletto viewing experience; vivid with a history lesson on every stoop. Yes, yes, I have been to Harlem a hundred times. But this morning invaded my body like no other. My eyes wide, my mind was bopping like a dog in a “low-riders car”. My smile was blinding.

The shape of my prey, my intended building was advancing. I neared architect David Adjaye’s Sugar Hill Development. I heard the nearby church doors swing open. The Deacons all in black robes led the congregation to the street. The drapery of the gowns seemed to dance to a silent sound. I closed my eyes and shot a naked snippety snap snap. I was ready.

The sun was still rising in the east over the Macombs Dam Bridge. I dreamed I had wings and flew above St. Nicholas Avenue. The sunlight steered my eyes sharp right south into Adjaye’s building. I ran further south. I ran east to the bridge. I ran west towards Jackie Robinson Park. I embraced my memory of Baseball’s Robinson the great Dodger. I sat on the edge of the park. I admired the little I had seen of Sugar Hill. I watched the building evolve before my eyes. All the while my mind is accelerating and pausing as if at a yellow light. I am revving my engine, but haven’t made a decision. How do I make this image a conversation about photography and the art of architecture.

I reminded myself of conversations with the famous Illustrator Saul Steinberg; “Shoot me on my bicycle, that will be the photograph”. Steinberg meant that I only needed one image to capture him.

I began to imagine an “Adjaye” standing pronounced in a Steinberg’ Manhattan illustration. My Adjaye image would be a 250th of a second. I made a snap.

I had spent hours at 155th and St Nicholas Avenue. Past photographs were whispering insights to me. A successful single frame was like a single tomahawk blow through the skull, a single piercing arrow through the heart. My mind was aligned with two great novels.

I made my way to the subway heading south. I paused before entering. I allowed my mind and body to spin a thousand rotations like a whirligig in a hurricane. I wanted to connect everything that was anything in Sugar Hill

#DavidAdjaye #RivingtonPlace #photography #London

#DavidAdjaye #smithsonianNationalMuseumAfricanAmericanHistoryandCulture #WashingtonDC

Husbands and Wives: The Waltz Above the Clouds

November 17, 2022

Joan and John, Claes and Coosje , Robert and Denise, Leon and Nancy; They have all passed.

One twilight afternoon I stood in my living room. I had a martini in hand. My wife and my mother (who was visiting) had a glass of champagne. The city lights to our north twinkled like a cache of jewels stretching to the Pacific.
We began to listen to Puccini’s Tosca. Kiri Te Kanawa’s “Vissi d’arte” exposed our hearts. I extended my hand. I danced with my mother for few moments. Her tears embraced all of my years. “I haven’t danced since before your father passed”. The shaken glow throttled me.
Years later, (thinking of my mother and father) the moment allowed me to recall all of the twosome portraits I had photographed in my career. My archives are filled with many couples shyly jockeying their egos and their hearts in my photographs. For vague reasons most subjects felt this was a seminal moment in their lives. I know it is weird, but true. For me the sessions were like observing a patient with Alzheimer’s: let the subjects say and do; just pay attention.
The night before the a portrait session of two art dealers, I by chance watched the movie “To Have and Have Not”. I told the dealers they were my Bogart and Bacall; They giggled.
What I didn’t realize at the time, was that from the very first day I had made a portrait, I was considering how my subjects, whether one, two or ten related to each other. I have concluded that a successful photograph is about the dance. I might dance like Eugene Delacroix for my fees. I might compel my subjects to dance for my camera. I was on to something.
When Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Leon Golub and Nancy Spero looked into my eyes I knew that I was sensing Bogart and Bacall in the room with me. It was the beginning of the waltz.
Joan and John wanted to walk with me. They wanted to see how I saw my photographs. They wanted to participate in my experiences. All the while, they would share an amazing exchange of their own lives as if it would be the way they would write our moment: (The photographer) I continued to take pictures and we three spoke about how our moments had similar DNA, but our lives lived generations apart. Their faces looked to each other for comfort and queries. They like owls spun their heads around to try and see what I was seeing. Their gaze returned to my camera. A photograph was made.

Claes and Coosje did not use the pronoun “we” once during my first session with them. By the second session ten years later, “we” was a constant. I am not a critic of social behavior or art. But I did notice that their care for who they are and how they presented themselves had changed dramatically. My first portrait was Claes with Coosje. My second portrait was about conjoined female and male. They completed each other’s sentences. I watched them inhale. The room felt like an early dawn with Loons whispering and cooing. I knew I was about to make a portrait. I saw two people as one. Ten years, two artists, two portraits, Claes and Coosje had become one. I snapped my shutter. The image was realized.

Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown met me on a Saturday afternoon. Controversy shadowed their professional profiles. They were equal in their eyes, There is always a but.
Their studio/office was completely empty. I felt as if I could ask them to jump naked into the Roman Colosseum’s arena of hungry lions they would have complied. They were there for my moment. Whatever it took to appeal to my sense of accomplishment. Every thing we spoke about was left open ended. They seemed to reserve every sentence for the possibility that I would ask them for more: they were ready to share. If I had heard secrets, they knew that they were between our three. No brighter sunny Philadelphia day was ever shared with such engaging souls.

Leon Golub and Nancy Spero might have been the most spritely angels I have photographed. They were artists in love; with an edge. They had a political bent. Their art was steeped in contemporary political history. They raised the cultural roofs for political change 24/7. They whispered. Their powerwall pulsated under canvases across the planet. If unleashed, the dream was that a cultural democracy would prevail. I danced. Their bodies began to move together but apart. Their hearts and minds performed a pas de deux. The intimacy for my eyes only was staggering.
Sometimes I feel my life stories remind me of the Miles Davis title; “Seven Steps to Heaven”. I feel I am moving in a direction. Maybe it is towards a finale of sorts. My memories are of those who have lived in my life. Those who have passed waltz in my minds’ eyes above the clouds

U2s “The Edge”, Caviar and the Hands I Shake

November 09, 2022

U2s “The Edge”, Caviar and the Hands I Shake

“The Edge” Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono…

Charles Lamb (Elia) wrote; (“Every man hath two birth-days: two days, at least, in every year, which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his mortal duration.”

I was once a kid for sixty years. I have been Dickens’ Tiny Tim and dozens of other bits of fairytale children for way too many years. One New Year’s Eve night I stood in the apartment foyer of a friend’s New York apartment. I am not a party guy. I am not a party dance guy. I figured a few steps from the front door might make for a quick exit if need be.

I was chatting with a few faces I knew from my building. In walked this guy. My eyes widened like a grizzly spotting a drift of ten thousand Chinook salmon heading up stream. It was like a billion geodes exploding in one hundred square feet. U2’s “The Edge” peeked in. He moved across from me and my friends. He too was positioning himself for the inevitable “Casper” exit.

My favorite guitarist is Jimmy Page or Hendrix on most days. It was always more than about music. Their sounds transform not what I hear, but the way I see. I remember listening to “The Edge” on “The Joshua Tree” soundtrack. I was standing on a hilltop in a world unbeknownst to me. I listened to his chords. I wanted to let it play like a scratch on vinyl. So when he walked into this New Year’s Eve party, surrealism engulfed the moment.

Festivities were in the air. People are chatty on New Years’ Eve as if you have shared a lifetime of friendships. My mind was brimming with all kinds of stuff I wanted to “chat” about. Most people want to embrace the past 364 days and look forward to the next. SuddenIy in one part of my occipital lobe I thought The Edge was going to lean in for a kiss. I said “Nope, nope that can’t be!” I began to hear Dooley Wilson (from Casablanca) perform “…A kiss is just a kiss…”.

I could feel my mind hallucinating. Zero mescalin in my blood stream. I was turning many shades of green, and then Casper white. I saw what seemed like a ticker tape of Aldous Huxley’s “Doors of Perception” text race across my eyes. Maybe it was a rite of passage for everybody to kiss. I placed my cocktail down. Faces moved in and out. I grabbed and shook The Edges’ hand. I stepped into the hallway. The party continued to blast. I still had a few questions for my new U2 friend. When I arrived at my apartment, I began to vomit. I was so relieved that “Dooley” was wrong. The caviar and an excessive evening almost caused me to think the absurd. I was so happy I was hallucinating.

Later that night I heard Jimmy, Jimi and The Edge play until the new year’s early dawn.

I was invited to an evening at the National Arts Club in Gramercy Park. I was a guest of the artist Will Barnett. I was there for an evening to celebrate Yoko Ono, John Cage, Nam June Paik, Gordon Parks

and more.

Yoko began the evening by talking about being with John Cage and Nam June Paik in Germany.

Her first utterances were that Paik was devastatingly gorgeous; The most handsome man I have ever seen. That night I made introductions with Nam June Paik and Gordon Parks. I had already photographed John Cage with Merce Cunningham. I never did get the opportunity to photograph Yoko.

A few weeks later I walked into the studio of an artist who first described the future of telecommunications as the “Electronic Super Highway”. Nam June Paik was easily the most generous artist I have met. I am sure that once he had his stroke, that he understood that he needed to be fearless in order to engage the infinite possibilities that his mind and art might contribute to the art world’s dialogue. You combine that with his warmth and genuine need to share, his world, gave me pause and a bit of faint.

He might have been a prince of the Fluxus art world. He was the most cutting edge artist I had met.

Paik and his wife the artist Shigeto Kubota could not share enough of their cultural explorations.

He was no longer the most devastatingly handsome man. His love to engage the moment broke my heart many times. His devotion to his creative life soared universes beyond the Yoko Ono appreciation.

The best part is that the world knew his devotion to creative processes were his soul. One of the surprisingly touching moments for me was when his wife( and collaborative partner) Shigeto walked me out after our first session: “You make my husband very happy today. Would you like to see more of his work? Shigeto grabbed my hand. I sat in my heart as I realized that two people who had issues with translation and the simplest exercises of communication embraced my moment.

When I returned for a “next” session I decided that I wanted my camera to meet Nam June Paik’s visual desires head on. As they say in the wilderness; “I was armed for bear”. I will never know if I was successful as a photographer. I will know that I choreographed every shutter speed. I monitored every tone of light. I measured every inflection. I was a surgeon in an artist’s heart.

What transpired at the end of the afternoon was that I did not see a supernova, but I felt the power of one when Shigeto walked me over to Nam June Paik and placed my hand on his. His hand that sat on his wheel chairs’ arm. Nam June Paik wanted to say thank you. Three hands. They were pressed together. My god I am a pretty big guy. I can’t remember ever trembling like that before or after.

CHASING GHOSTS: CULTURAL GIANTS

October 26, 2022

Oscar Niemeyer’s Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

My camera discovers the light in darkness

As I stood in the middle of Uriah Maggs Antiquarian shop, I could collectively imagine holding Napoleon Bonaparte’s penis, imagine listening to hundreds of the Codex Sinaiticus vellum sheets being shuffled like a “Carney” man shuffling cards of naked girls, and imagining reading every collection Uriah had accrued in history.

When I stand in the middle of history my mind feels like it is ghosting Hieronymus Bosch’s surreal as he steps to his canvas. I imagine the DNA from Vasari’s Lives to Olafur Eliasson’s. My camera pauses. I take a cultural breath. My camera holds steady as history unfolds.

My destiny is to dance naked atop a pod of blue whales. My destiny is to navigate a pod of whales atop the pinnacle of all the cresting waves of the seven seas. It is the only time my mind and body feels nuclear acceleration into new horizons.

When I was pinkish young, I was fearless. Now that I have spotted a tuft of grey hair, I am anticipating history to repeat itself: Fearlessness reappears in my destiny.

I have chased visual desires since the day my father bought me my first camera. My camera is akin to Aladdin’s lamp. Everyday single day I pray for its magic. Every single frame is magical. I write my blog to remember the magic I am destined to forget.

My career sometimes feels like I am straddling my private Bardo (like George Saunders’ “Lincoln in the Bardo”). I speak to thousands of cultural soldiers whose lives have passed and posed before my camera. I speak with them with every breath: they are me, I am here because of them.

Overtime I have realized that so many sessions have left me with so many questions. My camera is my memory. I need more. “Chasing Ghosts” is about those I am prevented from sharing additional discourse with ever again unless we meet in the Bardo.

I spent hours with the fabulous architect Oscar Niemeyer. It would be a highlight that Zaha Hadid and Santiago Calatrava would have loved to been able to share.Later my camera met his contemporary museum in the Niterói. I never got the chance to talk with him about the feeling of poverty and crime that lurked in the municipality surrounding the museum. I needed the story. I merely wanted to hear his voice again. I wanted a greater discourse with one of architectures’ greatest creator about anything and everything.

The mercurial Jean-Michel Basquiat and I had finished off a couple of bottles of peppered vodka. After hours of joyful conversation, what remained were some unanswered questions. I wanted to address the inappropriate: Fame and success. He was on a rocket to fame. I wanted to know what it felt like.

Jean-Michel Basquiat in Andy Warhol’s studio 1984

The darkest hours of the morning surrounded me. I was walking north on Park Avenue South. My photography equipment slung over two shoulders. The resident avenue prostitutes moved in on me. It seemed like there were 500 girls in various acronyms of sexual orientations and stages of nakedness. A taxi beckoned me to get inside. I told the driver I needed to walk a bit further. I wanted to return to Basquiat’s studio get answers. I reluctantly jumped into the taxi. A head filled the rear window. I motioned to drive on. It seemed like an hour before the taxi accelerated. I would never return to Jean-Michel’s studio.

I spent hours looking at Roy Lichtenstein on a beautiful summer morning in Southampton, New York. For me it was one of my greatest days. After I felt I had made my final snap, he handed me a beer and told me to take a walk on the beach. “When you come back, we’ll have a bite for lunch”.

I took the beer and tried to take a measure of the day. It was what I had hoped. The perfect picture, if there is such a thing.As I walked a bit further, I turned for no particular reason. Roy’s eyes were trailing me. I stopped and asked him why he was looking after me. “I wanted to make sure you were ok”. After lunch we sort of bowed accordingly. As I drove home my brain felt like it was twisted like a pretzel. I just wanted to drive back and get a real answer to why his eyes were trailing me along the beach. I felt like a character out of “Dr. No” or “The Prisoner”.

One Fall day in East Hampton, New York I waved goodbye to Willem deKooning. Before I turned away from him, I wanted to ask him the question: He was standing at his studio doorway, waving to me. But I needed to ask him if it was true that he had early stages Alzheimer’s. I needed to know.

We were together for nearly three hours. He was as lucid as a Myna bird on Red Bull. So many people had warned me about his mental health. None of what anybody had warned me about made sense. But as I walked, my karma was begging me to turn to him for just a moment. I just wanted more of what brilliance is about.

The hundred thousand visuals my camera has seen is like a symphony of movements. The notes of my past play in my mind. The history remains. The archives are frozen like a scorpion in amber. A glimpse or a word from the Bardo emboldens my future. I will always chase my ghosts.

Artists Serenade

October 13, 2022

The Avenues: A B C

The streets dreamingly adorned with patterns of arabesque reimagined the paltry kiosks from Bangladesh and other third world fringe environments. But inside New Yorks’ 1980s East Village gallery world, was an explosion of art that were akin to millions of pomegranate seeds fired from a thousand kilns.

From where I was seated in the outdoor cafe “7A”; Seventh Street and Avenue A I imagined all of the struggling adventurers posing ala arabesque: “Basketball Diaries”, Jim Carroll, Henry Miller’s “Quiet Days in Clichy”, Orwells’ “Down and Out in Paris and London” and of course Thomas De Quincey’s “Confessions of an Opium Eater”. Years later I remember seeing the broken but proud Zampanò from Fellini’s La Strada. The ABC’s art world pulsed in ways the city had not seen. It was as if from the rooftops of tenement buildings a chorus of Miles Davis trumpeters played through the day and night “Elevator to the Gallows”. Everyone noticed. Nobody noticed. Alphabet City did not die, but changed.

I was always and forever going to make my life about photographing the artists of past and future art worlds. What an amazing visual expression could be had. My outdoor seat at the corner cafe 7A was not the epicenter of the East Village. Though It was the one that most reminded me of Paris’s Montparnasse. A feeling of being uncomfortably in the middle of something, but equally comfortably apart. The days always seemed like misty afternoons where one could imagine a smattering of artists skimming the sidewalks.

I had already photographed the names that sat on pedestals in Soho, 57th street and the Upper East Side: Dekooning, Warhol, Johns and Rauschenberg and hundreds more rested in my archives.

To the denizens of the ABCs I was already an aged photographer. I felt distanced like Eugene Atget must have standing in his damp Parisian studio away from the world he once paced proudly across.

I have seen where artists live and how they have lived

Some artists were without heat. Most studios seemed to have white Pressed Tin collapsing. The East Village looked a bit like an Escher world. I was there to let my camera go snippety snap snap.

This new more youthful generation of artists wanted to be photographed by their own. I mentioned my days with famed artists. The community only cared about Warhols’ name. They wanted stories about Basquiat and Haring. I prevailed. I corralled Rodney Allen Greenblatt, Stephen Lack, Philip Taffe, Thomas Lanigan Schmidt, Keiko Bonk, Troy Brauntuch, Basquiat, Haring, Kiki Smith and dozens more. Their dealers like Pat Hearn, Gracie Mansion, PPOW we’re spreading the word. My camera didn’t flinch.

For me, the photographs were an adventure; I wanted to see the new before they were defeated. I wanted to see the new youth oriented army of artists as they aimed their sights on the successes of their Soho superiors. At one point many unique personalities were vanquished by the life they intended to be part of. Most artists I have met who succeeded against all odds remember fondly the experiences they lived in “Alphabet City”. It was walking a tightrope.

Still, I could feel so many lives soon to be extinguished from their dreams. In a way it was a wild Hieryonmus Bosch world. Against all odds so many artists prevailed. My camera saw a world that was breathing fire and excitement.

Excitement filled the streets, galleries and studios. The ABCs were the beginning and the end of community.

The Fragility and Promise of Glass Architecture in New York

October 06, 2022

#WhitneyMuseum #Museum #RenzoPiano #Sculpture #art

When the World Trade Center collapsed, billions of hearts in shades of Madder Root fell across the skies in unfettered unison as if conducted by the God given orchestra of angels.

#WorldTradeCenter #SkidmoreOwingsandMerrill #santiagoCalatrava #Oculus

Mourning binded our souls in confusing stages of mental turbulence. There was no rhyme nor reason for these periods or patterns of mournful distress.

Many years ago the Architect Richard Meier commissioned me to record the footprint of the devastating attack on 9/11. I ran like an Ostrich after sipping spiked punch, stalking a sneaky snake. Round and round I ran. The urban sounds of sirens pierced the air. Uncontrollable crying and warnings of apocalypse filled the air. Snippety snap snap my camera clipped. Wide angle and zoom lenses captured what they needed to capture. Authorities grabbed my camera. I explained my legacy, New York’s legacy, and they let me continue.

I remember standing on the second level of a pizza shop across from the disaster. The proprietor and a dozen or so patrons came up to the second floor to watch me shoot. They wanted to know what I might see from this angle. The proprietor slipped me a few slices of pizza. I kept shooting. I felt a bit like Rear Window’s Jimmy Stewart sans Grace Kelly. Through the looking glass I waited for movement, I waited for my camera to see the history that lived. There was nothing in the WTC footprint but ghosts. The camera taught me to see the living and the deceased. To this day I have not seen what my camera saw.

I have often thought of Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert. He was the cheerleader responsible for the building and dedication of the 1851 London Crystal Palace design. It was one of the first and great glass designed buildings in modern history. It was a great achievement for the Prince. It was a great achievement for architecture. When it caught fire many decades later, I wondered how the Prince might have re-acted: I considered that he would fall to his knees and mourn the death of creation. He would look up towards the consuming flames while glass remnant shards rained on top of his heart. I can imagine his fervid cry, “what a life”. Albert is dead, all that we remember of the World Trade Center is buried below the city.

Emboldened by my dreams I stood facing (as if floating inside) giant panes of the new One World Trade Center One. In front of me was the new New York. In back of me was the past and future conjoined as if two babies at birth: Old New York‘s heart was feeding the glass high rising architecture into a new stratosphere. The poet Frederick Garcia Lorca would have claimed that he was “murdered by the sky”. The poet would be disoriented by the unforgiving angles of progress.

For this photographer, The architecture (World Trade Center’s substitutes) Skidmore and Owens and Merrill, Norman Foster, Fumihiko Maki and Santiago Calatrava braced me. It has always been an universal motivation to see tragedy and build from it. This is the way of the camera too. The camera sees what it need to see. Not the other way around. The camera shapes your vision. The lens sings the mantra:”Go forth”. It was as if Aaron Copland’s “The Fanfare for the Common Man sprung my feet free.

Before my eyes lifted north on broadway, I noticed an array of colorful pigments on the ground. They were probably remnants from an amalgamation of sorrow: what stood before my feet was a period of history. I imagined art history’s Albrecht Dürer was gathering colors for his “European Blue Roller” or such. But as my eyes moved north I glimpsed at a single Barthman’s Sidewalk Clock at the corner of Broadway and Maiden Lane. The circular glass clock embedded into the sidewalk pyschedelically morphed into thousands. The sign was clear. I marched like Joe Pendleton in “Here Comes Mr. Jordan”: I stepped on every (Clock)ivory key north to heaven. I was flanked by hundreds of glass buildings standing erect like a soldiers salute. Heaven is where every standing unit of glass architecture poses for me.

#HudsonYards #Related #Chanel #Cartier #Theshed #DillerScofidioRenfro #Heatherwick

My voices whispered. I was in the company of millions of architectural stories. I stood in the middle of The Canyon of Heroes. I dreamed that ticker tape rained on my head with streamers made from melting gold hung from patina rooftops. Alas, not a single ticker tape sailed above me. I was alone. I am always alone with my voices and my camera.

I took snippety snap snaps of every reflective light. I heard the Mingus Harlem Jazz Ensembles usher in encouragement. I heard Miles Davis’ “Dingo” pace me through my walk: East on Wall Street, west across Liberty Street, thousands of gleaming glass buildings awaited my purpose. Ten thousand glass poseurs awaited my lens.

To the Bronx possibly I marched.

#apple #Sherry-Netherland #hotel #Cipriani #Restaurant #cocktails #applestore

John Patrick Shanley: Moonstruck, Cher, Nicholas Cage, Pulitzer Prize: New York’s Universe.

September 29, 2022

#pulitzer #JohnPatrickShanley #Moonstruck

I stood pilloried as if a 16th century vagrant. I stared down at my feet. I caught a glimpse of myself hidden inside a shard of glass. I realized that not only was I part of the universe. I was the universe. The enveloping folds of the sky moved in time. An aliens’ metronome ticked and tocked. Slowly the galaxies’ stars melded. The Black Hole beckoned.

When I was a young boy I was the only one I knew who went to the Dodger/Yankee World Series.

When I was a young boy, I was the only one I knew who lived with Elsa’s “Born Free” lions.

When I was a young boy I was the only one I knew who rode aside Henry Fonda and stared into Americas’ dilemma: “The Grapes of Wrath”.

When I was a young boy I was the only one I knew who sat on the back of Peter Fonda’s chopper: I mimicked his distant stoic: “America is here”, “Easy Rider”.

When I was a young boy, I was the only one I knew who thought “2001 Space Odyssey” was a true story.

I stood like Chaplin’s “Tramp”with nothing.

I stood like Rocky Graziano with nothing.

I heard my mind sing in falsetto, “When You Wish Upon a Star”.

My father reminded me to read the science-fiction novel “A Canticle for Leibowitz”. The apocalypse happens. I realize I am alone in an unknown universe. My temperature is nearly 104 degrees. My fever is burning what is left of my mind. New York’s summer heat wave tangled with my health. I remind myself that I need to push forward: So many thoughts arise when you think the world’s eyes are querying your every move. The populous of another land seemed ready to pounce on me. I awakened before I died. I could faintly hear the Bronx cheer from Yankee stadium. Silence followed. The door buzzer for the Bronx apartment rang. I heard ”Come on up, third floor”.

I have photographed a number of famous writers: Joan Didion and Gore Vidal come to mind. But there was something different about John Patrick Shanley. He was young and about to explode on the scene: Hollywood and Broadway were beckoning; A star in the making.

Before Shanley could utter a word I apologized for my appearance. I had this wretched fever,I was clearly a mess. The writer’s heart rescued me. He handed me a glass of water and placed a floor fan in front of my face. If there were words that illustrated my predicament: The fan made me feel like a lion with flowing mane. My fever seemed to singe every hair follicle on my frame.

I immediately launched right into whimsical conversation about his writing, his success: I wanted to know about his movie, “Moonstruck”. I wanted the juice about Cher and Nicholas Cage. I wanted to know about his process. I wanted to know about John the writer. I wanted to know whatever he might share with me.

He was distant. I understood. He was clearly thunderstruck by my appearance. I asked myself, “have you looked in the mirror?”. He prevailed, we prevailed.

After about an hour and change, I knew I had accomplished what I needed. John was clearly exhausted. I think he suffered for me with every move I made. Maybe I am being a bit generous? Maybe he couldn’t wait for me to be finished. But then something funny happened.

He invited me to take a walk around the neighborhood.

I packed up my gear and we reentered what I had initially felt was my first dystopian war zone. We hit the streets. I cannot remember a single word I said. But I can hear his voice. The moment seemed like a Ken Burns’ narrative documentary. A history lesson on the “Fort Washington” neighborhood filled my ears. I was completely mesmerized by his knowledge and appreciation for the history and just about everything that moved.

I took snaps as he spoke. We wandered for blocks. But then like a bad movie, I felt a cool breeze blow though me. I will die on the spot if I am exaggerating: I was healed! My fever was gone. I was suddenly the person I wanted to be from the first. Then I caught John Patrick Shanley reading my mind. He was like a psychic sharing the great truth. Before I could say another word he said.” I think we have had enough for the day, don’t you?”.

My day started out as if I had died ten times over. I finished my day feeling close to something like a spiritual second coming. I shared my gratitude with him. Before I danced my way home, I listened. The Yankee’s stadium Bronx cheer echoed to the four corners of the universe, known as the Bronx. Along the way I felt that I survived a bit of the “Bonfire of the Vanities”, and a bit of “Fort Apache the Bronx”. More importantly I realized that my camera has never stopped seeing the city that is mine, New York.

Kevin Roche’s Legacy: An Amazing Contribution to Architecture

September 22, 2022

I arrived at Kevin Roche’s office in Connecticut. I immediately embraced the hallucinatory fusion, and cultural disorientation. Connecticut was oozing bucolic heart beats. I have been to Philip Johnsons’ home. I have been to Jens’s Risom’s home. I have been to Yale. But arriving to meet Kevin Roche was like hearing Jack Nicholson’s inimitable voice saying “Welcome” with an Irish brogue.

Millions of movies from my past splashed alarming omens: “The World According to Garp”, “Cider House Rules”, “Overlook Hotel” from “The Shining” and of course the “Oregon State Hospital” from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. They all invaded my mind like a cinematic kiss. I breathed. I took baby footsteps. Something unique and surreal waved at me.The film started to roll.

I was escorted into Kevin Roche’s office. He smiled and extended his hand. Had we shared an Irish Pint before? Maybe only Philip Johnson, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Oscar Niemeyer, Richard Rogers, Zaha Hadid and Greg Lynn were better dance partners. I felt a bit of a lilt in my voice. The “wee people” lifted my feet. I was dancing and singing with another architectural design god. My whole lovely entanglement with architecture was standing front and center.

Roche Came From Saarinen

I had photographed Kevin Roche almost twenty years ago. He passed away in 2019. His career as a young intern might have been influenced by his employer Eero Saarinen. Saarinen died before he conquered the planets footprint. For me Saarinen was/is the link between the exciting and the extraordinaire. The intern designer Kevin Roche was in a sublime position to put the finishing touches on Saarinen’s American icons: TWA, St. Louis Gateway Arch, Yale University’s Ingalls Ice Rink and more. One can spend too much time examining the influences an architect associates with his/her post internship work. But nobody can deny that Kevin Roche probably felt a bit like Willy Wonka creating and embracing the Saarinen world.

The architectural rite of passage is remarkable. I hope everyone will forgive me, but sometimes you sense that the rite of passage is akin to Michelangelo’s “Sistine Chapel” rendering of God giving life to Adam. When the younger generation (Jeanne Gang, Bjarke Ingles, David Adjaye) blazes an exciting new trail, the world is lucky. Everyone has a history. Someone: Maybe Rem Koolhaas; Maybe Zaha Hadid; Maybe Frank Gehry gave the next generation life.

Our time in his studio was a bit like Monty Hall yelling to someone in the back of the audience; ”Lets Make A Deal”. Behind curtain number one, number two and number three, Roche seemed to share a past or new designed model. I was riveted not only in the models, but the generosity of time and effort to make my stay so pleasurable. I felt like I was taking part in an advanced architecture class. I was merely waiting for “Molly Malone” to play above the rafters.

One Day with the Israeli Mossad

I have photographed about a dozen of Kevin Roche’s designs. One day I was photographing the Ford Foundation, for a new book; “Portraits of the New Architecture 1”. For days I would return to engage the light. One day, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Two men stood behind me. They identified themselves as Israeli Mossad Agents. Their New York headquarters was across the street. They requested that I not panic. They just wanted to know why did my body form variations of a pretzel every time I took a new picture. I was certainly perplexed and just a bit nervous. I explained that I was trying to create new perspectives on a building that had been photographed a million times. For a split second I thought they were going to interrogate me for some crime. In the end one of them said, ”We thought you were amusing. Certainly a diversion from our daily duties”.

I continued to make dreams with my camera. I couldn’t help thinking that Ford Foundation’s style and so many more of Roche’s and Saarinen’s are best described as “magnanimous” They give so much for the eyes to adore.

Kevin Roche escorted me to the end of his property. He was done for the day. I was exhausted. I knew a friend had been made. Months later I had to break the news that he would not be in my book. I briefly felt like Janis Joplin singing “Break another little piece of my heart…”. I was overruled by the publisher’s savant. I felt our pending friendship was fractured.

I put in so much visual integrity. I put in so much demanding leg work. My mind was swimming in nightly dreamscapes. I cannot explain why my heart breaks. A day with Kevin Roche is not a day to be forgotten.