Jun/090
The Leaves are Fading
Antony Tudor - "The Leaves are Fading" pas de deux
Music: Dvorak
Click the image for youtube video.
Jun/093
Serena
Yesterday I went to Johns Hopkins to meet four-year-old Serena Lambert (with her mother Becky above), who is fighting Stage 4, high-risk neuroblastoma (a cancer that spread from her adrenals throughout her body). During the past year since her diagnosis, she's had seven high-dose chemotherapy treatments, a bone marrow transplant from her own body, and 12 rounds of radiation. And despite it all, she's the brightest little thing I've ever seen. She is bravery personified, going through a day-to-day barrage of procedures without complaint. And perhaps because of it all, there's a wisdom in her beautiful eyes.
I only had a little time with her, as her body had a bad reaction to the transfusion, which manifested itself in some scary symptoms like trouble breathing. During, Becky seemed so calm, as if it was another day at the office. Only after reading her blog did I learn that she was as scared as the rest of us.
I photographed Serena for her family, and also for an upcoming article in a local Baltimore paper to raise awareness for a fundraiser for Serena on July 25th. Anyone who is in the area, please try to make it out to spread some positive energy or give a donation - anything you can, the family can use both. I'm told the entire treatment costs around $1.5m, and though they have amazing health care, it only covers - at best - 90%.
For more information, download the fund raising event flyer or take a look at Serena's family's blog.
It's impossible to take life for granted after seeing such courage, acceptance, and understanding in a girl who's barely known anything else ...
Last weekend, I had a conversation with a homeless man in downtown Manhattan. It seems unrelated, but now I can't help but think of it juxtaposed with Serena. I just listened, and couldn't even get the chance to ask his name as he recounted his life story. He was in his mid forties with light crystal blue eyes and wore an old hospital bracelet. His father dealt drugs and his mother was an addict, so he and his brother would steal his dad's stash to sell at school and take all his mother's methadone when - later - she tried to get clean. He was an alcoholic and had tears running down his face when telling me about his brother's death. This man lives wherever he can live, sleeps wherever he can sleep, and beats himself down relentlessly. Beating his body down is his full-time job, and yet he's still going, heart beating strong, stumbling around the city and spending his time on earth aimless because he's broken - because nobody ever gave a shit about him. Ever.
And then there's Serena, with the world to live for, an unbelievable family around her and whole galaxy of friends or even near strangers who happen to have fallen in love with her spirit. And all of us in her world (though far removed, I'd like to consider myself its newest member) are about the task of willing her body to make good on its end of the bargain. But hope and willpower are a damn good medicine, and the Lamberts have more of it than I've ever seen, and for good reason. After meeting her, you can't help but think that full remission is not a possibility, but just a matter of time.
Jun/090
the way to live
A few weeks back an amazing human being, Justin Hilbun, passed away. He was Kristin Diable's bassist, the artist for whom we shot a music video back in April. He was also her best friend and roommate.
I only met Justin once during one of their Brooklyn shows - had a beer with him, and thumped away on his upright bass for a few minutes reminding me how much I missed my own. But even in that brief encounter, I could sense what an amazing, generous and good person he was. Full of a lightness.
Last weekend he had a true New Orleans jazz funeral. My heart's still with Kristin and everyone who knew him, but he is only missed so dearly because he lived so well, and for the sake of so many others. The procession, sadness and merriment that day all illustrate what he meant to the world.
Bank accounts and lawn care seem so irrelevant; only people count.
photo credit: Sandra Dixon (lightly borrowed from Sandra's Facebook page)
Jun/092
so empty … so estranged …
First, Listen to Ray LaMontagne's "Empty".
This song moves me, and his story is fascinating. Ray was working at a shoe factory in Maine when one morning at 4 am his alarm clock played Stephen Stills' "Treetop Flyer". Something in him woke, and he decided to become a musician.
It's in every one of us, and reminds me of a Henry Miller quote (also written in an old blog post of mine): "Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of the creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there."
Ray discovered it suddenly in his late twenties, one day before getting out of bed.
It also reminds me of countless too-early mornings working jobs that are an even trade of weeks and months for rent and food. When work is Work, days are long-distance races; noon is a checkpoint, afternoons are willpower, and evenings are for hanging on. But mornings .... mornings are clear and quiet. Those, I remember.
The memories are tactile - of coffee in styrofoam with powdered creamer on a workbench while dawn is still sorting itself out. They're the first hard start of the diesel, or wiping chips off an oiled lathe and fastening the first tool while the subtle scent of mineral spirits flavors the still air and your head hangs meditative in a distant relative of sleep before the rest of the world catches up and spins with you.
It's no wonder that, in these moments, people like Ray find themselves.
Jun/090
something looks familiar
I ran in to a Starbucks this morning way too early for caffeine with a quickness, when I saw something familiar out of the corner of my eye. Half-awake and blurry, it was surreal to see one of my promo photos from our Paris shoot last fall ...
Helluva start to the day.
Jun/092
much love from the online photographer
I owe a big thanks to Mike and everyone who commented on The Online Photographer Blog. After referring Melody Gardot's album, nobody could seem to find the photographer of the album cover since my name is misspelled in the credits. I sent a note along proudly claiming responsiblity for the work, and Mike wrote up this post:
And since Mike's evidently the man, my site and blog have blown up with hits today from around the world. Just settling in after a shoot day, I wanted to take a minute to thank Mike, and say hi to everyone out there.
NOTE: this article came out before my name was officially, legally changed to LaClair. (It was my grandmother's maiden name, and there's a story behind that the way there's a story behind everything.)
Jun/090
HENRY: It's to do with knowing and being known. I remember how it stopped seeming odd that in biblical Greek knowing was used for making love. Whosit knew so-and-so. Carnal knowledge. It's what lovers trust each other with. Knowledge of each other, not of the flesh but through the flesh, knowledge of self, the real him, the real her, in extremis, the mask slipped from the face. Evey other version of oneself is on offer to the public. We share our vivacity, grief, sulks, anger, joy ... we hand it out to anybody who happens to be standing around, to friends and family with a momentary sense of indecency perhaps, to strangers without hesitation. Our lovers share us with the passing trade. But in pairs we insist that we give ourselves to each other. What selves? What's left? What else is there that hasn't been dealt out like a deck of cards? Carnal knowledge. Personal, final, uncompromised. Knowing, being known. I revere that. Having that is being rich, you can be generous about what's shared - she walks, she talks, she laughs, she lends a sympathetic ear, she kicks off her shoes and dances on the tables, she's everybody's and it don't mean a thing, let them eat cake; knowledge is something else, the undealt card, and while it's held it makes you free-and-easy and nice to know, and when it's gone everything is pain. Every single thing. Every object that meets the eye, a pencil, a tangerine, a travel poster. As if the physical world has been wired up to pass a current back to the part of your brain where imagination glows like a filament in a lobe no bigger than a torch bulb. Pain."
DEBBIE: Has Annie got someone else then?
HENRY: Not as far as I know, thank you for asking
DEBBIE: Apologies.
HENRY: Don't worry.
DEBBIE: Don't you. Exclusive rights isn't love, it's colonization.
HENRY: Christ almighty. Another ersate masterpiece. Like Michelangelo working in polystyrene.
DEBBIE: Do you know what your problem is, Henry?
HENRY: What?
DEBBIE: Your Latin mistress never took you into the boiler room.
HENRY: Well, at least I passed.
DEBBIE: Only in Latin.
....
HENRY: What was that? (Pause) Oh ... yes. No commitments. Only Bargains. The trouble is I don't really believe it. I'd rather be an idiot. It's a kind of idiocy i like. 'I use you because you love me. I love you so use me. Be indulgent, negligent, preoccupied, premenstrual ... your credit is infinite, I'm yours,I'm comitted ... It's no trick loving somebody at their best. Love is loving them at their worst. Is that romantic? Well, good. Everything should be romantic. Love, work, music, literature, virginity, loss of virginity ...
-Tom Stoppard."The Real Thing"
Jun/090
just a few odds and ends
click for site. little cardboard robots, dumb as dirt, let loose in NYC with instructions on their flag to point them in the right direction. every time, they reached their goal without being stolen, pissed on, kicked, or just generally sabotaged.
The website says they're "driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object" and that their story is one "of people's willingness to engage with a creature that mirrors human characteristics of vulnerability, of being lost, and of having intention without the means of achieving its goal alone."
Coincidentally, it sounds like how I got around while living in Brooklyn. Intention, without a means of achieving anything alone.
Jun/091
more “Gypsy Queen” video production shots
Well, it's been a few months and our baby - the music video Elizabeth Orne and I made for Kristin Diable - is still in the editing process. The editor is working hard on getting it done as soon as possible and we're all in the great dance of back-and-forth between technical details and edit notes. At the moment, "Gypsy Queen" video is in London being worked on by a fine surgeon of an editor who's relaxing from his more-than-full-time job of editing Apple commercials (among other things) to ... edit more projects.
In the meantime, I have a link to more behind-the-scenes shots from a great photographer and really nice guy named Eric M. Townsend.
(click on image for web gallery).
aaaaand that's me - the shadowey lurker to the left.
one last one ...
I have to admit it's pretty amazing to head to Eric's site and (at least for the moment )see our shoot front and center above some other small acts like Bruce Springstein, The Flaming Lips, and REM.
Eric came by set to shoot the process and even the cover of Kristin's new EP "Extended Play". I have to give it to both of them .. after a 16-hour day shooting, they were able to bang out a cover shot in five minutes in front of the abandoned theater that was our location while the rest of us were loading the vans and looking around the lawn for our sanity.
Favorite
NYTimes Photography Blog
- Pictures of the Day: West Bank and Elsewhere 9 September, 2010Ramadan and Rosh Hashana are observed. […]By THE NEW YORK TIMES
- Medieval Flagellation in an Italian Town 9 September, 2010The images are medieval but Roberto Boccaccino shot them only a month ago, as Daniel J. Wakin reports. […]By DANIEL J. WAKIN
- When the Shah of Iran Took the Pictures 8 September, 2010Newsha Tavakolian was inspired by an intimate series of photos taken by the shah of Iran. Yes, the shah. […]By KERRI MACDONALD and AMANDA RIVKIN
- Pictures of the Day: On a Chinese Oil Rig and Elsewhere 8 September, 2010Oil workers were perched precariously but the oil company said no oil had been spilled. […]By RAYMOND MCCREA JONES
- Mourning at the Scene of a Stabbing 8 September, 2010At the scene of a stabbing in Manhattan, a little girl mourned a young woman she didn't know. […]By KERRI MACDONALD and ANGEL FRANCO