Monthly Archives: July 2015

JULY 31, 2015

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Full Time

Being read a story in the late hours of a warm summer day is a little like being a kid again and  submitting to the pleasures of the tale and dreaming while listening. Those evening readings were pure joy and often, while Maggie was reading, I would photograph her, or sometimes make a  video so I could hold on to the sweetness of the memory of that time in our lives. That was the year we decided to come back to live full time in Italy.

The halo of light around her head in the darkening of the day, and her physical concentration and intensity, like an actress preparing for a role and searching for the ‘voice’ of the character, kept me glued to her every nuance of gesture and tone. Little observations like that, even with someone you know well, can give an ordinary moment meaning.

07-31 Maggie L1032042 copy

JULY 30, 2015

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Work in Progress

This image reminds me how much work goes into a ‘work in progress,’ and ultimately how much of it gets tossed aside. While I was making the picture a day work Maggie was working on a novel and I had the daily pleasure of hearing her read the next chapter to me. And I saw how, over time, the chapters kept being rewritten, polished, and edited again, and again.

The process of building the character’s lives, framing them in the moment the story takes place in, weaving history into the overall design, as well as the impending future, and all of it kept together in this version of the manuscript sitting on the table while Maggie was rereading sections of it. Standing nearby I was reminded of the lengthy give and take of any process driven effort we may make, whether it is an unrolling daily sequence of photographs, or the continuous adding of words on a page.

All of it requires a belief in the primary instinct behind it. I have always trusted my urges in this way, and gone forward into the discovery of what may come from simply following the guide that arrived, seemingly, out of nowhere.

07-30 Manuscript L1032011 copy

JULY 29, 2015

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Wonder

Just sitting at a friend’s dinner table watching the oncoming dusk slowly draining the light of the day. A long meditation on change. Light, gliding from the fullness of white clouds to the saturated last licks of color at their tops, and then, right before my eyes, it’s gone, like a magician showing his trick and we not being able to see it – that’s magic!  Not seeing the change while looking at it.

Nature is the magician beyond measure, and every day the phenomena of light shows us such variety and delicacy as to fill our hearts with wonder or joy.

07-29 Sky L1032031 copy

JULY 28, 2015

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Heavens Above

I have never been one who makes night sky images. Film was not so responsive for doing that, and more often than not it made pictures of streaks of starlight left behind by the rotation of the globe and the time it took to make the shot. But digital is different, and although this is no brilliant photograph it is a reminder of how easy it is to consider the new subjects that might come from looking at things freshly and seeing how they might relate to the heavens above.

Reminders like that are important to thinking photographically.

07-28-Nightsky L1031989

 

JULY 27, 2015

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Cute

Italian families! So much affection, gentleness and concentration on babies when they come. On our way home from the seaside we stopped to see an old friend whose new son was drawing all eyes his way just by being his bubbly small self. Or was he so happy just because of all the attention pouring into him? Probably goes both ways in that circle.

Shooting little kids may seem like easy pickings, but they shouldn’t be seen only as ‘cute,’ like kittens, or beautiful, like flowers, they are amazingly communicative and expressive little beings whose personae, and expression, although limited by their size and verbal skills, still make them interesting subjects. Witness those Diane Arbus photographs of kids in which their fears and pain make them powerful subjects. I always thought those images of hers were a big step toward a tough body of work in an area we think of as cliché.

07-27 Baby L1031945

 

JULY 26, 2015

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Connectivity

Every so often I am reminded by something I see right in front of me, of Saul Steinberg, that great New Yorker magazine artist who did the famous poster showing New York City and the avenues going west to the river and then beyond to the bleak view of the distant American emptiness. His characters often were shown in ridiculous outfits and social postures which showed us all how crazy we actually look while we think we are pretty sophisticated.

Steinberg_New_Yorker_Cover             saul 4

So when I see someone like this guy on the beach, a faceless, strangely shaped human being, Steinberg pops into my head. Of course I love the pair of hands under the sunny towel and the way they relate to the figure of the man, although I couldn’t explain how they relate, except to say to me they made sense, photographic sense, in that something happens when I look from one to the other, a kind of connectivity between the hands that you don’t see and the pair that you do.

07-26 Beach L1031907

 

JULY 25, 2015

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Dumpling

At the little beach side hotel we were staying in – a real Italian family kind of place – the husband and wife chefs turned out homey and delicious variations of classic Italian cuisine. We went in to see them at work and were so taken with their honesty and sweetness that I wanted to give something back to them, so I invited them out for a portrait.

I couldn’t ask for a more playful pair of lovebirds. He simply found her irresistible, she was his ‘dumpling,’ and he couldn’t keep from snuggling and hugging her, even dancing around together for a moment. I suddenly felt that their restaurant (sadly they didn’t come back the next year, business being really tough in Italy’s economy, and we really missed them on our next visit) was their little theater, and so I photographed them on their ‘stage’ set. It’s one of a lot of frames I made, but it’s easy affection and real warmth keeps me engaged.

07-25-chefs L1031883

JULY 24, 2015

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Surprise

We had gone to the seaside for a couple of days of play, and while we were waiting for dinner on the first evening I decided to make a photograph of Maggie. We walked out to a little patch of ground surrounded by pine trees, and while Maggie was standing there a loud CRAACKK sounded, and this huge branch came tumbling down right near where Maggie was standing.

As soon as she recovered from the surprise she began to do her old mime stuff with it, and began rolling it offstage like some huge elephant dung ball. She’s funny that girl.

07-24 Maggie tree L1031822.

07-24 Maggie L1031831

JULY 23, 2015

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Pauses

Some spaces just ring with authority. Even when they might be just a small neighborhood chapel, or a convent, or school, or some old ruin that has the aggregate of time on its side. Coming into this neighborhood in Siena I was surprised at how the building and the ‘wings’ of the subtly curving street so perfectly related to the two doorways of the church, one with that seashell with a madonna or saint, and the other with the wings over it.

Little moments of pause and reflection have been the part of carrying a camera that I probably have learned the most from. Just about everything I know I have learned from photography.

07-23-Church L1031787

JULY 22, 2015

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Penmanship

On the streets of Cortona with students in the workshop, I saw a few of those balletic moments of no great significance, but which keep the eye sharp and the appetite hungry. When I was a kid we were taught penmanship with a real old fashioned pen that was dipped into an inkwell. We had to make slinky-like spirals and other gestural swirls and swishes so that we would develop a ‘good hand’ and be ready at any instant to create beautiful letters.

Like penmanship, the attuned eye, following the rhythm of life on the streets, keeps one sharp and ready for when the moment arrives. These little toe pointings, and head tiltings are nuanced gestures that lead to a more watchful readiness and also to enjoying the rich, unexpected incidents that can happen when you pay attention.

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This image of 2 sisters, one already filled out and worldly, and for a moment taking charge of her younger sibling, filled me with the sense of what sexual development, or the lack of it, may offer in the way of power between people. Who knows what the hidden text of this picture really is? For all I know she was saying, ‘gosh, that’s hot, don’t you have a lighter top?’ But it also could be about the difference between being a teenager and not.

07-22-Sisters L1031736