LAST 10 MINUTES print heading

LAST 10 MINUTES

Mac Miller at Roseland

I know I talk alot about Mac Miller.   He and Karen invite me to take pictures.  There is nothing more fun.  These are from Roseland Ballroom in NY last week.

Mac is one musician who will never need a teleprompter to remember the lyrics.  His audience is on every single word.  The shows are loud and tight.

There are all new videos on huge screens behind him. They begin with scenes from a park I played at as a child in Pittsburgh.   Mac holds onto those parks and memories from growing up in Pittsburgh like little pictures in a locket.

If you want to see the whole series of images from Roseland, you can download the pdf here: Mac Miller: Roseland

Mac Miller: Roseland

05.03.12 Posted in Everything Is Connected, Photos, Something I Heard, Something I Saw

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Springsteen on my phone

This was the scene at Jazzfest last Sunday in New Orleans.

This is the shot from my phone

It is always funny to me when a stranger hands me their camera and asks to take a picture. I like taking pictures. A family on the beach. A couple in the park. I do my thing. Hand the camera back.  Keep going on with my day.

The next day on the beach, that same stranger will come up to me and ask, “What did you do when you took that picture of us yesterday? It is the best picture of us ever. It looked completely different than any other shot we have taken.”

Those little moments are how I see the world. That is what I do.

This past Sunday at Jazzfest in New Orleans, there were 100,000 of us all out in an open field, taking Bruce Springsteen in. Listening. Singing. Crying. Dancing. All pointing our phones at one point or another at Bruce. I had scored tickets for the front section which gave me an advantage. I took 5 pictures with my iphone. This is my favorite.

I posted it on Instagram and Facebook – and got more likes and comments than any image I have posted. It made me alittle crazy – how is it this is my most popular picture posted in social media ever?

Then I thought of the anonymous family on the beach.

Bruce Springsteen is at the height of his powers. Not his most agile. Maybe not the most daring. Still – he has a toolbox of songs, a trunk load of experience, and a clarity that he can summon at will. He is in front of tens of thousands of people every night – mixing it up live, using his band like a finely honed blade to cut through all the clutter in our heads – able to steer the show down different roads as he feels it. He came out a couple of nights ago in LA an hour before the show was to begin. He brought his family out on onstage to take some pictures. Only a small portion of the audience was there. Then he picked up his guitar and played, “For You” and disappeared. In New Orleans he summoned ghosts, wove “When the Saints Go Marching in” seamlessly into a new song of his, and made us all imagine our personal and shared losses then how to take the next steps together all in a single song (City Of Ruins). He plays his 30 year old chestnuts as gifts that somehow seem just as vital as when you first heard them. He doesn’t embarrass himself. That is a big one. Rockers in their early 60’s either evolve or make us wince. It is amazing the place he has found to work out of.

I told a friend I find that way he leads his life really inspiring – not so much the music and the way he can still burn hot with dignity. She said the songs are my way in.

05.02.12 Posted in Everything Is Connected, Photos, Something I Heard, Something I Took

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Sunday Mourning

I was in the passenger seat grabbing a moment to page through the Times on Saturday morning. My two little boys were in the back, my wife driving – all going to the farmer’s market. Then the sudden jolt staring back at me with the obituary for Hillman Curtis. Instantly all my greatest fears were on the surface.

I never met Hillman, but I followed his work religiously, spoke of him constantly, and was infinitely inspired. He understood this medium we are all working in before we did. He laid the red carpet – and with passionate generosity wrote the book to guide us. His films are the bible for those of us exploring video portraits and his work the living evidence of his curiosity.

It is heartbreaking to read of his family. I know that parenting is the process of letting go. I also know that parenting is planting seeds, and I am sure Hillman sewed rows and rows of seeds that will produce an incredible harvest – still – the days we have are so precious. So precious….so precious. And it seems so sad losing Hillman.

Those of us who know Hillman through his work know that he is alive. He triggered so many ideas, shared the genius of his heroes, and in the process made us all better human beings.

Nothing matters except for the way we touch eachother. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually.

Some links for Hillman:

http://hillmancurtis.com/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=519133478

and I really enjoyed reading this: http://gdeu.tumblr.com/post/21424093446/hillman-curtis-1961-2012

and watching….this: http://vimeo.com/38130536

04.22.12 Posted in Everything Is Connected

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Are we missing anybody?

Jackson and I were driving to Montclair this morning.  Jackson had his agenda – apple cider doughnuts from the apple stand, sausage samples on toothpicks (a kid’s gotta eat), and soccer with his dad whose flight was cancelled last night and got up in Columbus, Ohio at 4:30 to fly home for this Saturday morning adventure.

We are listening to a recording of Bruce Springsteen from the night before at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.  “My City of Ruins” comes on – one of my favorite modern gospel songs.  Heard it in Asbury Park the first time Bruce ever sang it, when that town was falling apart.  Heard it at the first Jazz Fest in New Orleans after Katrina.   Heard it after 9.11.   Now, hearing it again on this sunny, cold Saturday morning driving to Montclair.  Towards the end, Bruce yells out, “Roll Call!” – and introduces the band.  This is the first E-Street band show since his sax player of 40 plus years, Clarence Clemons died early last summer.   When Bruce gets to Clemon’s usual spot to be introduced – Bruce yells out, “Are we missing anybody?”  He repeats that line over and over enough to bring tears, and draw the audience into a frenzy.  He then resolves his question so elegantly, “If you are here, and we are here, then THEY are here.”  He repeats that, too – opening the door wide open to the future.

I tell Jackson, “We miss Clarence.”   Jackson asks where he is.  We have been talking alittle more about death.  It comes up.  Sometimes I bring up how much we miss my Dad and Stephie’s Dad.    Sometimes Jackson wants to know where someone is.  Jackson asks, “Is Clarence going to come back and play?”  Just drop the needle and play.

I always feel alittle embarrassed talking about Bruce.  I am not that into the music – although I listen to it once in awhile and go to the shows.  But I am really into the man.  Is there any better advice in dealing with losing someone you love than, “If we are here, then they are here.”

Here is the mp3 of City of Ruins – “Are We Missing Anybody” comes at 7:12

My City Of Ruins – Springsteen – Apollo Theater – 3.9.12

The video clip is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH8vKjxX1Uw

This post is for our Uncle John in Indiana who is 92 and has his heart talking to him tonight.  It is for Jack Lange and Steve Cook.  For Natalie & Louis Meyers and Myron Markel.  For all the people we miss so much who live inside of us.  That is my Dad up top.  There is a gold watch in my closet that is engraved with my birthdate and the inscription, “Hi Dad.”   My mother gave it to my father on the day I was born.

03.10.12 Posted in Everything Is Connected, Personal Work, Something I Heard

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Normal is really art

A friend said, “You don’t edit your blog!”   But I do.    A part of me wishes that I didn’t – but it all sounds so self serving if I don’t.    Although….in the process of editing I am leaving something out.  I have left it out for years.  It is the part where you take your work out into the world and say, “This is important.”    Doing the work has always been my passion and pleasure.   Considering it important – let alone imagining it as “art” I have always kept at arm’s length.   Yet now, as I finally come to grips with the body of work, as opposed to the daily creations, something very new seems to be emerging.

Two weeks ago I spent several days talking about the experiences that feed the photography at Workman Press.  They made me sit and  explain what had happened in each picture and how they all relate.  Part of me is so uncomfortable doing that – yet – it freed me.

Last week I met with an incredible group from Hall & Partners gathered in Chicago.  It was the first time showing the new videos to a large audience.   Their response – calling out, laughing, crying – all felt like a validation I had never heard before.

Then Pedro called again today from Paris.  I was scribbling madly as he told me what I could never admit to myself until these last weeks:

“I know you see your work as normal, but you need to understand what you think of as normal is really  art.”

So here is a picture from this last Sunday morning.

Tomorrow Stephie and I are off to Columbus to direct our first video for Google.

The work still leads to the work….but now…maybe…there is an afterlife.

03.06.12 Posted in Everything Is Connected, Personal Work

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