Month: January 2009

It’s just that it’s gotten mixed reviews from my friends.  Some loved it definitely, but some did not.  I should go though.  I love a feel-good movie and this is in that category.

Here’s that picture of me at my first post-college job that I sent my mother.  It was at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which I visited recently.  It was unrecognizable and no one that I had known was still working there.  I wasn’t surprised.  I worked there when? 1978 – 1980?  Something like that.  Whole other world then.  All new people now.

It’s so hard to get a shot of me and the cats!  But here I am with Buddy, on a Sunday afternoon. I was reading, he was napping.  Now I’m go to either:

A. Eat an orange. B. Nap. C. Write a book proposal. D. Go to the Apple store for the iMovie class I signed up for.  E.  Watch TV.

This is why I am not a working photojournalist today. I had a couple of great opportunities to break into the business which I completely and totally blew. My friend Aly (the one who just died) was working—now I forget where, as a stringer for Reuters I think, but he brought me along on a couple of interviews to take photographs and in both cases the pictures did not come out.

I was trying to be creative and I should have just taken the 35mm, but, well, yeah. They were so under-exposed in both cases they were unusable and that was the end of my career.  I took a shot that didn’t pan out.  Can’t win them all. Sigh.

This picture was taken just before Willem Dafoe became famous nationally.  I was blown away by how handsome he was, and how charismatic.  I asked him to turn to the camera so I could get this shot and I just froze.  It wasn’t me! Okay it was me, but he was that good looking. I just wanted to … look at him!

I got another chance with Ruben Blades. Aly was so kind to give me another chance. And I blew it AGAIN.  It’s fine.  If it was something I really wanted I would have kept trying.

I took this picture coming home from the gallery last night. I was trying to capture the mushroom-like cloud beneath the moon, and I had to use so much image correction to make it visible this photograph looks more like a painting. Not a bad effect, really. I think.

The title of this post refers to this NPR piece I have been working on for more than a year.  It’s just been so tricky.  My producer suggested a new way to go, which sounded like it might finally be the way that would work, but I was afraid to start.  What if it didn’t?  I didn’t think I could take yet another version that wasn’t good enough.

So I’ve been putting it off, and putting it off, which of course triggered a growing feeling of self-loathing.  I finally forced myself to start earlier in the week and I felt light as a feather for the rest of the day.  I did it!  I started!  Then fear set back in the next morning, which led to more postponement and even greater self-loathing.

Until now.  I plowed through and finished a first draft of the new version.  It’s official: I do not suck.  Today, that is.  I’m safe for today.

A friend of mine has a piece at the BravinLee Gallery that’s part of their Artist’s Book program, and I was at the opening last night. Yay Donna!  This is a great piece (that I thought worked well with the paintings in the next room, come to think of it).

Here’s a better shot from the BravinLee website.

The paintings were by Bhakti Baxter, although you can’t see them in this shot.  I was just going for overall view of the room and the people there.