“WHAT SHE REMEMBERED, when all was still and quiet, was that this small feeling of pleasantness - this tiny bit of euphoria - was more than enough joy for a holiday season.” Write new pages. Tell new stories. Live bigger in this new year. Happy holidays.

Magnolias on Mt Prospect

FOR BILL & CLAUDIA For a number of years I’ve gone in search of magnolia blooms to photograph, most recently for a series of still life images all taken in the bedroom of my place on the shore. In late May/early June I’d start my search looking for great old trees with low hanging branches where blooms were reachable (sometimes I’d partner with a step stool). Inevitably and always I’d run into Bill and Claudia at The Charlotte or Bizotto’s, and ask if they’d mind if I clipped a few blooms from the beautiful magnolia that anchors the front grounds at Mt Prospect. Of course, we have plenty, they’d always say. Such was/is their graciousness. This community, bound together by its small town charm, was rightly saddened by Bill’s death a few weeks back. He was a good man to know, a gentleman of the first order, and I still find myself looking for he and Claudia in the front window having dinner at Bizzotto’s. As a community we are certainly better for his presence - and all that blooms again when this sadness subsides. Here’s to you Bill Bagwell.

welcome back

THIS WEEK VIRGINIA BEACH HOSTS PHARRELL WILLIAMS AND SOMETHING IN THE WATER. COVID KILLED THE EVENT TWO YEARS BACK AND LAST YEAR SITW MOVED TO WASHINGTON, WHILE WILLIAMS WAS IN A POLITICAL SKIRMISH WITH CITY OFFICIALS. I SHOT THIS PHOTO IN LA TEN YEARS AGO ON THE STEPS LEADING TO THE PARKING LOT AT A POSH BEVERLY HILLS HOTEL. GOOD TO HAVE YOU BACK….

writing retreat at Porches

If there’s pleasure in action, there’s peace in stillness. Today (March 21, 2023) was beautiful here in Norwood perched on the second floor of Porches as the sun sinks. Mid 60s. Bliss, this is.

My good friend

Gideon Lewin at the closing of his show of intriguing and beautiful photographs in Barcelona. (Masterfully curated by his partner Joanna Mastroianni). Gideon worked for Richard Avedon - the gifted fashion and portrait photographer - for 15 years starting 1960. What a time he witnessed and worked.

I met Gideon when I hired him to do a shoot for our  Paris fashion client Votre Nom in the late nineties. He had opened up his own studio by then. He knew me as an art director. And I never told him I was a photographer. I was more than happy to listen to his stories. We talked for hours when we first met, the day before the shoot. And we did several shoots together.

And we’ve remained friends. I’d visit the studio when in New York.  He wrote a forwarding statement for my retrospective book PROOF several years ago, and he ended his own book about the Avedon years with a photograph I shot of him jumping on the steps outside Avedon’s exhibit at the Met.

He was and has remained graceful and gracious, and quietly aware.

We caught up on the phone in early September and he told me of his show that opened in July in Spain. I’ll be going back for the closing the first of October he said. A few days later - maybe I should go I thought. I got a  plane ticket and sent Gideon a note - see you for the closing.

I’ve had enough regrets. Go. Do. Thanks for the friendship. It was a beautiful show.

BARCELONA

LOOK AROUND, she said after Javier put two more drinks of unknown origin on the stand-up table that was now our only support. Sure enough the tiny bar was a sea of locals navigated by a symphony of tall dark men moving effortlessly with small plates and aperitifs, each Spaniard more beautiful than the next. It was as if all was slow motion and cinematic. And then suddenly but without hurry, looking over the lip of her glass taking in the room she said as if to no one - though I knew the target - you are an appendage that I don’t feel is necessary for the completion of this journey.

Kara

She had always wanted to tell him. From the very first day, when it was rainy out and the streets glistened and they spent hours talking just around the corner in the bar a block from her apartment. But she couldn’t or she didn’t. Never seemed right. And from that moment, there was guilt that gave way to silent resignation.

And the more days that passed, the more she decided to believe that maybe this really was in the past. It was how she argued her way to detente and silenced the voices. Still she knew it would be short lived and they would be back.

the doctor, a diva and a dog

Craig with Walker, 1997

Henry, 2013

Is everything about loss this year, I wondered pedaling my fancy bike down the seaside road on the shore this past Saturday afternoon. It was grey and unseasonably warm for December and I was still anguished over Henry’s death three days earlier. Henry, the most beautiful yellow lab in the world, was 14, a ripe old age for a lab I’m told. His hips were giving out and it was harder and harder to get up and about. We knew there were pain issues, and his medications and treatments had gradually increased these past few years, but he was no complainer. In the mornings, when he was back with mom from Crozet, he’d come to the studio door and bark once to let me know he was present and ready for attention. If the petting didn’t last long enough, he’d gently paw for more. He did this on his last day. No dog was kinder or more obedient. Early on we realized we didn’t need a leash to walk him to the beach. He’d stop at the busy Atlantic Ave and not think of crossing until permission was granted.

I had the hardest time saying yes to the decision to phone the vet and arrange the house call. Rationally it made sense but I wasn’t ready. I would never be. Wednesday was a lovely blue sky day. Walker and Henry and I walked over to the beach one last time as we’d done a million times. But in my heart of hearts it was depressing. I felt like Judas. Henry was slower but sprinted a bit across the open sand down to the water. Don’t do that I thought. Please don’t do that. Please don’t show me you have some good life left. Walker knelt, one arm around Henry’s neck, the other taking selfies. Let’s just not walk back, I thought. Let’s stay here until the vet has come and gone. Surely they’ve had people change there mind. Surely.

But we walked back. Slowly. Sadly. And three days later I’m still processing as if this is a procedure with some good finish line.

Is everything about loss this year? I know better but certainly it’s a year unlike any I’ve lived through. Covid, the election and civil unrest have ruled the day though there have been bright spots. My 91-year-old mother got covid, was hospitalized and near death before miraculously recovering. Unfortunately, not everyone’s been so lucky. More than 200,000 have died in this country and how we do business has changed forever. We wear masks everywhere. We don’t hug. And we often don’t recognize people we know. We are isolated. We’ve had loved ones die and we’ve seen businesses fail. Now the holidays are upon us.

So when I ask the question about loss, I’m quick and determined to remind myself that mine is a fortunate life. That I have much to be thankful about, even when the clouds are thick.

Two other deaths this year left me saddened and grateful, and I wanted to be sure to focus on the grateful on this Saturday rolling over the shore. I met Dr. Hirji Adenwalla while traveling in India for Smile Train around 2000. He worked at the Jubilee Mission hospital for over 50 years and lived in a lovely simple home on the grounds of the hospital, within earshot of the wards where mothers sung songs to sleep their babies. I was just passing through, but after less than 24 hours in Trissur I determined to return and a year later spent two weeks with Dr. A and his sweet wife Gulnar. He loved his work and the families he cared for, and seemed to carry compassion as though it were some sweet fragrance to be easily waved around. He would quote the words of great writers as we walked the hallways of the hospital, me often just trying to keep up. He made me hopeful and in his presence I was reminded of many blessings. A year or so after my trip, he came to New York to receive a humanitarian award and in his remarks said:

“The lessons that we learn from human misery are to love, to never forget your own insignificance, and to never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest place, to pursue beauty to it’s lair, and to never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength never power, to try to understand, to never forget and to never, never look away.”

Of all the places I have traveled, all the people I have met, I marvel that the world turned in such away that we collided.

Back at home, four weeks ago, I learned my good friend Craig Embrey died. He lived alone in DC. A housekeeper found him on his bathroom floor, and I hated that he had no one around that might have changed this outcome. Too soon, too tragic. Much of what I learned about style and design I learned in our years of friendship. He was a kind friend and sometimes a difficult human. His mother committed suicide on Christmas Day in the 70s and he carried his talent like a tumultuous demon on his shoulder, sure of his pedigree though short on the filters of polite society. At our many Christmas evening cocktail parties where his cologne always announced his arrival, he’d invariably leave in a huff over something after numerous vodkas. We’d all be momentarily wounded, then days would pass and we could not remember why the storm or cared not to. The diva went with the designer. He always claimed that the Christmas season was depressing but invariably showered his friends with unique and generous presents - from paper whites to antique vases, candles and books. Always interesting and personal. And always fancy treats for the dogs. His own decorations were certainly at odds with any notion of not liking Christmas.

His style really was impeccable. He could mix antiques with modern minimalist pieces and his rooms were both comfortable and stunningly right. His were spaces you liked being in. He loved good lighting, and anything less was an affront to his senses. He would adjust light levels and move things around whenever he came over. And it of course would be better.

He was certainly more work than Dr. A and Henry, but no less important. These were friendships that were each unique and special, gifted and gone. And as I get more air, I’ll mourn less and celebrate more. As it should be, I’m sure.

Craig and Walker, 1997

Route 66

“Do you have any idea?” she asked, pausing and waiting for the quiet to sink in. “Do you know what it’s like to have a wound that doesn’t heal?” This - whatever this was - he was not expecting. To her credit, it was all she said. She held still for what must have seemed like forever, then slid out of the booth - the naugahyde shiny and full of the color leather could only hope for - and she was instantly on her feet and moving, and then gone. Somewhere down the mother road. It was then he noticed his glass was empty. 

Wigwam Village, off Route 66

“They were driving through greater waste down here, through fewer and even more insignificant towns. There was water under everything. Even where a screen of jungle had been left to stand, splashes could be heard from under the trees. In the vast open, sometimes boats moved inch by inch through what appeared endless meadows of rubbery flowers.

Her eyes overcome with brightness and size, she felt a panic rise, as sudden as nausea. Just how far below questions and answers, concealment and revelation, they were running now—that was still a new question, with a power of its own, waiting. How dear—how costly—could this ride be?”

From “No Place for You, My Love” a story by Eudora Welty

the collected, waiting

I’ve shot a lot of dried flowers lately, up on the shore, me and them in isolation. Flowers to go with the bugs and other old things. Unlike people, there is little drama in these subjects, no feigned shyness. But they offer little collaboration, make no suggestions, just sit and wait - daring me to make something happen, applying their own inanimate pressure.