Jul/090
Hole in the Wall Camps
My friend Kate is participating in the Calleva Adventure Race August 9th, trying to raise money for Hole in the Wall Camps. They were started by Paul Newman to provide summer camps for children with medical conditions such as cancer, sickle cell, diabetes, and the like; the video below explains more.
From Kate:
While I'm not completely convinced I will survive [the race], I thought I would be a good motivation to get in shape and to help out Paul Newman in his fund raising efforts for his Hole In the Wall Camps! While I know his salad dressings are much more appetizing than thinking of me tromping though the mud, I am still hoping to raise enough money to send at least one kid to camp this summer!
It's such an amazing cause, and one that Kate is so passionate about. She's a doctor who's just passed her boards (I assume, right Kate?) and heading into her residency. After years and years growing up at Valley Mill and Calleva camps in MD, both as a camper, instructor and director, she has the intention of running her own Hole in the Wall camp someday.
Click the image below to visit Kate's team page. Please give what you can.
In other news, the yoga benefit for Serena Lambert was this past Saturday, and I'd like to thank everyone who donated their time and money to help Serena on her way. It was an amazing experience, not just to have so many people throwing positive energy around like ticker tape, but also because Serena - after weeks in the ICU mostly unconscious and fighting the good fight while her lungs filled with fluid and kidneys decided they'd had it ... after all that, Serena's immune system creeped up from 0, everything else decided to play along, and she was released that very day. She spent an hour with all of us at the yoga center, watching the party despite being exhausted. Sitting next to her and comparing whose lollypop was the sourest, it was hard to believe a days before she was on a breathing tube.
It's such a frustrating process though, as today I read on her mother's blog that she's back in outpatient with a fever, canceling their trip to NYC for much needed care.
EDIT 8/31/09: Thanks to everyone's generosity, over $8,000 was raised to help Serena's family.
Jul/091
brighter.
It's warm and there's a breeze exactly five degrees cooler than my forearms and the back of my neck, but two degrees warmer than my feet. A porch light is on, and insects are drawn to it. Some are nearly graceful and circle it in a flutter, while others ram-flutter-ram and frantically repeat. It's the moon; they think it's the moon. They're simple, guided by that dim blue spot in the sky. From their perspective, it's unimpressive. It may be grand, constant, and responsible for the tides and a great deal of the cyclical behavior of bodies and minds. But this subtle puppeteer is hundreds of thousands of miles away, and bugs are simple. It may be what they need to guide their lives, but to them, it's just dim. Much grander is the bright orange glow of a 60 watt bulb. And so they circle and ram until they've split their shells against the walls or, somehow, despite all odds, found their way in toward its heat, only to die trapped in a little glass orb.
Without a sense of scale, closer is always brighter.
flickr user: brutal
Jul/090
Dominique Palombo
My friend Dominique has taught me a great deal about what matters most in photography, and when I was shooting in Paris he passed me the info for the most amazing assistant: a man named Alex. For that, I owe him a great deal.
Dominique knows the craft. After twenty or so years at it since graduating with a classical education in arts and photography, he's a master of the use of light, curves, and color palettes. But what makes his images really great are the moments he captures. He's a cinema director who just happens to use a still camera. Visiting his NYC apartment some time ago before he moved to Paris, I was struck by how clean and organized he was - both in his space and his workflow (sparing no expense on finely calibrated monitors, printers, and a viewing station with the right color temperature for proof prints). Despite his perfectionist nature, what for him makes a truly intriguing image isn't the aesthetic, but the moment you catch and the power and story itconveys.
Jul/091
some days
Some days have teeth; they snarl. Some coddle, while others are indifferent and could largely give a shit about you. It's important to know your day - like knowing your audience - to behave appropriately around it. Some days are your drinking buddies, and some are full of unrequited love.
I feel like I need the company of an intellectual day right now. Proust and Tchaikovsky, or at least Lantham's and Leonard Cohen. Black tea and open doors and windows while hearing yourself breathe. I need one that eggs you on to stretch and keep reading 'till you're full, then pour out the creations you've fermented from the gestated pulp.
But the today that's keeping me company right now is not that kind. It was born out of its time, like men who wear bowties and glasses round enough to be "spectacles". Today requires headphones, as it needs to be ignored. But I forgot them, and I'm stuck on a bus behind gossipy high school students. Today just won't let me think no matter how much I need to.
Some days have a helluva sense of humor.
Jul/090
really telling the story
Last weekend I covered the All Good Festival in West Virginia with the idea of telling the story of the people rather than the bands. It could've been the fact that I'm not such a huge fan of jam bands anyway but more a fan of people, camping, and WV in general, but people watching is naturally mesmerizing.
And then this morning I found Dave Burnett's coverage of the Apollo moon mission on NYTimes photo blog. Now he knows how to cover a crowd.
(click on photo for blog)
Jul/091
show it, Dave …
A little while ago Melody was on Letterman promoting her new album and performing one of my favorite songs on it: "Who Will Comfort Me". I just found the video again posted on Herevibe.com, the website of her talented trumpet player Patrick Hughes.
Now call me sentimental, but seeing Dave hold up my cover photo just feels good ...
and here's Dave saying "that tune was fantastic, but this photo! quel genius ... "
Jul/090
Time wastes too fast
As she lay dying at 34, Martha and Thomas Jefferson wrote a passage from their favorite novel: Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy.
[by Martha] Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen. The days and hours of it are flying over our heads like clouds of a windy day never to return...
[by Thomas] and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, every absence which follows it, are preludes to the eternal separation which we are shortly to make!
Jul/090
Alessandra Ferri
I only wish I'd discovered ballet earlier so I could see Alessandra Ferri perform before retirement.
My new biggest wish is to photograph her at some point ...
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