A Rose Along the Path

I love to find a new model, get here in the studio and find a great shot or pose and watch how she becomes hooked and powerful in the room. How do you find a new model, you look around and see what's hiding in plain sight!! Of all the models I've worked with over the years - the only ones who surprise me - without fail are those who don't hustle it out for a living. That's not to say that the models who work the circuit for a living aren't good. They are some great ones and some awful ones but that's for another time. What I'm talking about is finding a rose along the desert path. Taking the time and risk with someone who's overlooked by the crowd or who removes herself from the crowd because she's "not beautiful."



Look at the new model I found on the blog and see the strength of the pose, the clarity of the work and it's her first session ever! Nothing pre-planned. Nothing stock, nothing standard - all of it an original idea for her and the camera catches the freshness of it even when the pose has been done before. What a great adventure.

Important news if you shoot nudes in New York State

a must read article - more on this later.

See today's NYPOst.

Update: Helicopter joins search for missing PSU student | Penn State News | Local - Centre Daily Times

Update: Helicopter joins search for missing PSU student | Penn State News | Local - Centre Daily Times

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Wondering about Humming and Noises

On a busy train station today in Brooklyn I encountered a little girl and her older brother and their dad. She was humming and when her dad asked her a question she responded with a rapid fire response that came with a sound track!

She explained her answer and acted out the noise of the car, the sounds of the door opening and closing and the oncoming train. It was great! I think she was about 5.

I got me to wondering - when do we stop the noises and humming and singing and skipping as we go? And isn't it sad when we do? Her "older" brother, perhaps all of 7 looked at her with great interest but a little disdain - like why can't you just use words??? I think he missed the point. The joy she had in just answering a question brightened my day.

your thoughts?

Chris Brown Admits I was Right!

see the You Tube video OR
go back and read my post from months ago when I said:
Chris Brown is an Abuser of Women! Now he says so too. Let's not let him off the hook - it's not right to hit women and children (fight guys in bars - still okay; rednecks - if it's a fair fight; commies - anytime).

Michael Jackson - the end was televised.

If you are one of the many contrarians who have asked "why all this coverage for a dead pop singer?" over the last several days and weeks today there is an answer. Given the dearth of Summer programming and the lack of interesting tv to see - they might just dig the guy up and kill him again!


(photo copyright NYPOST.com)


CNN reported that over 1 billion people watched the funeral/memorial service this week. 1 Billion people! Today's NY Times provides some details: 18 channels simulcast the service, 31 million at home viewers, CNN.com said it served 4.4 million live video streams (that's folks without cable or cheating at work), MSNBC.com counted 3.1 million, Yahoo reported 5 million streaming viewers. Compare this to the 33 million viewers to Princess Diana's funeral.

Today's New York Times also carries a great little piece by Gail Collins , "Michael, a Foreign Affair" that explains quite nicely how these things work today and have worked in the past. Turns out newspapers and media have always over reported death of celebrities, local or otherwise.

Michael Jackson 10th post

wondering now if Twitter would have worked for this.

Is anyone tweet-ing from the Staples Center.

How come no one can pronounce NOKIA correctly.

Is that Pome-aide in Jermaine's hair?

Shaheen Jafargholi singing MJ - who's Loving You. That's what I love about this country. That couldn't happen anywhere else - NOWHERE else. They ruined his nice rendition with a plug for the concert that will never be!

Time for patting ourselves on the back with the production/producer types. Now maybe I can stop watching this train wreck and get to work

Michael Jackson 9

okay not giving Sheila Jackson Lee any words/notes or press - she's in my political hall of shame for prior mis-deeds and shenanigans from 2 years ago. She doesn't get a pass because he's dead. She hides behind race!

Usher, you can sing but stay on stage - stay away from the box please.

Smokey Robinson looks great. Great suit. Looks like he's trying out for the 5 heartbeats.

Michael Jackson 8

MLKing 3 - finally got some! Where's he been hiding. His performances up to now have been lackluster somehow today he's carrying the gene pool forward. Bernice King rocks

Jermaine Jackson Still Can't Sing!

How does a brother have the strength to sing (even in a weak falsetto) at his brother's funeral? Also interesting how much the others have avoided singing. I don't have a brother but I can't imagine being able to read at a siblings funeral.

Do they get a family discount on the noses. I mean the Mother's nose is old school and hasn't changed. It just occured to me they were all trying to get her nose - not Diana Ross'.

Michael Jackson next

Okay had to leave the house and get to the office. Missed hearing Kobe Bryant but don't really care - he's an unrentent rapist who plays basketball. I'm embarassed by how quickly he's rehabilitated himself and how quickly people have forgotten. No wonder our daughters wonder how and if we value them.

I saw the end of Big Al Sharpton's speech. People can see why he's dangerous - he's sooo Good. What a great line for the children about their father. Don't know if I agree but it's why he's an old school rabble rouser preacher. Had forgtten that about him.

John Mayer - a musician who plays an instrument! Now that's something. No wonder he's so seductive to so many women. And he's dressed like a grown up. Bravo! Struck by how many muscians already had MJ songs in their repertoire.

Brooke Shields - she's beautiful and one more reason Tom Cruise is nuts!

Michael, Michael, Michael

Barry Gordy said "he was the Greatest Entertainer that Ever Lived" - (that's why he tried to cheat him for a share right?)

Stevie Wonder another child prodigy from Motown - was he late because they needed for Gordy to leave...

Heard a great story this morning - turns out when Michael bought the Beatles rights they included the rights to early Little Richard songs. He on the spot had them returned to Little Richard. He was told they were worth $4 million a year and he said "but he should have them"

Michael Jackson 4 - the gloved one!

Barry Gordy has to READ the names of the Jackson 5!
Come On - this is why Motown died. Tito Jackson is TEE To now. How old is Barry Gordy.

Michael Jackson 3

Does Maya Angelou write a poem a day? Does she have a web site where you can request one for a special occasion? At least she's not reading it herself.

Queen Latifah looks good, comfortable in her skin and radiant. I guess Cover Girl works?!

Lionel Richie - has not aged. He was this ugly in the 70s! Anybody else wondering when the last time these heathens were this close to a church service???

Michael Jackson 2

Mariah finally gets to go before Beyonce - and her voice is not ready?! Okay so it's very early for a Soprano.

I'll be There - my absolute favorite Jackson song of ALL TIME!

At least they all have to wear Grown UP clothes for this! Anyone remember Mariah in this much clothing? And the Jackson brothers actually look like real folks, folks!

Michael Jackson funeral

okay, who else notices the first choir doing a great rendition of Soon and Very Soon?
Don't you love the choir member who wore a white jacket, after everyone was told to wear black?

Rev. Lusciuous??

Bye Sarah!

So, Sarah, the Maverick is getting out of town while the getting is good. What does she know that we don't know down here in the lower 48? Does she know that she's got a lucrative tv package that will diminish in value as the year goes on? Does she know that the local email fracas will severely tarnish her reputation AND reduce her Kelly Blue Book Value? Or is she "mavericking" out of a job half done because now that she's seen the bright lights of Broadway that Idiot-orad her husband does every Winter seems inane.

Trust me a looker like this one, with a great set of legs ain't exiting the stage without a significant hook. There's even a blog set up about the legs and footwear??

More Mark Sanford - Make Him Stop

So, it turns out the Governor of South Carolina, in all his Narcissistic glow, doesn't know a crisis consultant! There are many very qualified people here in the Northeast that I could recommend to him, like my old colleague and friend Gene Stevenson. Gene has advised large multinationals on difficult issues and CEOs and CFOs on difficult times, imagine how busy he is right now and he might just make time for Gov. Sanford because I know how much he loves Charleston - so I'm sure they could work something out.

But in the meantime someone make him STOP. This interview, in which he rubs salt in the wounds he inflicted on his wife and his family is appalling. "I have found the love of my life," "I crossed the line many times before" and my all time favorite: "I'm trying to fall in love with my wife again!!!" IT'S DONE. IT'S A WRAP, SHOWS' OVER FOLKS - time to go.

This MO-RON gives two days worth of interviews to the AP. I'm sure that like Bill Clinton and John Edwards and Strom Thurmond

(please don't forget ole Strom) before him he figures if he talks long enough the reporter will just love him too and "feel his pain." He must be a transplant and not a real South Carolinian.

Remember Jesse Jackson is a native South Carolinian (gotta add him in here since the Jackson death has caused the great political sump pump to bring both he and formerly Big Al Sharpton).

The Death of Michael Jackson - some random thoughts

The Death of Michael Jackson is strange, as his life was strange; and sad, as his life was sad.

I'm bothered by his death I suspect partially because it was unexpected - I like order in things and hate it when people re-order my day or my week. With his death Michael Jackson abruptly ended a large part of my youth that I was hanging on to I think.

We all thought him more than passing strange. I can't count how many times I've joked that only in America could a little Black Boy from Gary Indiana become and eccentric old White woman in one lifetime. Michael Jackson's death on Thursday re-order my thinking about my own youth. We were contemporaries. I'm 47 and he was 50 so in a since we grew up together. Which is one reason we all sort of understood his strangeness. Our lifetime has been one of tremendous change and adjustments. Michael didn't make all the adjustments.

His was a life perpetually in search of his lost childhood - the one we all had watching him - in fact I think he had more than most because his ability to spend and travel and play far exceed all the folks I know. Then he quickly shifted to parenthood.

Lots of us never understood the screaming crowds of foreigners who bought all those damn tickets to concerts in Europe or who fainted in the stadiums. Strange how a stoic group of people became so excited by Michael Jackson. But we knew ALL the songs. We knew all his phases and we weren't in line with his choices but we expected him to live a life like we all did. Like Jermaine did, like Tito did, Like Randy did. You can blame his father for lots of things but dragging his family out of a empty steel town aint' one of them.

Now we have our Elvis moment. I remember the weekend Elvis died and all the outpouring. In the days before the internet we relied on the radio for up to the minute news and the fact that he died in the toilet struck me as fitting but it didn't change my day or my weekend. I didn't realize he was only 47 he just seemed old so I thought "why all the fuss over a washed up singer?" In the same way that my teenager thinks all the Michael Jackson coverage is overdone. In fact it was my teenager who told me, by the way, TMZ is reporting Michael Jackson died while we were on the way to lacrosse practice in the same tone he used to ask if I was waiting for him or not. Strange how nonchalantly he was able to end my youth this rainy summer.

Martin Bashear

Is it just me or isn't Martin Bashir strange?

I told you so!

On Feb. 19 I said Chris Brown was an Abuser. Yesterday he said it too?! Brown struck a plea deal for Felony Assault. 5 years of probation and 180 days community service. No one takes a deal like that with those kind of lawyers unless you are gonna get your ass kicked at trial. To get a client to cop to felony assault the evidence and the down side risk must have been overwhelming. You do have to ask yourself: did any other felony assault plea get probation and community service only in that courthouse yesterday though.

"Mark Geragos, Brown's lawyer, said the plea represented the singer taking responsibility for his actions _ which included beating, choking and biting Rihanna during a fight early Feb. 8, according to police." Interesting work by Geragos getting a two way stay away order - so now Brown can on Larry King, don't think Oprah will have him, and argue it was an abusive relationship. See this NY post article also.

Go buy his records now - I think not - but I'm usually wrong about this stuff, this is the same country that forgave Kobe Bryant.

Free Iran??!! Nah, Let them Do it!

If the Iranian people want to be Free and remove that fundamentalist puppet Government they should do it themselves. Why are US "right wing" conservative voices screaming that our president hasn't done enough! Didn't we learn anything from our failed attempt at nation building in Iraq or Nicaragua or Panama or should I continue....no recent American President has been successful at exporting Democracy - why, because it doesn't' work. If the indigenous people don't want Democracy we can't sell it wholesale to them.

The beauty of the struggle in the streets of Tehran is that it is true, organic and therefore sustainable - not run as a proxy by other governments. This makes sense to me in the same way Cuba makes sense to me. When the great Cuban people are tired of that Godless dictator THEY will replace him not us!

Photo Update

It's been a very busy time and so I've not taken nearly as many frames as I'd like. Printing and selecting prints instead. I have been very disciplined about the photo blog and tried to post daily this year to good result. Next step is completing the catalog and offering prints for sale and exhibition.



The Vaya Institue in Brooklyn selected my work for a solo installation this month which has been a nice success. I've shown a couple of series of black and white work from the Summer of 2007 to show. Several prints have sold and they are not the ones I thought would sell. Looking back through ideas that have been shot for the past 3 years and starting to assess the catalog changes your view a bit. In one sense you begin to wonder if you've captured some of the ideas you were chasing - because that's what it is for me- chasing an idea. Not really knowing what it will be when I get it. I always envy those guys who have clear idea to work and work it very specifically. I'm very collaborative and tend not to have "a shot" in mind when I start.

Also sense that I'm coming to the end of a series of ideas and new ones are developing. I had that sense developing in the winter but I kept shooting anyway. Now I want to go back to some models that I tested with and explore some different themes and ideas. I think I'll limit myself to work with one model for a set time and then stop. dunno. I have a few great new models to work with and a few that I almost stared but didnt' because the ideas were all fuxxy. They are clearer now.


Go have a look at the blog and see what you like and what you hate. I'm open to new ideas.
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Dick Cheney's 3d Act

Maybe Dick should be put in Abu Gharib! We really need to ask ourselves now - why did we let Dick get out of his "undisclosed location?" Check the links here to get a sense of what I'm saying. These are not all "left" wing sources - its the damn Wall Street Journal!

It's increasingly apparent that GWB was a hostage to this guy and his crazy, non-logical diatribes about keeping America Safe (after we let our guard down and terror cells bombed and attacked my home)! I love these old guys who avoided service telling us how to be tough. I've never met a solider, sailor, airman or marine who did all that tough talking. Old guys trying to pre-write history that's what this is!

more of this craziness later......

the goodbye will be televised.....

Ok, so here's what we've got for the Grand Ole Party: two guys of color! Gotta love it. The Republican party, of which I have been a member for ALL of my adult life, now has as it's face these two back benchers! Bobby Jindal, wait til Richard Shelby checks his birth certificate and starts making jokes about getting Slurpees in the Governor's Mansion and Michael Steele, former Lt. Gov of Maryland.

In a party that boasts many big name members of all races, stripes and colors we get this after old man McCain and that PYT from Alaska. No wonder their uttering "Oh God?"

Chris Brown an Abuser of Women!

If you believe that this is not your business. If you believe it's a dumb Hollywood story. Then you better have a look at this photo. How can anyone who has a daughter, a sister, a mother not condemn this behavior.

The photo from TMZ. Don't care how they got it. They posted it and they should.

Don't be Like Thomas, the Disciple

I don't believe men evolved from Monkeys (particularly not the murderous rampaging CT kind who live with single white women - is this a monkey living with a "cougar?") and for all those who do, I like to ask them to explain how the human heart comes to beat and how evolved man can't seem to re-create one. So, I'm a person of faith. Faith works in my life and I see Providence all around. I'm not talking organized Religion here but Faith.

Anyway, these first 30 days of the Obama-thon have reminded me of the disciple Thomas (from whom springs the name Doubting Thomas), who when the risen Lord appeared to him and his mates didn't believe it was the Lord until he was told to go ahead and see for himself..after inserting his hands into the wound he was forgiven for his doubts.

...Today we have an foreclosure abatement program and I've heard Ben Stein say the cost will be too high! He's right but only if you ignore the societal costs of all those men, women and school age children living in shelters, using emergency rooms for primary medical care and stealing to feed themselves - cause guess what? Single people with two incomes aren't in this mess. Guys who are working their first job and saving for a new BMW aren't in this mess- families are in this mess. Mr. Stein, he of many words, opined that if we keep up at this rate one day "Standard and Poors" will look at the US govt debt and downgrade us to the levels of Germany! How ridiculous. The same Standard and Poors who rated CDOs and ABS pools as AAA because they were issued by Lehman Brothers and Citigroup through off balance sheet SIVs. I care less what S&P thinks of American Debt. Perhaps the next generation will have a Doubting Ben. You can't argue for a meritocracy some times - it's all or nothing Ben. Didn't hear any of these voices in November when 3 of the large money center banks were within days of collapse because their capital ratios were too low.

I suppose all those anti-Obamers who've already worked themselves up into a lather 30 days after the guy got started want a do over. (These are the same eggheads who take a mulligan on each side and don't believe they're cheating at golf by the way) They want to demand tax cuts that the American People decided didn't work after all (RIP the Gipper and "trickle down"). Can't have trickle down economy if there's no liquidity at the top and by the way you're deporting all the workers at the bottom but that's for another day - if you want a real meritocracy let everyone in and keep the best!

They failed to consider that, like it or not, our GOP got it's clock cleaned because it was too far in bed with them in the first place. We gave the country Norm Coleman for goodness sakes - how can anyone take this seriously. Where were these boneheads when we were racking up generations of debt nation building in Iraq. Didn't anyone else read the Federalist papers - Rush Limbaugh certainly didn't it! Laura Ingraham - come on, that's not discourse - it's low minded personal attack politics that's easily disguised by humor, Lenny Bruce got arrested for it (no wonder Laura couldn't find a sperm donor the old fashioned way).We already debated that issue and came down clearly on the side of staying out of it (over there, over there.....). So while I'm paying $4 bucks a gallon to drive my Made in America SUV no one shouts that the Republican government was ginnng up debt like it didnt' matter - now it matters. ? Give me a break. More tomorrow....

Sister attacked by Sister at Wedding Reception

Gotta Feel the Love when a sister attacks her sister at her wedding.

What Do Women Want?? NY Times knows????

An interesting read from The Old Gray Lady. Following yesterday's Book Review on a similar theme.

Have look at this answer to the Age Old Question: What do Women Want????

Obama & Ted Kennedy - Gone to the Dogs!

Ok, is it just me or is anyone else struck by the irony of the recommendation of Sen. Ted Kennedy that the Obama family select his favorite, a Portuguese Water Dog! Nothing against the dog, our friends had them and they are great. I'm of course biased because I bought a Labradoodle from Rutland Manor in Australia 4 years ago and we love the dog. This is a great dog for families who want a constant companion who can live with kids with allergies - like my second son. The "doodle" though isn't really a "breed" according to the Nazis at the AKC who consider my dog a MUTT. Even though after 20 years of constant considerate breeding by careful professional breeders - not so much you can say about the US breeders who turn out puppies in mills all over - but then Obama's a self confessed MUTT and so is most of America. We don't go for that Arayan shit her in the Old US of A. So, the Mutt should pick the MUTT.

But back to Kennedy. Isn't this the guy who let a girl drown to death in a car while he swam away. A Water Dog alright. Does America have no memory at all! The Lion of the Senate (only after he started a tough fight with cancer) is the original Water Dog. This is a guy who makes Bill Clinton look principled. Isn't this the guy who went drinking and driving (and running away) off an "unmarked" bridge with Mary Jo Kopechne in the passenger seat. She, intoxicated on his presence, he intoxicated.

There's Sen. Kennedy exchanging wit and repartee with Henry Winkler on how his Water Dog is superior to the Fonz's Labradoodle. If I were a journalist here I would open up and admit that I own a lovely animal and the that the price I paid alone makes it impossible that the Obama's will get one from the shelter. The only way that goes down is if the "Deep Throat" Guys drop one off 5 minutes before Malia and Sasha pull up in the motorcade. But we'll leave that post for another time.