The Wandering I

Audrey is such a wonderful partner!  After everyone had left tonight after the Flashes of Hope reception, I just sat looking over the images thinking about how much grace I have in my life.  I have a wonderful wife, a wonderful work space, very compassionate and extremely diverse friends and clients, and I have the opportunity to photograph wonderful people.  Audrey is all in favor of my taking the time to ruminate on these sorts of things so that’s exactly what I did as I decompressed from the days leading up to this reception.

I just walked around the room looking at each of  the photos, both mine an the other shooters’ work thinking about how much each of the kids in the photos had taught me and would teach me.  I just found myself falling farther and farther into the pristine clarity of their eyes and I was simply transported back to that place of complete humility in what I could learn from each of these children and young adults.  They really are some pretty remarkable people and they have blessed me with some of their time and shared a very small piece of their soul with me and the others who have worked with them and spent time with them.

I may not have alot of “stuff” but I certainly do have joy in my life!

Nat

From Somewhere in rural New jersey

Still catching up …

Last Tuesday was the shooting day for The New Brunswick Chapter of Flashes of Hope for the month of September and we were going to be shooting in The Cancer Institute of New Jersey [CINJ] where the a Pediatric Outpatient Clinic is located.  Once each quarter we set up at CINJ for a shoot while the other two months of the quarter we do our shoots in the Bristol Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.  I was in a jam in August when the photographer who was scheduled to do the FOH shoot got a paying gig at the last minute and had to bail [and that's one of the conditions I'm very clear about with all the shooters!  If a paying job comes in, they should take it and I'll deal with getting someone else for the FOH shoot.  It is, after all, a volunteer shoot!].  So I asked the photographer who was already scheduled for the shoot in September to come in and do the August shoot.  So I took the shoot last week.

I have the sense that most people have no idea what an incredible joy it can be for a photographer to be able to do one of these shoots!  I guess most people think that volunteer work is something you do because you’re supposed to do it and that it’s not supposed to provide any joy.  I figure it just clarifies the idea that I’ve had for years that photographers and other artists are cut from a VERY different cloth.  I LOVE doing these shoots and come off of every single one of them with such an unbelievable high that I can just float over/under/around/through [DAMN, that just brought back an old Lucky Strikes commercial! - why can't I let go of some of this foolishness that I have hanging out in my brain so that I'd have more space for important things!] the next several days!  When I see these kids and thier families light up and brighten up right in front of me, there’s just nothing that compares!

The first little boy we shot was a 10,000 watt kleig light.  As soon as I picked up the camera and pointed it at him, the entire lobby at CINJ was blindingly bright.  I’d lower the camera and he was just another happy kid, then I’d point it at him and I’d have to put on my sunglasses again!  For some reason, I kept thinking of a totally sober WC Fields, he just had that kind of attitude!

Then there was the little girl who quite simply had all of us wrapped around her little finger.  Mom and Grandmom kept saying that she didn’t like to have her picture taken but she had them totally fooled!  She was just playing along with that idea but loved having us all under her thumb … after about twenty minutes of coaxing her to come over to the “studio” space, she finally went with her mom and then just hid in her mom’s arms.  But every once in awhile, I’d see this little face with these really clear eyes looking out at me and I could see what she was thinking …

I have got to be the luckiest guy in the world to be able to spend time with these kids!!

Nat

Somewhere in rural New Jersey

Been a bit busy over the last week or two so I’m running behind.  Last weekend the was a “big” parade in Millstone Borough just across the D&R Canal and the Millstone River from us in EAST Millstone.  Our next door neighbors, who are the parents of Corinna, called to see if we would like to go to the W3R parade and celebration over there [ I was trying to figure out what the W3R meant, at first I thought it had to do with the fact that Washington's and Rochambeau's armies passed through Millstone three ( 3 ) times during the American Revolution.  There's so much Revolutionary history all through Central New Jersey that after a bit you can recite it from memory ].  Audrey had a group of friends coming over to the barn but I was available so I went along.

This was absolutely an event for the kids in the Boro which was great!  There was a demonstration of Dutch dancing [ don't know who else would try to dance in wooden clogs! ]

Then the parade started out and traveled the three blocks from the Reformed Church up Main Street to the Boro Hall.  I just slipped back into the ol’ ways of the PJ gettin in really tight on folks [ I'm sure the fellow at the top of this entry thought I was out of my mind to be walking backwards about four inches from the tip of his campaign banner, but he was cool and didn't break character]. I guess the muscle memory just kicked in and the back steppin’ was fine …

Girl Scouts, Brownies, Cub Scouts, you name an organization for kids and they were there [ 4H? ].

After the parade there was a reenactment by a storyteller told from the perspective of a slave that was really quit good the games and face painting for kids and hot dogs and hamburgers soda and homemade sallads for everyone.  Corinna met her first enactor [ notice King George hanging in effigy in the background ] and she really had a great time!

Don’ try to tell me that you’re going to find something as small as this in any city!  This is what I love about this being out here,   God is great, beer is good and people are crazy .

Nat

Somewhere in rural New Jersey

Damn!  Did we have a great night last night!

Five or six years ago when I was traveling through the southeast on a shoot for one of my clients, I ended the trip staying a few days with a close friend of mine from my high school days who now lives in Beaufort, SC.  The first night I stayed, he and his wife took me to one of the “Plantations” [ very high end gated communities ] that was just completed where we had a very nice dinner in the Clubhouse and then after dinner, there was a folksinger/songwriter [ Jack Williams ] who was from the area who did a performance for a group of about 30-40 of us in the Library or the Gallery of the Clubhouse.  He had a wonderfully expressive face with very soft, gentle eyes, so after he finished his performance I chatted with him and told him I’d really like to photograph him.  I have been know to engage my mouth before engaging my brain, and I believe that was just such an occasion.  He just sort of nodded and said something like “Well, that’s interesting …”  and I could see in his eyes that he was having a serious internal debate about my sanity and whether or not I might be dangerous.  I really enjoyed the evening and ended up buying two of his CD’s.

Because I put my name on his mailing list when I bought the CD’s, I heard from him whenever he came up to the New Jersey area usually far to the north of where we live.  He must spend ten months of every year on the road [literally!] driving from one performance to another with his wife in a commercial van [I found out later].  This past spring he was doing a “House Concert” in a private home in Montclair, NJ so Audrey and I attended and it was really quite a nice afternoon.  We spent some time talking to him after the concert because we had never heard of or been to a “House Concert” before.  Apparently they are fairly common in the folk singing community.  Then, on the drive home later that day, it occured to me pretty much out of the blue [ it was one of those moments when the exclaimation piont appeared in the speech bubble over my head ] that maybe we should consider having him come to our barn to do a performance for a group of our friends.

Well, many emails back and forth between us and Jack, and he and his wife drove up our driveway around 4 pm yesterday.  They had a real barn concert Friday night outside of Albany, NY and then tonight [ Sunday ] they were having a house concert in Plymouth, MA so they figured they could squeeze us in between those two [ hey, we're only about 300 miles out of the way! ].  Talk about a small intimate concert!  It was wonderful and Jack was at peek performance!  His playing was impeccable, his songs were filled with his own honest emotions that, at many times, brought several of us [that I know of] to lumpy throats or moist eyes, his stories between the songs were wonderful and really brought us into his life experiences with the telling and his “messages” were absolutely in synch with our ideas about living life well!  It was just a night of magic!

Jack and Judy, THANK YOU SO MUCH for coming into our lives and sharing yourselves with us and our friends!

Nat

Somewhere in rural New Jersey

Our next door neighbors are grad students at Rutgers who caretake the Hutcheson Memorial Forest, 185 acres of preserved land that Rutgers owns which includes the last 55 acre virgin hardwood forest on the east coast.  They became parents last October and have a beautiful baby girl who is a natural in front of the camera.  She has no startle reflex, no anxiety about being on her own [as long as mom or dad are in sight!] and is so even tempered that she’s just wonderful to be around!

David & Inga have been getting many many suggestions that they should consider having Corinna do some baby modeling so David came by yesterday with her  [and a number of wardrobe changes ] so that we could try some images of her to send of to a modeling agency I have worked with, Axis Model & Talent and possibly several peers who work in the city with children and infants.  It is simply such a joy to be around an infant because of their absolute wonder at EVERYTHING!  And they are just totally in the moment, no past, no future,  just right now.  There is nothing in the subjunctive case for these guys and they haven’t been taught about guilt yet.  It is simply a “pure” experience and I LOVE it!!

Any time you want to come over and play, Corinna, just have mom or dad give a call and you and I will have a play date!

Nat

Somewhere in rural New Jersey

Damn, I LOVE being on the water!  Audrey has a male therapist friend who owns a 30′ Catalina who takes every Friday off of work to spend time on his boat out in the Raritan Bay.  He suffered a bad boating accident several weeks ago and has very limited use of his right hand so he’s landlocked if he can’t find another pair of hands to help him with the rope work on the boat.  So up steps Sailor Nat, complete with the necessary off color language and the rolling walk [OK, so I was on a Carrier and it didn't roll anything like a Destroyer, but I can still fake it pretty well!] [this reminds me of playing with our kids when they were little and what I now do with other's children where I put them on my knees facing me and we do "This is the way a Lady walks, tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe;  This is the way a gentleman walks, Stride, Stride, Stride;  This is the way a sailor walks, gobledy goy, gobledy goy, gobledy goy" then you tickle the child and everyone gets hysterical].

So, I went out with Scott today and had a great time!  Nice quietude sailing rather than motoring, mild winds with occasional gusts that would put a bit of a heel on the boat, great sunny afternoon with scattered clouds and just some good male bonding time.  Came home late in the afternoon with some good color, the smell of the sea in my nose, salty hair [well, what used to be hair!], and …  my gentle sailor’s gait.  Boy, I could handle this on a regular basis!!  Now, if only he had rum on the boat …

Nat

Somewhere in rural New Jersey

The mission of Flashes of Hope is to photograph every child who is diagnosed with cancer each year.  Certainly going into 40 childrens hospitals every month is one way to approach that goal.  But an even better tact is to go to the special camps that are around the country where these children can go for a week and just be regular kids at camp enjoying all of the wonderful activities that any summer camp has for kids.  When FOH goes to a camp for a photo session, it’s usually anywhere from 8 to 15 photographers who descend on the camp and they try to photograph upwards of 200 kids in a morning.

Earlier in the summer, the National Office asked me if I would be willing to work [actually it was something like "here's what we want to do and thank you so much for volunteering to do it" before I could come up with any kind of response! ] on organizing a shoot at Camp Happy Times, the camp that The Valerie Fund here in New Jersey has held for for their kids for the last 23 years out in the Poconos.  I was able to line up six photographers/friends and then the National Office was able to get three more photographers who were local to the camp and it was a wonderful time!

We all went out to the camp on Sunday and got the “lay of the land” so that we’d be able to hit the ground running on Monday morning [it was a three hour drive out there for most of us].  We were each planning on shooting 20 to 24 kids apiece between 9 am and 11:30 so it was really going to be a fast and furious shoot to get it all accomplished!

I had gotten the name of a really nice local restaurant, Matthew’s on Main from some of the people in the area and FOH took us out to dinner the night before the shoot.  It was a really nice time for all of us shooters, getting to know one another and just talking shop as all photogs do when they get together.  The food was excellent and there were two outstanding gelatin silver prints [the old fashioned kind made in a wet darkroom, not this new fangled digital "Giclee" print stuff!].  I was a bit anxious about the shoot and afew other details, so I didn’t eat very much but I was mesmerised by the image of Miles Davis that was over our table.

I ended up not shooting very many kids at the camp and several of the other shooters carried the bulk of the work but, as always, it was an absolute pleasure to work with Lisa Cencula from the National Office and to photograph these kids!

Nat

Somewhere in rural New Jersey

The Breeder's freezer!

We have two wonderful dogs who are almost like daughters to us [sorry Mer & Alex!].  As any dog owner knows, OUR dogs are the smartest and most well trained in the world! [ well, almost well trained ... Roxie still pulls like a bitch when I walk her on a leash! ].  And, of course, because they are so important to us and because Audrey is so conscientious and well informed about nutrition, we buy raw food for them.  Every six weeks I head down ‘da shor” to pick up our order from the Golden Retriever breeder who is a delivery point for Oma’s Pride

Ducks' necks

[http://www.omaspride.com/] in this part of the state.  Sixty to sixty five miles round trip.  Because I don’t work a nine to five [ TG!! ], I don’t have to make the trip during any sort of commuter traffic and it’s really quite a nice ride.  The breeder must have well over a ton of raw food delivered and she has a number of her customers come early to unload the truck and separate the orders [for which she "pays"  WELL over the minimum wage to be deducted from your order].  The driveway is a mess with all of the food spread around but I am ALWAYS amazed at what some of these folks order for their furry friends [it's no wonder doggie boutiques and pet supplies were a 7.6 Billion dollar business in 2002]!

Hubbard Squash

Beef Tripe  -  Salmon Whole Belly Trim  – Ducks Feet

Ground Ostrich  -  Whole Buffalo Tongue

Ground Llama  -  Ground Kangaroo  -  Ground Yak

The first time I went down early to help separate orders, I was blown away by what people were getting for their animals!

You just can’t make this stuff up!

Nat

Somewhere in rural New Jersey

Before I even opened the New Brunswick Chapter of Flashes of Hope, I tried to get some exhibit space at my local Starbucks.  I wanted to make more people aware of the organization and I figured that anyone who saw the images would be profoundly impacted by the images and wouldn’t be able to keep their wallet closed.

It’s amazing how much I’m still learning about the world!

The present manager of the store really liked the organization and persuaded his district manager to let us put up some images.  She said that it would be fine and suggested a section of wall about 6 feet wide.  It also happened to be the only section of wall that had no lights on it [in these images, the photos are lit up with a strobe so that you can see them ].  Not the ideal place but I’m a patient man.  I figured that we’d get up on the wall, she’d see how great they looked and would see them changing every month so that customers wouldn’t be bored with the visuals on the wall [as they presently are with the corporate graphic elements that never change, that stuff on the orange wall] and then she’d give us more space, maybe even most of the wall space!

Well, I finally got the images up last week!  The manager bought the Arakawa rail and I’ve temporarily donated the hardware, the stainless steel cables and the acrylic sheets that “sandwich” the ink jet prints.  What really amazes me is that there has been no response from the regular customers!  Many of them know me because I’m a “regular” as well.  two or three people have commented to me about the display but no one has made a contribution of any size.  I’m not looking to raise all the funds I need from this exhibit, but I did expect several small donations.  I guess I may be much more conscious of my surroundings because of my profession.  And maybe, we just need to get more images up under the lights.

As I said, I’m a patient man ….

Nat

Somewhere in rural New Jersey