Myrtle and Broadway

We climbed the iron steps to the station of the elevated tracks of the J, M and Z line at Broadway and Myrtle Avenue. The couple disappeared through the brown swing doors into the subway entrance. I thought I had lost them in the free-for-all of shoppers returning home with their bags. But they were standing near the turnstile and had noticed Caroline with our dog Louis and I beckoned to them to come and meet him. They carried no bags. She was there to say goodbye to him. He was returning to Manhattan where he studies Criminal Justice at Berkeley College.

We had to wait for the sun to go behind the clouds. We pressed into a corner on the walkway by the entrance to the subway where the light would be good. Louis and Caroline greeted the shoppers as they banged through the swing doors. At last we felt we had found the center of Brooklyn, a place difficult to pinpoint.

At first she did not want to be photographed because she was wearing sweat pants (I explained it was just head and shoulders). After the shoot, he asked to be photographed by Caroline, with me and Louis.

Christmas tree salesman

First day back in Brooklyn for several weeks. The day started badly. Lunching at the friendly and cosy Boulevard Café on Bushwick Avenue, a young woman sat writing in a notebook at the next door table. Yes, writing in a notebook. When she stared out of the window she looked good, lost in thought. But a fuse box stood out prominently behind her head and I could not get myself in the right place without her seeing what I was up to. I abandoned it and we moved on.

Caroline spotted a man selling Christmas trees from a stall on Broadway. He obligingly gave me his time. If you have a section of sidewalk the length of a sizable store front, full of Christmas trees on December 4th, a Saturday, you do not have much time to clear them.

Father and daughter

Having shirked the trip to Brooklyn last weekend because of the shoppers, we went to sedate Rhinebeck, NY and Bread Alone. They serve cupcakes now - this organic paragan of multi-grain. We were sitting two tables down from a father, mother and their three daughters. 'There's a fourth child, our son, but he's away at school," the mother said.

"The likeness between your husband and your youngest daughter caught my eye."

"I am sure they would love to be photographed."

With their strong looks they could be cast in any film about pioneers. I can see them in a covered wagon galloping full tilt across the foothills of Wyoming in 1870 - bullets popping holes in the canvas.

William Styron

This portrait of William Styron is included in a current show called "Recent Acquisitions" at the Smithsonian, National Portrait Gallery. It was taken at Mr. Styron's house in Roxbury, Connecticut, in 1984.

The photograph was first exhibited on Martha's Vineyard where Mr. Styron's friend Art Buchwald looked at the photograph and said to him, "I didn't know you were a homeless person, Bill."

Mr. Styron's house was dark and crowded with furniture and books so I asked if I could look around outside. The summer house immediately caught my eye and with some coaxing Mr Styron sat on the steps. I said that I thought he looked too scrunched up and suggested he lean back on one elbow. He did so and I was ready with my finger on the shutter release before he had time to think about smiling.

Ava and compost

Ava's career as an organic farmer began eight years ago when she was eleven-years-old. She worked the till at a farmer's market stand in Cold Spring on Saturday mornings. Soon she was spending her summers on the farm and last year lived there in a trailer. Next year, she and another intern from the farm are starting their own organic farm in New Hampshire.

Ava with scythe

A skill Ava developed on the farm was how to use and sharpen a scythe. She said she learnt a great deal from watching eighty-year-old English farmers demonstrating their skills with a scythe on YouTube. The two scythes she now owns came from her father (not a farmer) who had them in a shed.

Meditation can be dangerous

Man turned to stone by staring at Central Hudson power lines. Sculpture by Emil Alzamora in his open air studio in Beacon, NY.

At Emil Alzamora's

Caroline with her hands full at the Open Studio in Beacon.

Scene in the park

Washington Square Park on a fine, late autumn afternoon. The couple in the foreground are gripped by the subject in hand, a serious subject, it looks like. Along side them is a young man miles away in his own thoughts. Behind them, we have a couple without much to say to each other at all. Next to them, a couple, limbs entwined, helpless with laughter, and then a man on his telephone who looks as though he is making no progress with anything. In the far background, two figures, sitting in a similar fashion, one in the sun and the other in the shade.

Couple in round glasses

They came as we left. I wanted a picture of him and as I looked through the finder she appeared at the side of the frame. You really can't say, "Clear off."

Germaine Greer

It is the 40th Anniversary of the publication of "The Female Eunuch". Loved in London, where she appears regularly on TV shows, now hardly known here. I never meet anybody who has read her books, but after forty years "The Female Eunuch" is still in print. Not bad.

I remember her clearly; quick, funny, friendly, but very serious about her believes. Did not at all mind moving furniture with me to get a clearer view by the window. Never cared much about what she wore. She wears simple and comfortable clothes, and occasionally, in her youth, removed them for a photographer. She seldom dressed up for them.

Julian Schnabel

This picture was taken at the height of Schnabel's fame as a painter; 1986, I think. Although we spoke on the telephone a couple of times after the sitting, we lost touch. I gave him a print of the photograph and he said that he thought he looked a bit fat.

Four or five years ago, Caroline and I walked into the stage door of Town Hall after a concert given by our friend Richard Butler. On the way in, a large, slightly dishevelled, bearded man, distinguished looking nevertheless, said good evening to me. I did not know who he was and left it at that; and after he said good evening again, this time adding my name, I started to worry that he was somebody I should know. But I could not for one moment think who it was. I asked Annie, Richard's wife at the time, and she said, "That's Julian Schnabel." I went up to him, put my arm around his shoulder and apologized. "It was the beard that fooled me," I said.

He was polite, but I knew he was offended. Like Orson Welles, though, I think he would be good in his own movies. He had matured into a very impressive looking man, far more impressive than the youngish one I had photographed twenty years earlier.

Abandoned tennis court

I was going to call this "The State of British Tennis" until Murray beat Federer in the finals of the Shanghai Masters the other day, so I'd better be careful. We'll see.

Artist in leather

Jason Ross with his vintage machine. He makes jewelry, belts, wallets and bags in leather. He bought the machine for $50 from a shoe maker in Philadelphia who told him that it did not work and why. Jason took it home and found that the shoe maker's diagnosis was wrong. All it needed was a replacement cotter pin. He learnt how to shape, form and hammer leather on YouTube.

Jason lives with Natasha Chekoudjian in one of Red Hook's converted factory gems. It overlooks Coffey Park where they walk their white American bull dog, Stella. I tried to photograph all three of them earlier this year but it did not work. Got some good shots of Stella and our Louis on another occasion though. August Sander took some good ones of men with dogs.

Leather worker's tools

Jason has recently had a surge in orders for his work and has taken on helpers. From an early age he had experience with production. His father manufactured pushpins and allowed his son to roam the factory. Click here for Jason's website.

Jason Ross and Natasha Chekoudjian

Jason and Natasha in the hallway of their building in Red Hook. Natasha is wearing a dress that she designed and jewelry designed by Jason.

Girl in truck

As I drove through Jonesport, Maine on the way to the ferry that would take us to Norton Island, Caroline spotted this girl standing by a red truck. This shows clearly the value of having help from one with sharp eyes attuned to those of the photographer's. We were not able to stop without the risk of missing the ferry, but as we drove by two days latter there she was, this time sitting in the truck with a male friend. "I think they live in it." Caroline said. I should have asked but was too excited over getting the picture and left smartly handing them my card. Sometimes I have the feeling that subjects have the power to take the picture back.

Witch with her daughter

Writers enjoying the quiet and undisturbed natural surroundings of Norton Island, home of the Norton Island Writers Residency Program, might have seen additional guests there last week in the form of a witch from the nineteenth century and a botanists from today. It was late in the season though, and most writers were back at their desks at home or in their colleges. But next summer, those lucky enough to be chosen for the two weeks of residency, might hear bird songs turning to screams and the locked doors of their cabins opening in the night. NORTON ISLAND RESIDENCY PROGRAM NORTON ISLAND RESIDENCY

Shipwreck

They wanted to show that a shipwreck had happened on the nearby rocks. Driftwood on the beach was tossed into the water by the director and producer and photographed in close-up swirling and bobbing in the foam.

Tree roots, Norton Island

On the witch's trail, Norton Island, Maine