marek, 1996

marek. i will always remember there was a beautiful comet in the sky when you were born. it was there for a really long time, months maybe, as i headed west to kentville, by myself, it would be my companion in the sky, bright with a tail pointing east it was as if it led the way, lit the way, was a sign of things to come. a promise of brightness and mystery. streaking through the unknown.

this is how i remember it. except everything was moving, the car, my heart, my thoughts. following the flaming tail into the valley.

for my yogis

that's it, the twists and turns in high def. i've never seen an x-ray of my spine but this kind of blows my mind. it's called idiopathic scoliosis, or 'without known cause'. it's genetic, but what isn't?

mom, january 14th, 2009

mr. lawrence, 2009

this is mr. lawrence, phillip's grandfather, 17 years after i first met him. the neighborhood around him has changed dramatically since katrina. i notice the trees are missing, the beautiful plum. there's less shade, less green. and there is a drug house next door. "young people, goin' down that wrong road. only lead to trouble. smokin' that weed. lead to that white stuff, then that her-oin....i see some 80 year old still lookin' for that fix. say you can't go down that wrong road, don't lead nowhere". he's friendly with everyone, and they shoot him an 'alright mr. lawrence', but he keeps a wary eye on the traffic continually pulling up out front. he lends a man a few dollars, a man he knows who comes up to his fence. then watches as the man tries to casually head next door. he just looks at me with these sad and knowing eyes, eyebrow raised with a little smile, as if to say, 'whatcha gonna do?'. our neighbor vera died during katrina and was buried in a makeshift grave at the corner of jackson and philip st. it made the national news. her partner, max, died shortly after. they say he just couldn't go on without his vera. i can still hear her voice ringing through the french doors as i tried to sleep in. it all seems just a bit harsher now. mr lawrence is still doing work on his home. he has removed trees, is planting trees, and is working on his front porch. his magnolia, "it was all hollowed out. coulda fit you and me up in there. coulda been a threesome up in there". he is the same man, softened some by the years, the children, the grandchildren. the light in his eyes, his face shines when he smiles. just like philip, his grandson. the doctor won't let him drive anymore so he feels a bit stuck on his property...but there's always work to do. in that way he has not changed, he works. he had open heart surgery and shows me the scar. then he brings out his pictures from a trip to washington state, where he went to see his sister. his pictures are of houses there, houses that he liked. and some of his sister's house and his sister, and the mountains. he brings me in and shows me his father, handsome in uniform in ww1, who would be 107 if he was alive.

i'm hoping i get to go back soon to visit again and show him some of the pictures i've got for him.

i love photography, yes i do, 2009

my new favorite photograph

bike kill, new years eve day, 2008

liz liz liz

christmas morning, irish channel, 2008

mama jensen, second line, in the 9th ward, 2008

naushon, 2008

from a wedding on naushon this fall. it reminds me of the image of my son, here.

phillip's porch

this is phillip's porch. we would hang out between my porch on the left and his on the right. his grandfather, mr. lawrence, was a great character, and a great man. in a difficult new orleans neighborhood he was the firm hand that led to most of his children and grandchildren finishing school and going to college. he was a man who was always working, getting things done. he worked estates in other parts of louisiana, and when he was home he helped my landlord, who was dying of aids, with everything a homeowner would normally have to do. he once went out in his pickup truck with a shotgun to get back a water heater taken from an abandoned property across the street. i had watched the whole thing transpire, saw the men and the heater disappear, but in my new orleans summer haze i thought maybe it belonged to the men who took it. they seemed to know exactly what they were doing. he came out on his porch, as if through some sixth sense he knew something was up, and asked me what happened. i told him. it had been wheeled away in a shopping cart. he went back into the house, came out with the rifle, jumped in his truck and said "i'll get that water heater back". he was back in a few minutes. when i asked him what happened he said, "i found 'em up the road and i said 'put that man's water heater back.' they kept walkin' so i got out in front of 'em, raised the rifle and i said 'you put that water heater back up in my truck', and they did." later he explained that if he let them start taking things then everything in the neighborhood would disappear. there really wasn't much more to it than that.

mass mental

a mental hospital in winter. i found this place accidentally because i can't keep out when the signs say keep out. it was the most haunting surreal place i had seen outside of new orleans. i went back several times. in the middle of this sprawling empty complex of buildings, which was completely embedded in the woods, was a town square with a town hall style building with a clock, and a church. and a rotary. it was beautiful and foggy. i felt like i had found the abandoned set of some post-nuclear film. or the twilight zone. it was 1950 and it was empty. there was an untended nameless graveyard and an abandoned swimming pool that was completely covered in, so that the level of the weeds and soil was level with the edge of the pool. the diving board hung inches above the ground. the manacles attached to the cold ceramic claw foot tubs were silenced. the paint rejected the walls entirely, on it's way out, in every possible incarnation of industrial color. a history of poor choices. a screen door opened onto a courtyard like apple pies. wheelchairs and electric shock. so many sounds in the middle of the silence. layer upon layer upon layer in building after building after building. mass mental.

central park prayer

in the summer before 9-11 i walked central park from top to bottom. i would start down south and work my way up through the day, and then try to enter that exited area the next day, trying to slowly make my way through. i found this image one morning. i sat with this man by the edge of the water. waiting. watching. later i noticed the twin towers.

self-portrait with wheel

halloween

halloween, 2000, turner at the tate. my son, my wife, my son. the hallows are upon us again.

train

i just found this image in a bunch of negs from a few years ago. for some reason it has me by the throat. i'd never seen it before but i believe it lived in me in some way, calling to me...'remember me'.