A Worthy Cause...And A Nice Gift

Today I've turned 33. By far, this has been the roughest, worst year of my life, and I met the day with no sort of excitement at all. Perhaps I approached it with a little bit of anticipation, confident that the upcoming year cannot possibly be as bad as the year just finished. Final tally: 3 deaths in the family, a pending divorce, and the battle of my life to preserve my relationships with my kids and to remain an important part of their upbringing, while trying to keep them from being uprooted to a suburb of Los Angeles.

But I received a very nice birthday gift of sorts today. My office is rather generous with its employees at this time of year. This year we were given an option of Christmas gifts to choose from: a $100 credit card, an iPod Shuffle, or a jacket with our company logo on it. It took me almost no time at all to decide what I wanted: I asked for the $100, with the condition that it be donated to Kids Need Both Parents. You may have seen their bumper sticker on cars in the Portland area (perhaps you've seen my car!) or beyond. This is a very worthy cause that promotes children's needs for two active, involved, and equal parents wherever possible. I encourage you to click on the link to learn more about what they are all about.

As our gifts were distributed throughout the office today, my boss approached me with a handshake and commented on my generosity with my gift this year. It gave me a bit of a chill when I realized that the company had honored my request and donated to this cause. I never imagined I would be reaching out to resources such as this, but I'm glad I have. And it feels wonderful to be able to help support these people doing their best work for our children.

We Like Hikes

Awhile back, I wrote about the self-portraiture work I've undertaken recently with a 35mm camera. In addition to pointing the camera at myself, I've also included my shadow in certain pictures, where I think it makes a composition stronger. In this spirit, I've taken many pictures lately of my kids, with my shadow cast somewhere into the frame to indicate my presence. And my children are such an integral part of my life that I feel that when one sees them, one also sees me, to some extent. Several times when we've been out hiking, I've made duplicates of my 35mm pictures with our digital camera for quicker results. Here's one example of using my shadow to indicate my presence when photographing my son:

Troy, quick study that he is, has noticed me turning the camera on myself from time to time. He loves to mimic my actions, and he wanted to use the digital camera himself during this same hike. Here is one resulting picture. I love it.

Fathers and Daughters

Delaney and me on the carousel at Jantzen Beach



Volumes of research on daughters and sons consistently reveal that divorce hurts kids. That’s just the way it is. Daughters often feel abandoned, guilty, sad, and angry. They often become depressed. No matter how much a father tries to convince a daughter that it wasn’t her fault, it doesn’t matter. Up through adolescence, young people usually see themselves at the center of their family and friends, and they feel, whatever happens, happens in large part because of them…

But your daughter will also feel abandoned. She’ll ask “What was wrong with me? Wasn’t I worth sticking around for?” This is where you must begin to help her.

Your daughter expects parents to stay married. If she sees you or her mother renege on that commitment, she becomes confused. Heroes, in her mind, keep fighting. In reality, though, sometimes you can’t. If Mom leaves…your fight is limited.

But whenever, for your daughter’s sake, you can fight, you must. How you fight, how you persevere, how you manifest your courage will always influence your daughter…This is what heroes do. It is what your daughter expects. Making the heroic choice at work, in marriage, and throughout your life will shape your daughter, who she is and what she becomes. You need to lead her wisely, consistently, and heroically.


--From Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know, by Meg Meeker, M.D.

I was already aware of the importance of a father in a young girl's life, but I was particularly impressed by the strength of the argument above. I will always advocate for Delaney.

Fathers and Sons, II

I think Troy gets his interest in bridges, and in construction, from me. He always asks whether I built a bridge that we might drive across or past. He’s said several times that he wants to be “an engineer AND a daddy…just like Daddy!” He’s also into Thomas the Train toys, stories, etc. As any fan of Thomas will tell you, the goal each day is to be named a “Really Useful Engine” by Sir Topham Hatt. Quite often when Troy does something helpful, or succeeds at something new, I will proclaim him a really useful engine, and he’ll always correct me with “You mean ‘engineer,’ Daddy. I’m a Really Useful Engineer!”

Two weekends ago, he drew a bridge on the chalkboard in his room that he would like me to build at work. I had his drawing converted into a more formal design document, complete with Troy’s own engineering stamp on it. No deviations were made from his design concept. Check it out below. (If it won't enlarge in your browser, the top portion of his seal reads "REALLY USEFUL ENGINEER" and the bottom half has his name. Below the stamp it reads "NEVER EXPIRES.")

The Photographs of Larry Towell

I didn’t discover Larry Towell’s photographs until a couple of days ago. Towell is a member of Magnum Photos (it is their website from which I’m pasting the pictures in this blog entry), who has traveled the world photographing the dispossessed, refugees of various conflicts, and landless migrants.





But his photographs of his own family are what caught my attention. Here is a picture of his son eating a pear from his wife’s hands in the old family pickup. For me, the boy’s eyes make this picture. I’ve always enjoyed watching my children’s facial expressions as they eat. This picture might have been even better were we able to see more of his wife’s eyes, but I still love it.

Here we see another son, suffering from a fever in the front yard. I was immediately drawn to this picture because my own son is getting over a fever and cold right now. I was reading to him a few days ago and he literally fell asleep sitting up and started to tip over. And it was only mid-afternoon. That was a sure sign that he wasn’t feeling well, and I was up most of that night listening to him cough. I have no complaints, as he asked me to sleep in his bed with him because he wasn’t feeling well. I gladly did so. So I can empathize with the young boy depicted here. And I’m heartened by the family dog’s apparent concern, as well.

Here is a picture of Mr. Towell’s daughter playing baseball with her brothers. This picture also struck a chord with me, as Troy and I have been including Delaney in our sporting games lately. Delaney’s particularly proud of the fact that she’s learning to throw a baseball, and she loves to play “keep-away” with the boys. Mr. Towell has captured the moment well here.

Finally, we come to a graphic expression of sibling love. Here is Mr. Towell’s daughter carrying her young brother through a river to “introduce him to water.” While I don’t agree with these kids being in a river without lifejackets, I see this kind of sibling love every day between Troy and Delaney. These kids adore each other, and I get the feeling that Troy wouldn’t hesitate to carry his sister through water if he ever had to. Delaney has started to assert herself a little more lately when it comes to “alone” time with me, but I think that our kids will have a very happy relationship to each other for life.

Fathers and Sons

I received a very nice surprise Saturday afternoon. My son and I were making a picture using some stickers he had of various pieces of construction equipment, such as bulldozers, jackhammers, hard hats, etc. Troy drew a construction worker and we put a hard hat sticker on his head. Then he drew a tiny little person next to the worker, and put a hard hat on his head. I asked Troy what the figure next to the construction worker was, and he said “It’s his son, Daddy!”

That warmed my heart. It was the first time I’ve heard Troy use the word “son” in a sentence, and it touched me that he thought of the father-son relationship on his own while creating his art work. That he didn’t need any prompting, and that we weren’t necessarily going to even include multiple people in the picture, made my afternoon. He added to this a few minutes later when he said that they were the “Daddy-Son Construction Company.” Thank you very much, Troy.

I’m also reading a book about a father-son relationship right now. Laughing Eyes is a collection of letters written over two decades between Edward Weston and his son Cole. The elder Weston’s Daybooks is essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in the life of this great photographer, or with an interest in the life of an original creative artist. This book of letters is a nice extension of the Daybooks.

I’ve long thought (since becoming a father, anyway) that I could never be the type of itinerant photographer that Weston and Ansel Adams were for large parts of their lives. Adams was on the road photographing when his son was born; I cut both of my kids’ umbilical cords. Those men may have photographed in more exotic locations, but I’ve learned to find subject matter all around me wherever I am. And how I do love coming home to my kids each night!

There is a sequence of letters from Cole to Edward (Edward was on the road, photographing) that really drives this point home for me. I’ll reference two of them here:

March 24, 1926
Dear Papa
Are you well? When are you coming home?
ooooxxxxxxxx


Undated
Dear Dear Daddy
When are you coming home. Are you homesick. I have a black cat. Her name is Blacky. We are cleaning up the yard a little. Cut down a big tree for the grate.
I love you.
Cole.


I think that those letters would tug at the heartstrings of anyone reading this book. But to the father of two adoring children of my own, they are enough to put a lump in my throat. This is a wonderful book.

Nicholas Nixon's Family Pictures

It isn’t easy to find pictures from Nicholas Nixon’s Family Pictures online. Nixon is well-known for his pictures of AIDS patients, of school children, and for The Brown Sisters, but it seems that his family pictures remain in relative obscurity.

Which is unfortunate. I obtained a copy of this monograph a few months back, and I’m moved by it. These are pictures of his wife, Bebe, and his children Sam and Clementine. The pictures are warm, loving, and funny at times. These are more than portraits; these are scenes from life around the Nixon home when his two children were very young.

Amazingly, Nixon made these photographs with an 8x10 camera. 8x10. I’ve tried making portraits of my son with my 4x5 before, and wasn’t too successful at it. I would expect it to be much more difficult with an 8x10, particularly since these aren’t pictures in which Nixon’s children are posed before the camera. Longer lenses. More bulk. Longer exposures, in all likelihood. And energetic subjects, to say the least. But Nixon knows what he wants. He’s after the beauty of an 8x10 contact print, a sentiment I understand completely.

Somehow Nixon pulls it all off with grace in this charming little publication. Highly recommended for all parents with any interest in photographing their children.

A little introspection

The cover of Friedlander's second volume of self-portraits

I’ve begun a very exciting project that has reinvigorated my creativity, is always accessible, and is just plain fun. Partially inspired by Lee Friedlander’s two volumes of self-portraits, published about 30 years apart, I’ve started photographing myself with a 35mm camera, using a 24mm lens to produce a wide view, typically held at arm’s length. I try to photograph myself in some creative way or another every day. Sometimes I’ll stand in front of signs that seem relevant to my current situation (as at the intersection of Court and Church streets in Salem), sometimes I’ll photograph my shadow and legs on the ground in front of me, and sometimes I’ll simply point the camera at myself during my commute home after work. It has been a lot of fun so far, trying to see myself in new and unusual ways. Yesterday Delaney was asleep in the car’s back seat when we arrived at Troy’s preschool, so I slid into the seat next to her, put my face up next to hers, closed my eyes, pointed the camera at us, and snapped the shutter without waking her. It was cute.

My long-term intent is to do this as a sort of visual diary. By photographing myself every day, I hope to look back in time some day to see how I looked during certain milestones in my life, good and bad. Some day I’ll have a thorough visual record of my changing appearance over time, and by logging my feelings and thoughts each day (which I’m also doing), I hope to have a very introspective record of myself. I’ve described this project to my doctor, and he seemed to think it’s a good idea. And it feels like an artistic one, to boot. I’ve also described it to my favorite living photographer, and he said that it’s a “wonderful idea,” and that perhaps I could contact print several frames of negatives as strips on large boards, complete with the film’s sprocket holes. Sprocket holes included; now why didn’t I think of that?

I’ve burned six rolls of film so far, and I’m averaging about half a roll a day. There’s sure to be some good stuff in there, and I eagerly seek out opportunities to keep shooting each day.

On another note related to introspection, I’ve been reading some “success stories” recently of people who have dealt with depression and succeeded anyway. Yesterday I finished William Styron’s Darkness Visible, and I’m currently reading Lincoln’s Melancholy, How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness. I find such success stories fascinating, and even more so when written by the depressives themselves. And I’m proud that I find myself able to keep my former condition at bay and actually use it for good, as a growth experience.

Another Loss

4 Generations

In addition to the break-up of my marriage, I have lost three family members in the past three months. While the first two were quite painful, the most recent one seemed to hit closest to home.

My paternal grandmother, Estella Lopez, died peacefully on July 7th. All 4 of her kids, as well as most of her grandchildren, were in the hospital room with her when she passed. She had been diagnosed with cancer a mere 8 days prior to her death, which also came on her daughter’s birthday.

In the dedication of my personal copy of my graduate thesis, I said that my grandmother “delivered this family from white cotton to white collar.” This woman constantly worked multiple jobs to care for her children when her husband left her. My father and his brothers worked in the south Texas cotton fields as very young boys to help the family out, but my grandmother held them all together. She was always particularly proud of the fact that she never needed help from welfare to support her four children—they made do on their own.

It was a very proud moment 10 years ago when I became the first member of our family to graduate from college—a moment my grandmother was there to share. But a memory just as strong was formed 3 years prior to that. In 1994, at the end of my freshman year, my dad and grandma came to L.A. to bring me home for the summer. We made the drive home the day after my last final, and had some quality time between the three of us. We stopped for the night when we got to Eugene, so that we could call on a cousin of mine for breakfast the next day. We were able to contact him, and my dad took us all out to eat. When I turned 30, my grandma gave me several pages of diary entries she had made in the previous 10 years, and she contemporaneously described that breakfast as being a very special treat. I’m very thankful that we could make that happen for her.

Eerily, she died on 7/7/07, and, as my uncle noted after she passed, “She always loved the slot machines at the casinos.” And as my cousin pointed out, “The only time she could walk fast was when she got to the casino.”

Rest peacefully, Grandma, and we’ll carry your torch.

On Friedlander and Family

And life continues.

I find myself very much interested in the lifelong work of Lee Friedlander these days. His unique, quirky way of looking at the world has produced one of the largest and most varied bodies of work the photography world has ever known. Constantly inventing, he can be relied upon to consistently put out new books of his fresh ways of seeing things from plant stems in vases to “superwide” views of American cities.

I recently bought his book entitled “Family.” With almost 200 pictures, this is a family photo album open for the world to see. It’s a lush visual record of his family’s history—from his honeymoon with his wife Maria, to the growth of his grandchildren. In her Introduction, Maria discusses the familiarity of these pictures from seeing them over the years, but then describes the emotionally moving experience of seeing them all gathered into one cohesive volume. I can imagine.

Maria also discusses some of the trials her marriage to Lee has endured—apparently they considered dissolving the marriage at one point—but they will have been married for 50 years when their anniversary in 2008 comes.

Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Friedlander, and thanks for letting us look.

Letter to Troy and Baby Sister

Kids,

I didn’t want this. I never imagined this could possibly happen. Yesterday I got a list of your mom’s demands from her attorney, because she has decided she wants a divorce. After months of trying to convince her not to break up our family, she has decided she can’t ever be happy with me. I think that there is a lot more going on here than she will acknowledge, but I can’t get through to her, and she’s putting an end to my trying. And her demands are a living nightmare for me: she wants to take you to move in with California Grandma and Grandpa, and only allow you to visit Oregon for a maximum of two weeks a year.

I love you children more than anything in this world. Troy, your excitement every night when I arrive at home is what gets me through the drudgery of another day at work. Your bright, blue eyes, the way you amaze us with your ability to remember things in the smallest detail, and your endless curiosity about this world has made the past three years with you so wonderful. I have all kinds of visual imagery of my time with you running through my head right now. Everybody loves Troy, everybody loves Troy, Troy, Troy, Troy! Troy, Troy, Troy!

And Delaney, I was so excited and convinced that you would grow up to be a Daddy’s Girl. The way you rolled over and beamed at me every morning when I would peek in at you before leaving for work made it so hard to leave each day, but of course I had to. But it also showed me that you were always in a happy mood. You weren’t even really awake, and yet you would just beam at me. You are so cute to watch now as you gain confidence in your walking, show us the periodic Wiggle Worm, and let the whole house know when there’s no more food on your tray. Daddy loves Delaney, Daddy loves Delaney, Daddy loves Delaney, Daddy loves “A-waney!”

I need to fight to keep you kids close to home. I hope things can work out so that you and I will always be close. No matter what problems your mom and I ever had, our family was always the most important thing to me. You are my world. I love you.

Daddy

On Family, I

The next several posts on my blog will be used to examine family pictures made by several photographers. Several well-known photographers have made very personal, sometimes surprising, pictures of their families that I am interested in studying, particularly in my current state of mind.

However, I’ll start with a famous exhibition of photographs in which the term “family” was applied in a very broad, all-encompassing sense: The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition The Family of Man, curated by Edward Steichen in 1955. MoMA put out a call for entries into the show, and the call was answered: over two million pictures were submitted from all over the world. These were whittled down to a final show of 503 photographs from 273 photographers in 68 countries. Several lines from Steichen’s introduction to the book of the show provide a concise description of his intention:

We sought and selected photographs, made in all parts of the world, of the gamut of life from birth to death with emphasis on the daily relationships of man to himself, to his family, to the community and to the world we live in…Photographs of lovers and marriage and child-bearing, of the family unit with its joys, trials and tribulations, its deep-rooted devotions and antagonisms. Photographs of the home in all its warmth and magnificence, its heartaches and exaltations. Photographs of the individual and the family unit in its reactions to the beginnings of life and continuing on through death and burial.

There is a picture in this book which tugged at my heartstrings while looking at it the other night. It’s a picture by Burt Glinn of a small girl on a carousel, taken at the moment her horse went racing past Glinn’s camera. It reminded me of my son’s 3rd birthday this past February, when my dad and I took turns riding on a carousel with him. I took pictures of my son and dad riding it, and although I haven’t printed the negatives yet, you can see my son beaming toward the camera in at least one of them. I could not find Glinn's picture on the Internet, so I thought I’d show two other pictures I find powerful at this time in my life. Dorothea Lange made the picture of the apparent loner in the crowd of men, and Gene Smith made the picture of the little boy and girl. I'm moved by both pictures.

On Arbus, continued

“What I’m trying to describe is that it’s impossible to get out of your skin and into somebody else’s. And that’s what all this is a little bit about. That somebody else’s tragedy is not the same as your own.” –Diane Arbus

The Arbus photograph above, “A young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C.,” is just one of Arbus’ famous photographs of “freaks.” My recent study of Arbus began to manifest itself in my photography the other day. I brought my medium format rangefinder to work and worked up the nerve to go photograph the kids at the bus mall across the street. This took a lot of courage on my part: I’ve never approached strangers asking to photograph them, and these kids don’t appear to be very friendly. These are the kinds of kids that will hang out there all day instead of going to school or work. With their tattoos, piercings, dingy clothes, and general “noise,” they all seem to be rebelling against something. Maybe against their parents, or teachers, or perhaps against everything in mainstream society. They all seem like outcasts from their larger peer group. Outcasts like I am in my home.

I felt surprisingly successful in this first attempt at photographing them. While I’ve not developed the film yet, my interaction with those kids was surprisingly warm. Only a couple of them refused to be photographed, and most were readily willing. One kid complimented my efforts. I plan to go back there again and again, and the results should eventually make a telling series on this period in my life. Maybe I’ll become known as the bus mall regular with the camera. That would be fine with me.

Because one can always use more friends.

On Diane Arbus

Although Diane Arbus is well-known to many, I am only now studying her life and work. She carved her place in photography’s history by making portraits of “freaks”—circus performers, transvestites, prostitutes, the genetically abnormal, etc. This work, which was quite personal, liberating, and important to her, came after early success as a fashion photographer with her husband Allen. Arbus was prone to frequent periods of deep depression and despair, and would finally commit suicide in 1971.

I have recently developed a strong interest in Arbus, and, at least for a little while, I wasn’t sure why. I’ve not made many pictures of people at all (although I would really like to), let alone unusual-looking people I may see in the street. To suddenly develop a keen interest in Arbus (and in Mary Ellen Mark, but that’s for another day) seemed odd.

But I believe the source of my newfound curiosity came to me recently. What I realized is that Arbus made her art by photographing “outsiders”—people who don’t blend into society anonymously. People who stand out and don’t fit in with the crowds (see photograph above). And that is how I often feel these days in my own home with the very real possibility of a divorce hanging over my head. Like an outsider. Our kids still greet me each day with excitement and beaming smiles, but I feel like my wife couldn’t care less whether I am there or not. I feel like my job is to simply go to work to provide for the family, and then to stay out of my wife’s way. I feel like an outsider in my own home. It hurts terribly, and I don’t know what to do.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog.

This blog is supposed to be about photography, my thoughts and observations on it and its history, and whatever else gets thrown into the mix along the way.

But right now the heaviest thing on my mind, which will inevitably influence my work (or lack thereof, as the case may be), is the very real possibility of my wife leaving me. She filed for divorce months ago. I was prone to bouts of depression, and during those times, I wasn’t fun to be around. So she wants to leave. We have a 3 year-old son and a daughter under a year of age. My wife wants to take them both and leave the state, to move back in with her parents.

This is excruciatingly painful for me. My family means the world to me, and my time with our kids has been far too brief. We’ve had our problems, but I never imagined my wife was capable of doing this. And now I’ll have to try to keep the courts from allowing her to take the kids away, and I’ll likely ruin any chance at future reconciliation with my wife in the process. I know that the truth is on my side—it is NOT in those kids’ best interests to remove them from me, nor from their paternal grandparents—but my wife disagrees, doesn’t want to get a job after a divorce, and thinks it would only be possible to raise the kids by moving back in with her parents. And now the hurt feelings will only multiply and grow worse through a relocation court battle. I’ve never felt this much pain in my life.

In future posts, I intend to comment on photographers who have gone through divorce or similar devastating events. And eventually I’ll look at photography outside the shadows of pain.

But right now, I hurt. Badly.