Today is my birthday, our birthday. My brother and I are 45. For the past six months I have been living in my childhood home with my wife and kids. It no longer feels surreal, and in fact, it is starting to feel like home. There are countless reasons that we came here. My childhood friends have children the same...
It’s been eight years since my father was hit by a car and killed. Tonight I walked down to the spot to spend some time with him. Like so many other Jews who were born during depression, and then grew up during the war and its aftermath, my father wasn’t very religious. He was an academic, and I think that...
As we sat down last night to watch “Her”, my friend and I briefly discussed “American Hustle”. She found it thoroughly entertaining. I almost walked out of it because I found it so stylistically annoying at the start. In the end I was able to appreciate the emotional complexity that it developed, but there was something about it that seemed...
If you live in the first world you have first world problems. When we discuss first world problems it doesn’t mean that we don’t care about the rest of the world’s ills. Today I ran into some minor first world problems and while I think it's important to let minor things go and not obsess about them, I also think...
This afternoon I clicked on one of those facebook links. You know, one of the amazing wonderous groupings of incredible things. It was a "near misses" compilation; dozens of people seemingly cheating sudden death, walking away from accidents that should have destroyed them. There were people that froze as a car tumbled toward them, only to have it hit a...
Happy Thanksgiving. A couple of days ago a friend on facebook explained that she had started to write down a list of things she was thankful for. She set a goal of 50 but easily came up with 86 items and suggested that others follow her lead and perhaps set a goal of 100. I have a lot to be...
As I have been working to promote a photobook of mine that was just published, I have been on the internet too much. I tend to avoid clicking on videos because they can be rabbit holes that become black holes. However, if 10 or 15 friends share something I realize that I need to see it. This happened with that...
As I walk in the meadow each day I see many of the same people also making the rounds. Almost all of them have dogs. One woman has a very sweet, thin black dog. The dog and I have become friendly and she always stops for a few pets. However, for several months, the most that I got out of...
I started taking pictures in the meadow because my friend Cait, who also lives along it, asked me to make images for her mother. When I began to shoot, the meadow was filled with color and life. I liked some of the images I was making but it took me a while to find my footing. Just as fall began...
Last month I got the first copies of my photo book. It would not exist without kickstarter, and for that I am very grateful. It all began when I put some 20 year old mall pictures on-line. They went viral so I quickly threw together a kickstarter to make a book. I kept it simple, just using a music video...
Banksy is an artist of some acclaim. Yet this morning on the radio I heard the New York mag art critic dismiss his work completely stating that it’s “so obvious”. The metallic tones of classism rolled off his tongue like silver dollars sliding into a gilded slot machine. The truth is, I don’t particularly love Banksy’s work, but to argue...
I don’t particularly like nature photography. Even as a kid, when I looked through National Geographic I flipped past the pictures of rhinos and elephants and marveled at the people who lived in huts, villages, and cities. I grew up in a Bucolic setting but escaped to New York City as soon as I was able. For the past two...