On the evening after the reading of the will, my sister, her husband, and myself had dinner. My sister, much to her credit, announced that she was going to confront my mother in her hospital room. This was a very delicate matter. How does one tell someone they are dying without telling them? I was going to leave that up to my sister. I would have been unable (and perhaps unwilling) to do this. Some part of me felt that our fate was inevitable and one didn't fool with Mother Nature; especially this mother who the day before had announced to everyone in the room how badly I looked and smelled. I feared, perhaps, it was time to finally put this family to rest. But, I am ashamed to say, that I needed any legacy I could get. I was struggling financially, and at the time felt so incapable of any success on my own merits. Even if I failed, this small inheritance would at least support the failure. I, like my father, and now my mother, was looking after number one…me. Was I capable of looking after the ones around me as well? Unbeknownst to us, my mother would die within three days of this conversation. The next day my sister entered the hospital room while Steve (her husband) and I, stood cowardly outside and listened quietly to every word. My mother's husband (which turned out to be fortuitous) was already in the hospital room. My sister quietly approached my mother, and slowly began to unwind the story of going to my mother's apartment and hearing about the contents of the will. She informed my mother that according to the will, everything she owned, the apartment, the antiques, paintings, etc., would be left to her husband. All of the assets that my father had purchased would now be transferred to her new (90 day) husband and his heirs. This part I remember well. My mother immediately said, "This is not true. Tell them Sidney. This is not the case." Her husband said that it was true, and that this is what she had wanted, the survivor takes all. My mother started to cry hysterically. One must understand, my mother thought she was getting better and we tried very hard to never inform her of how dire her circumstance. Everything was crouched in theoreticals. My mother turned to her husband and said, "Sidney, you must make this right. I did not understand what I was signing." At that point I entered the room. I had been a coward up to this point, but now the real greedy me was ready. I was told about what had transpired, pretending not to know that I had heard every word from outside the door. It was at this point that I intervened. I said that there was no time like the present, and that we should write up a very simple agreement and sign it now, stating their intentions, to be formalized later…

A photograph is the process of giving rather than taking. I learned this from the tragic comedy that encircled my family. It was as if the sins of Adam were passed from husband to wife, and hopefully with the knowledge that came with eating this apple as a young man, the family’s tragedy ends here with me. The question is whether knowledge is enough. Am I strong enough to stop it all from occurring again? Will wisdom triumph over greed? This is a long story, probably taking a few weeks to tell, but I can assure you that at the end of this tale there is much to learn. The history of this story is embedded in every sinew and fiber of my being. It is now part of the force that drives this peculiar soul. As it is painfully obvious to many, I both adored and hated my father. He was The Father and I was his son. He, to this day is omnipresent in my life. But unfortunately, I must leave my father and proceed to this story's End, my mother, and then slowly bring myself back to its beginnings, to the father. The End began in the early Fall of 1982. I was living in Connecticut, my mother who had remarried twice since my father's sudden death in 1972, was living in New York City. She had recently married a doctor, and had sold her lavish apartment, and was spending all of her remaining funds on refurbishing his large, uninteresting Park Avenue apartment to bring it up to the style and elegance that my mother required. This was no small achievement. It cost her all of her money to do this, but I understand this was her life. My mother was 62 at the time. Her new husband was at least 17 years her elder. All of the sudden as if the sun had exploded, I found my mother, who had gone from her very healthy, extremely strong willed and powerful self, to being in the hospital, dying with only three weeks passing from diagnosis till death. My mother was my father's equal in every way. She came from a humble, middle class family, but with great ease (as if it was made for her) took on the position of Grand Dame with enormous style and opinion. She was a force to reckon with. Like my father I have very mixed feelings about my mother. She gave me my critical eye by being so critical of me. She found nothing but fault with me, yet somewhere deep down inside I knew she must have loved me. As she lay dying in her hospital bed, unaware of her true dire condition, her new husband told my sister and myself that he would like to talk with us. We proceeded back to their apartment where he told us he needed to get power of attorney to pay the bills my mother was responsible for. I told him this was…

While photographing in the Mississippi Delta in the spring of 1977, I was lucky enough to live for a few weeks in the small town of Merigold, Mississippi. Saying it was small is an exaggeration, tiny perhaps is more appropriate, with no more than a few hundred inhabitants, clearly delineated by the railroad tracks. The Chinese had built the railroad under the white man's supervision in the 19th century, and to that day each of these small delta towns had a Chinese family living there, owning the only General Store. They were clearly the decedents of their forgotten, immigrant parents. Seeing these Chinese people speaking with an American Southern accent, was one of my introductions to the peculiar place I was living. On the one side of the tracks lived the white families and on the other, the mostly impoverished black families. There was cordiality among the population, but there was clearly a separation and distinction. The power and money coming from the cotton and rice plantations owned by the white families, and the labor and toil coming from the black families who lived across the tracks. Quite honestly, I did not come to change or even question the political landscape. I had no dreams for the impoverished black families or hopes for the white families. I came just to feel the life of the place, to understand it's ways, and often without prejudice one way or the other. I am a little ashamed of myself but this is the way that it was for me. Everything moved at such a slow and steady pace. It was hot, dirty and tired. Everything was overflowing with dust. The cars looked as if they hadn't been washed since the day they were bought. The dogs were perpetually napping, and life had it's own slow meandering style. There were many roads that led to the ubiquitous sadness that permeated the entire history of the region. One could feel it. One evening while having dinner with a major local plantation owner, I found myself wondering if twenty years ago he would have been head of the local Klu Klux Klan. He still had enormous power and presence in the community, and you could sense that if he needed something done, it probably would be. He had a fond distaste for Northerners, but was obviously amused or confused by me and seemed to take a liking to me. At this same dinner, he invited me to photograph, if I wished, at his other plantation which was originally owned by his wife's family. I immediately said yes and he told me that on the way I might like to stop at Booga-Bottom for a plate lunch. He gave me directions, as the luncheonette owned by Mrs. Owens was hard to find. It sat at the crossroads of four plantations in the middle of cotton fields. The establishment was far off any paved roads. We arrived at twelve and exactly on cue; twenty or thirty huge columbine…

In May of 1980, I remember driving along this small windy road in North Wales, and seeing around the corner this extraordinary larger, though somewhat decrepit Manor House. As was my fashion, the larger and more forbidding the house, the more curious I was, and as usual I found myself in front of these large gates, trying to find some way or someone to let me in. Of course, my wife, who was extremely shy and reticent, was cringing in the back seat with my son, begging me to leave well enough alone, and mind my manners. I would hear none of it, and finally noticed an elderly man slowly making his way to the gates. He seemed quite happy to find someone to talk to, in this very deserted forbidding place. He kindly let us all in and told me that he had been the caretaker of the house and property for over fifty years. The house belonged to a prominent, Scottish, whiskey family, where their children and grandchildren had abandoned the house for London. He told me they might come once a year to go hunting, but would never stay in the house. He was very kind and quite content to talk with me. I told him I was an American photographer living in Wales and would love to look around and see if there was something I might want to photograph. He graciously obliged my request and off we went on a journey of a lifetime. It was in this small journey through the history of this house and of this man that my life would radically change, and new questions about life and existence would be raised, that to this day have yet to be answered. So he very kindly started the tour first in the large house. It was extremely cold, musty, and feeling forlorn and abandoned. If a house could speak, this once majestic house, which at one time stood proud and beautiful, would now be crying. It had been forsaken, and had the presence of being haunted with memories and terrible feelings of sadness. We were on the balcony of the second floor and I mentioned this observation to him. He immediately stopped, rested his hand on his forehead and said it was ironic that I should bring this up at this place. For it was exactly fifty years ago, his first year as the caretaker, during a lively party in which the family was hosting their neighbors, that their young granddaughter fell from the place in the balcony where I was standing, and immediately died upon impact. From that moment forward the life of the house, the family and its descendants took a terrible turn for the worse. It seems as if the young granddaughters death took the life out of the family and the house. Life seemed to have stopped at that moment and all events that occurred since then were filled with so much unhappiness that the house would, soon,…

I am always afraid of dying. Not your usual concern mortality, but since I was a young boy at times I have been overwhelmed with every conceivable hypochondriacal ailment, which if allowed to fester would immediately be believed to lead to my death. Unfortunately for the obsessive like me, sometimes fantasy becomes reality, which only confirms the neurosis further. Despite many years of therapy, thought and a fairly strong understanding of my fixations, I have only been able to force these demons for the most part reside in the far recesses of my mind; although it does not take much for them to reappear. Some years ago I received an assignment to photograph a medicine man in the farthest northern tundra of Canada. We were so far north that if there were a flagpole I could climb I would probably be able to look over the top of the world and look south dreaming of warmth and security. Why I was sent there was another question. Mine is just to do or die, and off I went with my son, first to Calgary, then with two additional flights north, far, far into the northern tundra, where Santa or Rudolph wouldn't feel comfortable. It was so cold the only thing I saw were a few elk running for cover. Finally, after more than a day of travel we reached this tiny outpost where the Eskimo people would meet on occasion. By then we were so cold that drinking an ice tea felt like a warming experience. I had been told that this shaman had magical healing powers and that many Eskimos swore by his power to heal. By this point I hoped he would just show up so we could abandon the great Nada outdoors and return to the nearest Four Seasons where I could find food and warm showers. There must be something about time that I missed growing up. I have found that both in the deep south and now I was learning in the far, far north, when someone says lunchtime on a certain day, there is obviously a great deal of leeway in reading the solar calendar. I found myself waiting for three days with an intention of abandoning ship, when finally The Man appears with no explanation for his tardiness. Being a good New Yorker, a ten-minute fluctuation due to traffic is acceptable, but after that you are late. Obviously in the tundra, who cares?  Besides there is no traffic other than a few elk crossing your path. Anyway, he finally arrived, and graciously invited me into his little private room. I must admit, immediately I was struck by his presence, his power and perhaps his spirituality. He seemed extremely gentle and calm. I once had felt a similar thing when I met Elie Wiesel, who kindly wrote an introduction to my first book. In both cases one felt the need to restrain oneself, to be quiet, reverent, respectful, and to listen. This man walked into…