A young Jack Nicholson

As we left the Roebling Tea Room in Williamsburg yesterday Caroline kicked me in the shins and hissed, "Take him," pointing to the man making coffee and tea, "A young Jack Nicholson."

She denies kicking me in the shins, but will do so in the future. At Dia, two weeks ago, I lost my nerve when we saw a woman with a helmet of gray hair and a military style raincoat with a belt broad enough to carry a sword. I let her slip away without asking if I could photograph her.

Loaf of bread

Food and wine have played a large part in my life, mostly eating and drinking it but also reading about it. I was about to list a few writers I've liked, but got stuck at Elizabeth David. I have admired food photographers, Robert Freson and Irving Penn in particular, but have never tackled it myself. Here is a loaf of bread on a fifty year old bread board.

Girl in Bensonhurst

On the advice of Heather, (see January 6th posting) we drove to Bensonhurst, NY on Saturday to photograph a woman who worked at the Istanbul, a fast food restaurant on Bay Parkway.

"Every time I go there," Heather told us, "I just can't keep my eyes off her." That seemed a good recommendation. We found the Istanbul and there was the woman. She stood behind the counter taking the money. We looked, neither of us saying anything.

"Can't be her," I said.

"No, can't be her," Caroline repeated. "I'll ring Heather."

"Chubby cheeks, short black hair slicked down, large?"

I saw that Caroline was being told that it was indeed her. I wondered yet again about the question of who the camera likes and who knows who the camera likes.

After lunch we walked back towards the car. A young woman passed us. Caroline and I looked at each other as if to say, now there's someone, and without a moment's hesitation Caroline was off down the street to ask if I could photograph her. This was difficult because the street we were on had an overhead subway track running above it with a train passing. Caroline shouted and the girl removed her iPod earphones. Her mother and her brother were with her and were on their way out to lunch at Burger King. Her brother, who is about he same age asked if he could also be photographed and his mother said no,"This is your sister's thing."

The girl is twenty and never liked high school, did not graduate, but now is trying to get her General Equivalency Diploma. She loves fashion she told me. We gave her the URL of this blog. I hope she will see the picture and find a job she likes.

Paul Theroux

It's been raining and snowing most of the week and 25° F. Not much good for looking for subjects.

Here is Paul Theroux taken in London, England in the mid-seventies. I've never been drawn to photographing writers in front of books, ink stands, typewriters or computers. Some have done it beautifully, notably Helmut Newton with his picture of Robert Hughes. When I try, or am asked to try, it looks a muddle. In front of books, there is too much contrast and your eyes whirl around the shelves.

Mr. Theroux was not forthcoming with me, which was rather disappointing because I very much like his stories and would have enjoyed hearing one, or a segment of one, first hand. He was not much interested in my life. It didn't matter. Generally I do like to find some common ground with subjects but this time we just looked at each other and went our ways.

West Point Cadet

Here is the young woman from the other side of the Hudson River from Garrison and the Metro North railway line. (See post of February 6 2009). No individual touches as to the styling of the uniform here. Cadet Dellavalle, one of a family of four sisters, all in the army and all West Point graduates.

Kubrick in the War Room

This week was taken up with trying to correct errors in the comments section of this blog. (Some people have not been able to post them successfully. "Accept third party cookies" and it will work. E-mail me if in trouble.) Then, shopping for and preparing dinner for tonight, notably making chocolate mousse.

So. I have slipped in two photographs from the past, one of which, that of Stanley Kubrick in the War Room from the making of Dr. Strangelove, was prompted by Richard Butler who brought up his interest in the film on Facebook.

Kubrick was lining up a shot of the circular table and standing in the light of one small spotlight. The Big Board is to the right and slightly behind me. Frequently he would get the grips to set up the camera and operate it himself. Sometimes the camera operator was not even on the set.

Richard Butler

I met Richard Butler in the Café Maya in Cold Spring, New York with some mutual friends. This was a restaurant that I loved not because I particularly liked the food, but for the two reasons I always love or dislike a restaurant: because of the other people who go there and the welcome and service you receive from the owner and staff. Here we thought the world of both our fellow diners and the staff.

Richard told me he was a musician, and judging how he looked, I thought he was probably a violinist with the New York Philharmonic. In my ignorance of rock music I had never heard of The Psychedelic Furs.

Weary art lovers at Dia: Beacon

Today was the first time I had gone to Dia:Beacon, the local must place for culture. I had always resisted it, partly because I do not like the art shown there and partly because I thought they had probably ruined the building. And indeed they have. This huge, superb factory building has been many times subdivided into giant cubicles and passages assigned to each artists.

The photograph, stolen from under the eyes of one of the polite sixteen year-old Dia guards, shows one of the comfortable sofas that are scattered around the museum for weary art lovers. The two occupants look as though they might be there until closing time.

Alex and Ashley

When I first saw this couple, they were sitting on a bench in the museum, but I was under the direct gaze of one of the guards. As I wanted the couple to look a certain way, I would have had to have spoken to them, which would have drawn the attention of the enemy. Now that everybody has a digital camera the guard would probably have known how to delete the offending photograph and demanded to do so.

Both Caroline and I were astonished at the youthful appearance of the woman in this photograph when we learned her occupation. At first, we did not believe that we had heard correctly, which was that she was a Professor of Sociology at Boston University (or would be in September), so young - not possible, and assumed we had heard wrong. But when I checked with them for the caption we had not heard wrong and she is indeed a professor.

I often do not want to take people away from the location where I first saw them, because I was drawn not only by their looks but also by their gestures and pose. It's very difficult to re-create that in another place. You have to start again really - go for something new, which is what I did here.

It was the first warm day after many bitterly cold ones and the sun reflecting from the snow covered ground gave a soft light.

Jon Beacham

Sometimes people I photograph tell me they do not want to do what I've asked. "Stand, please, next to the printing press with your hand on the lever."
"I'd like to sit," Jon replied, "I don't like to stand when I'm photographed." I wasn't sure what to say. Jon then said, "What do you want anyway?"

"I don't know," I said, "but during this exchange I will see something that I like, or you will do something I like." After a further pause he sat in a chair by the window and looked good. Nice light.

Jon is a book dealer. He specializes in art and poetry. He is also a film maker (nothing digital), photographer (again, nothing digital), and a letterpress printer. He has been a monk.

Metro North conductor

Adrienne wears her cap on the back of her head with her hair over her shoulders and divided to allow the use of her radio mike. Her top pocket is made full use of. Across the river from Garrison NY lies the United States Military Academy at West Point, where the cadets, only a little younger than Adrienne wear their uniforms according to stricter and more formal regulations. At opposite sides of the river, women in uniform, in their very different fields, run the most efficient of organizations. (A picture of a cadet will be posted later).

I used 1600 ISO to get a fast enough shutter speed in the lurching train.

Girl in a silver jacket. Boy in a hood. Newburgh

The picture of the girl in the silver jacket was the first photograph I took in Newburgh. It was in 1996 and in February. I had been thinking about photographing there for some time and decided if I didn't get started I might never do it, although it was a bitter day. The girl and her sister were on their way to the store for their mother. I took them together but saw straight away that the elder sister was the subject I wanted. She stood stock still in the freezing cold and welcomed the camera.

Since then I have not done much there in the winter; there are few people about and mostly those that are in the streets are hurrying along. One day last year Caroline asked if we could go to Newburgh together. I said there wouldn't be many people around but I knew she wanted to go so I thought why not, lets go.

After a drive round seeing hardly a soul, we spotted a few youths, amongst them a girl who I took. Then two children came to see what we were doing just as I was packing away my Rollieflex and this boy was one of them.

To see more of Newburgh click here.

In the Blackbird Parlour

The contrast in appearance between these two friends: the one with straight dark hair and soft round features, the other, curly auburn hair and chiseled looks. They were sitting, chatting and writing at the next table to us in the Blackbird Parlour, Williamsburg, NY. Look how differently they dress too. I would have loved to have spoken to them more. They said they were regulars so we must go back.

Heather St. Clair and Socks

This is the right way to hold a ferret, by the scruff of the neck. My mother kept ferrets during World War II in England and used them to catch rabbits. We carried the ferrets in a sack to the rabbit warren and the ferrets never failed to return with our dinner. I was fond of these wriggly, thin beasts, but nobody had them as pets then. Nowadays they tuck themselves up into handmade sleeping bags and are as adored by their owners as cats and dogs.

Heather St. Clair, artist

Here is Heather with one of her paintings. The light for this picture comes from a window that her friend Ralph helped me cover with a sheet to diffused the sunlight. Having helpful people around when photographing is fine. Ralph fell into this category, but people who stand there, too close to you, and just stare, can be a nuisance. "Do you think you could give us five minutes and we will be done," usually works. I don't think I have ever had anybody time me and then return to interrupt things again.

David Dasch

As soon as I saw this man I was struck by the depth and symetry of the lines bracketing his mouth. David Dasch runs a one man advertising business from his house in Beacon, NY. He is also a musicologist who plays transcribed Schubert and Beethoven on the guitar. A Morgan guitar made in 1954. "That was before the rush, before everybody wanted one." In order that I had a clear view of the blue walls, David and I moved a settle out of the way. He thought I had levelled it and I thought he had, but it fell, hitting a postcard stand which in turn hit a picture on the wall, miraculously not breaking the glass in spite of it falling to the ground. Such are the hazards of shooting in people's houses. We picked everything up and began again. He couldn't have been nicer about it.

I'm impressed with Nikon. This is the first picture I have taken on the D40 at 800 ISO, needed in this shot as it was a dullish day, and I did not want to supplement the window light.

Two Rhode Island Reds

I saw a photograph of Helmut on his wife's Facebook page. (Until now I had seen no value in the time-wasting activity of Facebooking, but I shall now use it as a source of possible subjects.) His wife told us that Helmut kept chickens and we were up their slippery dirt road the next day to take his picture. He said, gathering up two Rhode Island Reds, "Chickens are like dogs, if you are nice to them they will love you." As much as I would have liked to have used as a background the hand made wooden coops inside the brick gazebo, there was really no room for us all.

Anyway, we now have a regular supply of fresh eggs, which reminds me of a passage from Elizabeth David. "To produce neat plump, well shaped and comely poached eggs it is essential to start off with fresh eggs." Then she begins to make life difficult. "Not too fresh though. A really new laid egg is not good for poaching. Three-day-old eggs are ideal, although how, unless one keeps hens, one is ever to know the exact age of an egg is not a problem I can solve."

Zio Antonio

Zio Antonio, Caroline's great uncle, taken in an abandoned stable in Malvito, Calabria, Italy. My favourite light, a four foot square of window, and my favourite color transparancy film, Kodachrome 64. Above all, a subject that the camera likes: a lean face, a steady gaze, open eyed, and the self confidence to say, this is how I am.

Kinga

One late summer afternoon I was playing tennis at a hotel in Stowe, Vermont. Between a point I noticed this girl strolling by. Not wanting to interrupt the game I asked the wife of the man I was playing if she would run after her and ask if I could photograph her. She was Polish and she studied drama at the University of Warsaw. During the summer she had worked as a housekeeper at the hotel and earned enough money to pay for her tuition for a year.

Harold Pinter

The death of Harold Pinter: You probably know as much as or more about this man than I do; although I took his picture, it was the first and last time we met. I read an account of his funeral in The Guardian and I was very moved. I am English (half Russian) living in the United States and really miss only one thing about England and that is cricket. Harold Pinter adored the game, knew a very great deal about it and, of course, wrote and talked about it brilliantly. He was like David Forster Wallace on tennis, my other love, who could thrill you with his knowledge and commentary.