All my life, I've wondered and often inquired how people pass their days. What rituals do they follow when they are the most creative? What do they eat for breakfast? When do they dine for dinner? Are they a morning person or an evening person? Do they wear a uniform of sorts or does their wardrobe vary? What little distinctions do people make as they go through the routine of their days to help define their particular nature and distinguish themselves from others? We all basically look the same and have somewhat the same routines yet each of us is an individual and I'm curious how we define ourselves as special. In this light I thought it only befitting that I reveal the peculiarities that surround my daily rituals. 5:00AM to 6:00AM depending on the season. Rise and then shine briefly. This is both a time of great happiness, the best I usually feel all day, and often anxiety. I've never quite figured out why I feel both happy and anxious. I often need not a cup of coffee but rather a valium to get my day rolling. 7:00AM to 8:00AM Breakfast which has become somewhat of a ritual. Usually scrambled egg whites with toast, followed by one hour of bliss either reading the New York Times or in the Spring and Summer walking in the garden, pruning, listening and speaking quietly to the landscape and the gardens around me. By this time I am usually so mellow I now need a cup of coffee. There is nothing like a valium followed by a cup of coffee to finally realize the perfect stasis in my morning. 8:00AM to 9:00AM What would be more proper as I have now reached the perfect equilibrium with a slight tilt towards repose to take a nap. This has become a habit that started in my twenties and has lasted well into my sixties. This time although it appears I have dropped out of the world is one of my favorite times of the day. I love waking up and then going back to sleep. I usually sit in my favorite chair in our garden room with the sun shining through the windows and I quickly and peacefully nod off for an hour. 9:00AM to 12:00PM Everyone arrives at 9AM so I have to pretend like I'm busy. Everyone is humming along, scanning, invoicing, estimating, processing film, etc. and I the lord of the manor oversea the enterprise. All my life I have basically worn a uniform, although today I broke from my usual habit of wearing khaki pants, a dress shirt with my initials embroidered at the third button, and a pair of tassel loafers. This was my uniform in boarding school, in college, and in life. Why change a good thing. I know what I'm going to wear and I don't have to worry. I'm comfortable in my uniform. This is also my most productive time. If I am shooting, writing blogs,…

  It was one month ago that we arrived in Chicago with a car full of boxes and a truckload of UPS cartons already waiting in storage. For months before that fateful day in September when we released our precious daughter Savannah to all the joys and tribulations of college life, my daughter and her loving and patient mother made trip after trip to malls across the far lands of New Jersey to purchase every conceivable item one might possibly need for college life. There were continual ruminations throughout the house about bedding and the need for anti-bedbug protection followed by mattress protection supplemented by foam cushioning to produce extra comfort and lastly an additional layer to protect my delicate daughter from the heat of the foam. By the time they were through a six inch high mattress had become a luxury endeavor of over fourteen inches. The Four Seasons Hotel couldn't match the attention to detail in the bed making. Then on top of this, were the Palais Royal sheets with a duvet cover and extra pillows. Besides the bedding trip after trip to Bed Bath and Beyond was made to purchase desk lamps, irons, ironing boards, hangers, waste baskets, shelving, vacuum cleaner, soap, laundry baskets, etc. We arrived at the University of Chicago dorm prepared for every conceivable need and malady. One more quick trip to target was required for some last minute extras, and by late morning we had carried hauled and trekked over forty boxes up to a room with space for a bed and a desk and little else. Her roommate was far more sagacious in her shopping and had quickly with the help of her parents completed her side of the room before we had begun unpacking our first box. Her roommate and Savannah are a perfect pair. How lucky for them, but that is a story for a later date. So, in the early Fall of a beautiful September day in Chicago my wife in her usual patient and ever gracious way slowly began the task of making Savannah's bed and helping carefully unpack each box and place every item of clothes and housewares in a neat and careful spot. Hour upon hour they unpacked and finally near the end of the day they were finished. There were some items to be returned but in all Leslie had carefully and beautifully made the bed, hung pictures and shelving, cleaned the bathroom, folded towels, and otherwise made Savannah's room a near perfect example of a caring mother's need to help her daughter nest comfortably in her new space away from home. We said our tearful goodbyes and left Chicago only to return one month later, for the annual if not extremely premature Homecoming parents weekend. We had barely said goodbye and were each enjoying our freedom, when we were called back into service to reunite with our daughter and her university. On Friday morning we climbed the stairs of her dorm to her room,…

  In the late 1970s and the very early 80's my life financially and emotionally was very difficult. I was continually struggling to pay my bills and I often found myself a continual disappointment to my mother, my in-laws, and many around me. I was continually rejected for my work and my life choices, by many around me, and it was only my wife who without failure continually sustained and believed in me. The daily routine was a call from my mother stating her disappointment in me for choosing such a useless occupation. It was time to come to my senses and find a real job. And with all this as background noise, something wonderful happened. I was getting my first book published by a distinguished editor and publisher, and to show their faith in me I would be receiving a $5,000 advance (half of my yearly salary). I can remember feeling overwhelming elation and enormous relief that someone actually believed in me and in fact was willing to pay me for my vision. Everything was going well. I had the editor I dreamed about, the designer I wanted, and the printer I requested. As usual I was putting my heart and it's very soul into the making of this book. Nothing that I could do was spared. Even my mother for the moment stopped her relentless criticism of me. Finally we were ready to print the book and off to Medford, Massachusetts I went. I was there to help oversee the printing of the book along with the production people from the publisher. Like the proofs we had done some months before the first forms of the book came out looking beautiful. I remember starring at them and smiling to myself. The work required deep rich shadow detail and a luminosity in the highlights. It was all there. A deep rich evocation of emotion. The color of the ink was a warm vibrant black. Each form that came out of the presses that day seemed to match the others in contrast and shadow separation. I supervised the printing nudging more ink on some forms less on others, but overall the pressman on our press seemed to get me and together we were humming along beautifully. He too was very proud of the sheets his press was rolling off the line. We became quite a team. At the end of the first day I went back to the hotel content and very happy. All the years of work were in these pages and everything was as I had hoped. Finally I felt I was ready to meet the world in my best clothes and with my shoes shined. The next morning I returned and looked at the forms we had printed the previous day, and all that I had loved in the images was gone. The sheets had dried down flat and had simply gone dead. The ink instead of remaining on the surface had for some reason been absorbed…

  In the spring of 1981 it all came together. After years and years of cajoling and beseeching my editor Nan Talese, she was finally able to convince her higher ups at Houghton Mifflin to publish my first book. I had met Nan many years before through my then father in law Robert Anderson and over the years, she had become a strong supporter of my work. Finally, after years of effort she convinced her publisher that an unknown and untested photographer was worth the publishing risk. It was agreed that  In the Land of Light, a collection of photographs I had made some years earlier while living in the Middle East on a fellowship, would be published, accepting most of my specifications. What a glorious day it was to hear that finally I was to be published. Nan suggested I write a small amount of text to accompany some of the photographs as she always liked my stories, and she was primarily a literary editor, having published some of America's most distinguished novelists. She also thought it imperative that we have someone of note to write the introduction to accompany these highly emotional photographs. Through Nan, it was arranged that one afternoon I would meet for a few hours with Elie Wiesel the Nobel Piece Prize winner and author of many books about The Holocaust. He is a Holocaust survivor and has been a voice of sadness as well as a voice for the affirmation of life after that tragic event. At the time he was a Chubb Fellow at Yale University. It was there, in a building devoted, appropriately enough to the humanities that I first met Mr. Wiesel. I walked into a sacred space, not because of the space, but because of the humble man sitting in the corner. There in that room this simple man sucked all the noise and energy from the outside into a quiet serene vacuum. No one dared speak loudly or inappropriately in his presence.  You felt his enormous power and charisma not by what he said but by what he quietly demanded, respect. I walked over to this humble man sitting in the corner introduced myself and handed him a loaf of bread that had been baked by my wife. He smiled held it delicately and reverently. I began to tell him of my request. I wished him to write the introduction and I handed him a box of prints along with some paper containing the text I had written. It was at this point that I realized that I was not alone in the room. There were a number of people there but no one spoke. It was as if you were in the presence of a truly spiritual person. Very little had to be said. He spoke to me in a whisper and I found myself mesmerized by his words. He accepted the box of prints and the text along with the loaf of bread. He told me to come back…