Looking down the Avenue d’Olonzac towards the invisible rolling hills with their patchwork quilt of vineyards and woods.
I stood motionless, a shadow with a camera, measuring the passage of time: “Thousand-one, thousand-two … .” Light flowed into the camera, silently burning a portrait of the night into the emulsion of the film. It is a mediation that I have practiced for years. No matter where I travel, eventually, late at night, I am drawn out to photograph the solitude.
La Tour Régine – This is one of four separate structures that comprise Châteaux de Lastours. Originally there were three 11th century fortifications built along the rocky spine of a ridge 300 meters (about 990 feet) above the village of Lastours. Because the sides of the ridge were so steep, it wasn’t necessary to construct a wall surrounding the fortified structures. It was home to the lords of Cabaret who were followers of the Cathar Christian sect. Eventually, the crusade against the Cathars succeeded and the land became part of the kingdom of Isle de France. To affirm his domination of the area, the French king had this fort, La Tour Régine, added.
Lastours was one of our favorite stops when Becky and I had our bicycle touring business in France.
Even though, technically, La Tour Régine is not a Cathar castle, I take poetic license to call it one, because it could not have been built without the slaughter of the Cathar believers.
To separate the planes of the image, I used seven masked layers: path, rock outcroppings, foreground, background and sky, and castle. Most of the adjustments were made to the brightness and contrast of the various masked areas.
My philosophy of life can be summed up as: if you don’t play, you can’t win. The best photos are created when the photographer is engaged with the subject. With people, it means connecting, even briefly, and generating a sharing moment.
That is how I learned that the most powerful words in photography are, “May I take your picture?”
Often, the response is “Why?” This provides the opportunity to introduce myself, tell them what it is about them that I find fascinating, and open a conversation. I want honesty in my photograph, it must be based on an honest interaction when I take the picture.
People have a right to say no and if someone does, I say thank you and move on. The world is full of interesting people and things.
It was a beautiful spring day in Paris and I was walking down a small street behind our hotel on the Rue de Rivoli. I found this group of firemen just finishing practicing getting people out of 1st and 2nd floor windows. It only took my holding up my camera and asking “S’il vous plait?” to get their full attention. They lined up and posed with their reflective helmet face shields down. A great picture which I’ll post some other time.
I motioned to flip up their visors and this is the picture that I got. For me, their faces, half hidden in the shadows, make this a timeless photo.
Valras Plage is an expansive stretch of white sand located where the Orb River flows into Mediterranean Sea. Even though the beach is very popular it is large enough that it is possible to find open space and privacy.
Behind the beach is a stretch of dunes. It is there that I found this agave. It was the simple beauty of the flowering plant, the clear blue sky, the warm light of the late summer sun, and the textures of the sand and grass that called to me.
Sometimes, all that is left of a story of a life or a place is a tantalizing shard.
In the small, wine making village of Azillanet there was an old empty building with faded blue shutters and doors. Its front door looked out on square with a pair of blind blue eyes.
I asked about building, who had lived there and particularly the story about the eyes. What were their significance? No one could tell me.
In my travels around France, I have never seen another door like this one.
While digging through my photo archives I found this self-portrait from circa 1970, give or take about one year. It is from a four photo strip, taken by one of those photo kiosks that dot, or dotted, fair midways and shopping malls.
Many thoughts surfaced as I looked at myself over a span of 42 years.
It literally is the face of a dead man. The human body replaces all of its component cells once every seven years: physically, we are not same person that we were seven years ago. I am six times re-incarnated since that photo was taken.
At the time the picture was taken my life was in shambles or at least, it seemed like it was. Raging hormones and a dysfunctional family life, a common burden carried by many young people, had me riding an emotional roller coaster. I had no idea who I was or what to do. Today, my life is still full of turmoil but, with six re-incarnations under my belt, I have evolved into a survivor: confident in my abilities to weather life’s storms and periodic anguish.
Then, I asked the questions “Who am I?” and “Why me?”
Today, I know who I am for better and worse.
Today, I understand that shit happens: sometimes as the result of my decisions and sometimes just because.
Today, I understand that cause and effect and happenstance applies to good fortune and bad equally. You buy your ticket and you take your ride.
Lastly, as I stared into my youthful eyes I am reminded of those haunting Civil War tin-types. Young men looking resolutely into a future that they can not know.
Good job kid. You’ve made it this far. You’ve had some successes and failures. Ultimately, you laid a solid foundation that your incarnations have built on and now carrying forward.
