Two for Tuesday: Field Tripping

I found this pair of empty carts outside the Food Lion on Waughtown Street, the one next to Prodigals Community where I've been teaching this month. This twosome appeared during a mini field trip of sorts. I was walking around the block with my students, seven men who are in recovery from addiction to drugs or alcohol, sometimes both.

It was our second class together when we left campus, heading out to explore the neighborhood, looking for images that reflected one of the twelve steps. As we entered the grocery store parking lot, two drunk men walked by; they were loud, chatting nonsense, staggering a little left and right. That was an interesting moment, all things considered.

And then we spotted this twosome by the side of the store. Look, there's a pair for you, one of the men pointed. There's one.

During our first class, I'd shown a few twosome images. I wanted to share with them the fine art of seeing something fun in this overwhelming world of ours. It wasn't a big part of what we discussed, though. We'd looked at dozens of images, seeing how to use light and metaphor and yourself in photography. So, anyway, I felt pretty excited to discover they were into this twosome concept; they not only got it, they saw it too.

I grabbed one of the point and shoots from a student and began photographing the two empty metal carts. I loved them diagonally parked together against the brick wall and the yummy contrast of the blue plastic against the rust concrete. I also loved the little red plastic on the right back wheel, and the way they seemed to sigh with the end of things, a journey over, a job done. It was a minimalist, slightly despairing landscape a la Robert Adams.

This image seems to be about emptiness, but for me, it contains so much more than that.

Prodigals, Week Three

The weight of wanting and the broken past are sewn into the skin of every discussion with men at the Prodigals community. That's been my experience so far this month. Of course, that's a huge oversimplification, I'm sure, but the powerful images the men are making seem focused on the hope for recovery and the darkness that led them to rehab.

I made this image last week with Warren. He had the idea of where to go and what to do (we'd just studied gesture and mood in portraiture) and all I did frame the shot and get the exposure down.

When Warren likes a photo he calls it tight. When I give him a copy of this next week, I can't help but think he's going say this one's pretty tight. I am struck by its privacy and its beautiful pain.

Two for Tuesday: Spider Friends

Thinking about twosomes for a while now, I'm beginning to grasp how powerful it is to see ourselves in each other. It's a pull of recognition that leads us to pair up, to join in with another, to be together in this complex and too often atomized thing called life. It's an affirmation, and sometimes a relief.

But enough theory. As I teach my students, let's show and not tell.

My friend on the left, Ree, has a beloved Fiat Spider. It's a classic car with a license plate that reads 1981 Spider. It's vintage and glorious and has gone quite a distance with her. Anyway, the day she and I rendezvoused last week, it was sunny and 72 - perfect top down driving weather. She parked her car outside The View where we shopped for my new glasses. At one point, we spotted a very tall man walking around her car.

What was he doing? We watched him, casually, just curious. In one hand he held a helmet and in the other he held a phone he seemed to be using to videotape her car. It struck us as odd, but the car is a beauty, so we also kinda got it. Minutes went by and the man was still there. Finally, he popped into the  store. Anyone here own that Fiat? 

Ree responded, and whatdoyouknow but this fellow had a 1983 Fiat Spider, red, amazing, just like hers. They talked cars for a good five minutes. Discussed parts, gas mileage, and where the next rally for Fiat lovers was going to be held (Virginia in a week). Can you wait twenty minutes, he asked, I'm driving my scooter but can be back here with the car in twenty.

Ree and I grabbed a coffee and waited on the sidewalk. What's twenty minutes when you're in the middle of story with a best friend?

We were just about to give up waiting when what do we see rolling down the street but a brighter version of her little car with a man beaming behind the dash. He parked. The two owners walked around each others' cars, looking, sharing stories, comparing notes, sniffing and wagging.

It turns out his beloved convertible was missing one windshield wiper and a visor, and Ree knew just where he could find them.

Where'd It Go?

My daughter's next door neighbor is where this story begins. He grows elephant ears that are so enormous and grand they appear animated, like characters from the film Jumanji. Sweet girl that she is, my daughter understood how badly I wanted one of these to take home to play with. She knocked on his door, he grabbed his clippers, and, voila.

I filled the bath with about three inches of water and the leaf filled up the tub completely. Its wide edges curled up against the tub like arms. For about two weeks I kept the giant specimen floating in my bathtub.

At one point, my three year old friend, the divine sublime Mizz H, came to visit and and I showed her the elephant leaf with its stalky ridges and spine. We looked and looked. The feeling of awe seemed palpable but not entirely surprising. After all, the leaf appeared continually magical to my jaded eyes so one can only imagine the whooshy whoosh felt by a preschooler.

Anyway, when Mizz H returned to visit weeks later, she walked into the bathroom and leaned over the tub. Where's the leaf? Where'd the leaf go?

Her question reminded me of what my mind had already forgotten. To me the leaf was gone, but to her it lived on in that very spot.

Two for Tuesday: Seeking Harbor

They say that in New York City everything is lived in public. Fights, seduction, friendship and frailty. It's all on display. I suppose there's just too little space inside those overpriced apartments and condos to contain all that happens in life.

I spotted this cozy twosome in Washington Park exhibiting an intimacy that seemed anything but public. The pair hung onto each other, rested into each other, comforted and trusted each other. Not a thing to rush off to, nothing to do other than lean into the deliciousness of being together.

I love the way the man's long thin legs are outstretched in a V of solid welcome, matter of fact and not about to move anywhere. The clasp of his arms around her waist is equally at home.

The woman is looking out over his cradled head, but it seems a safe bet that whatever she spots out there isn't nearly as interesting or lovely as what she feels wrapped inside the embrace she's sharing with the man dressed all in black.

The busy, bustling world is just inches away and yet somehow miles apart from their sweet harbor.

He Got the Job Done

September is a promising month. The light is changing, the mornings are longer, the temp is more reasonable, and plans begin. Being in an academic family, September feels more like new year's than new year's.

It's a beginning. And this past week I began sharing my literacy through photography program with a group of seven, all men, all in various states of recovery from addiction. The men live in residence in Winston-Salem. They're working the steps while also working out in the community - painting, auto mechanics, lawn work, this and that.

I had an amazing time just pulling together the powerpoint for our first meeting. The man pictured above appeared about four frames into my presentation. Take that for bad ass. I saw this man at one of the pull-offs that dot the scenic highway that weaves through Malibu.

I asked the men in the classroom what they noticed, what they saw.

Macho. A tough guy.  Mister cool.

I said I loved his head, his profile and especially that gesture with his jacket.

Yeah, said one of the students. He looks like a man who just got the job done.

Two for Tuesdays: Hidden Message

Not every twosome is an ahh shucks moment. Take this nasty pair of half naked blondes I saw while walking past a department store window. Sexy angry times two. They stopped me cold.

It's hard to say what struck me first - was it those lips held back by the bottom row of teeth that seemed to come with their own growl? Or was it the dastardly long bangs, muscular backs, and f-you fingers barely hidden behind the sequined blazer? Every exaggerated detail works so well together, proving that suggestion more often than not trumps truth.

Some days letting the jacket of good behavior peel back to make way for the hidden impulse to flip the bird and express the sizzling rage of defiance has its appeal.

But you gotta wonder...would anyone actually buy the tee-shirt?

Color Made Me Do It

Meet artist Charles a.k.a. Chas Walker. I wrote about him years ago and got to photograph him in his studio. Back then, I was a hardcore totally committed black and white photographer. Still, I remember how it just about killed me to strip the color from this ode to orange blue white and other drippy surprises.

What a great outfit for the shoot. I loved how he'd selected that look for his portrait. After all, the man loved stripes with an affinity based on exuberant commitment and deep understanding.

See the canvas behind him parked on the wall that ripples with the marks of countless paintings? CW has been creating paintings based on that exact scenario/formula/form/rhythm for years and years and years.

It amazed me then; it still does all these years later.