Flashback.

I was walking along the shore today and stumbled upon what seemed to be a student project in progress.   I stopped to watch when I noticed the big smile on my face, the same one I recall from 20 years back.  I was a student at Los Angeles Valley College, in a two-year photojournalism program, and I was fired up about photography, insatiable in fact.  I would rush through my assignments and grab interesting faces to photograph from social gatherings, relentlessly cultivating a lifetime journey as a photographer.  I would eat, sleep, and breathe this craft, and bore anyone who would listen, to be perfectly honest.

One person who never grew bored is my soul sister from London, Antonella, the one who to this day spurs me forward.  Here is a photo I took of her on the beach 20 years ago, in those indelible school days, experimenting with Polapan instant slide film when my assignments on Tri-X had long been handed in.

Last year I had my first exhibition abroad in the upstairs space at her Cafe, just opposite the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  I brought the roots of American Western culture to that little space in London, which was also an amazing reunion with old friends from Sweden and Italy. The images represent so much for me, as the intimate and complex relationship between the human being and his heritage provide a limitless canvas for study and representation.

To bring something so personal to a place and person who has been with me throughout my own history and heritage was a most magical and deeply intimate experience, as I was surrounded my those who have been the fabric of my own development, and that of  LEGACY OF PRIDE.

Jaws of Life.

When I met my Shary, he didn’t want a dog.  Although he was kind, he was adamant about not having wanted a dog in his house, in his life… and especially one with, erm, “challenges.”  (Anyone who has ever owned a dachshund will tell you that they are not for the weak of heart, the precious of carpet, or the fan of discipline!)  But Lincoln, court jester that he is, won over my King.  And here he is with his jaws of life sunk into the tennis ball once again, King playing in servitude to the jester’s tomfoolery.

Exuberance.

If I define exuberance in its purest form, it is my dachshund, Lincoln. Particularly on the beach, and exacerbated by the “chuck-it” and tennis ball.  In fact, he is so crazy when it comes to tennis balls, they have been known to cause him temporary insanity.

I recall a particular day in the sleepy town of Solvang, strolling at a snail’s pace down one of the streets named with first a suffix, and then a “dag,”dotted with picture windows overrun with Danish tchotchkes and bedazzled wine country paraphernalia.  Along came an elderly gentleman, likely in the twilight of his 90s, walker adorned with chartreuse tennis balls on its stoppers that shuffle-dragged in time with the man’s slippered feet.

Suddenly Lincoln lunged at the walker, seizing a tennis ball with his vice grip, and tugging feverishly at the enthralling green fuzz.  The man, with sense of security compromised, began to panic, shouting in fear, yet fighting the smile on his deeply-creased face.  After all, who doesn’t laugh at a crazy clown of a dachshund?