People say I'm the life of the party Because I tell a joke or two Although I might be laughing loud and hearty Deep inside I'm blue So take a good look at my face You'll see my smile looks out of place If you look closer, it's easy to trace The tracks of my tears. - Smokey Robinson   So take a good look at my face if you can because for many years I could not do the same to you. Oh I saw you alright, right down to the nitty gritty of your being, but always from a-glance, from afar. I never would look directly into your eyes. For years and years I tried to hide this, yet even today, there are small remnants of this behavior. I would look slightly past you, or below your eyes, but never as we spoke would I commit to eye contact. I would try, but I just couldn't. When I pick up this little machine called a camera, and I place it in front of my eyes, I can look straight into yours. I can look past the facade into your being. I could fall in love with you; see your graciousness, and your potential. With the camera, I can believe in you. Take away this camera and I become critical, fearful, and deflect through a joke or two, the tracks of my tears. I am good at keeping the attention off me, of staying alone, aloof from the crowd. But then as on a magical mystery tour, I pick up my camera, and I change, super-me emerges. This has been a forty-year struggle to understand, and like most things, I must go back to the source, my mother. For like me, my mother was an enigma. During my early formative years, I vaguely remember a loving, doting, caring mother, who was ambitious for herself, her husband, and her family. But then as noted earlier, she got sick, went to bed, and as of all good things that must come to an end, slowly emerged as wealthier, more powerful, and more critical. Today I understand much more than a boy of seven or eight, so I will not bore you with the whys of her life, rather since this is my story, I will tell you about me in a way I never could face to face. And then, along comes my mother, a woman of enormous determination to right all things wrong with her son. She became an expert at criticism, finding fault with every behavior, disappointment with my every attempt, and worse for a young man; a singular focus on my looks. She would comment on how unattractive I was; my hair, my acne, and generally my whole face. I can remember being brought to the family doctor with my mother’s desire to have my ears pushed back so they would not stick out as much. I remember with glee, how the doctor reprimanded my mother and told her…

Every Monday as I sit down at my desk to write these thoughts, as small terror overwhelms me. Sometimes the question is, is there anything else to write about? Other times, I am overflowing with thoughts and feelings, and I can't figure out where to begin. Today, I feel like the latter. So many feelings, so many thoughts, so many dreams. Where do I begin? How do I make any sense of all this? How do I put it in order, and most importantly, how do I put words to these feelings? In Stravinsky's,  Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons he talks about the same issues, but not with words or pictures, but with music. He describes how when he sits down at the piano to compose, he has total fear and is overwhelmed with an uneasiness of where to begin. Everything and nothing is possible. It is only after he has picked the key and various other musical constraints, does he begin to feel liberated, and the notes begin to flow more graciously. Freedom comes only from constraint, and from the choices one makes. It is at this point the slow process of exposing the peculiar and real you begins to emerge. As you delve deeper into making decisions, from deciding  for and against choices, you find this thing called your voice. I have a shoot this week, and as always the same overwhelming fear hits me square in the face the moment I hear about the assignment. It is not about the pictures, I am generally confident about those, it's about the location. Where, oh where, can I shoot these pictures? What key can I find that will open the door to allow me the freedom to show myself. I am in dread of not finding a place that not only  feels right for the pictures (the assignment) but also feels right for me. Everything starts with the location. I am always looking under every rock, peering into small crevices, looking to find new places to shoot. Where I feel comfortable. Where I feel it is appropriate, and I can make my pictures. This process is never easy and always filled with dread and generally requires a great deal of thought and work. If I finally walk into a space that feels right, the first feeling I have is a sense of relief. Basically that is all I want to know. I never probe too deeply. I don't want to know at the time what picture's I will take, or how they will look. I begin to feel free and more at ease and this is enough. I quickly leave at this point before everything is revealed to me. I want the experience of making the pictures to be spontaneous and vibrant. I trust my instincts. I now have my key. During the shoot I never shoot polaroids or want to know what the pictures look like. I love the experience of making the pictures…

Deep down in the subterranean cavities of my mind, one can find all kinds of metaphors for my favorite room in our house, the basement. It's no wonder that I labored so long and hard in making our basement an exemplar of a fine 19th Century, English manor house basement. The basement is where one can find all the mechanics and secrets of the life above. It is the room (in this case rooms) that provides all the how’s and why's of how to get back in the high life again. In the mechanical rooms, where the boilers provide the energy there are clinks and clanks of fine copper pipes, surging heat through an obscure course into the smallest recesses of the property. It's where if one looks closely, the problems of ones life are located and often solved, the mechanical grist is nurtured and vitality is restored. Most people abhor or avoid their basements, but it is where below the surface that I am most comfortable. When there is a problem it is usually the first place I look for my solutions. This seems always to have been the case, and perhaps it is no wonder that when personal problems arise in my life, I look not above for solutions, but below into my feelings, angers, and fears. When I was a very young boy, if you were looking for me, there was a good chance you could find me in the basement. At first, at a very young age, my father built an elaborate train confabulation, which ran around the whole basement in our small suburban house. But, this was not just any train set. He had two men labor for months, setting up a huge elaborate train system. Where three of four trains could run at once, each having their own mysterious black transformers with levers. There were hundreds of switches to change track courses, switches to open and close gates, trees that seemed real and a long tunnel that went behind the oil burner to reappear some minutes later as if transgressing the Alps. If something happened on the far side of the oil burner, it would take a rescue squad weeks to reach into the out recesses of the tracks. A 747 cockpit had nothing on the control system that ran this mini/major inter-rail system. This was all wonderful, not only wonderful, but spectacular. Typical of my father, even before his great wealth, to not just do something ordinary, but to create something truly extraordinary. There was one problem; he left me alone with his masterpiece. It's not that I didn't love it, I did. It was just that he left me alone with this beautiful combination of Lionel trains. When on occasion some weekend day, he would come down and we would spend time together, this was the perfect day, but mostly it was me alone with my thoughts. Something must have always held me back because I do not remember ever having friends…

In the early 1980's I found myself among the people I most wanted to avoid, when I was younger. Despite my insistence that I wanted nothing to do with the corporate world, here I was right smack in the middle with the master's of the universe, and to my surprise and amusement, I found I loved it. Despite all the problems with my father and the years of escaping to the impoverished world he couldn't understand or control, I found that I was able to stand beside these men (as at that time it was 90% men) and feel not only comfortable, but some part of me felt right at home. I guess I understood them, wasn't intimidated by them, and in fact found myself defending them against a society that both admired and loathed them. I found some loathsome, but many I found were valiant and distinguished. I guess in my fashion I tried to expose their nobility. I had tried the same with people of no means, and now it was time to find the hidden goodness, or at least a part of these men the public face never showed. This is another story without a picture. Not because I didn't take one, I did, but I think it best for me, and for him, not to reveal his identity. In this case, I think it is best to protect the guilty. This is a story about risk, GREAT RISK. I wasn't putting myself in harm’s way (although in a way I was). It's a story of what I find lacking in most people's portraits. Not their ability, but their emotional courage. With this introduction, I must digress for a second and explain my methodology and my tactics with dealing with these men. The scenario goes something like this, their secretary, or marketing director, or creative director of the agency would advise me that I had 3o minutes to photograph a certain CEO. I learned quickly to simply smile and off to the races I would go. I would try to set up a meeting with the CEO a week before the shoot. This sounds easy, but at times was next to impossible. Who was I, this insignificant, unimportant photographer wanting some precious time with the king? They're protected or flanked in every direction by people whose job it is to protect these men from meddling people like myself. After a while, I did get good at this and often found ingenious ways to circumvent these guards and found ways to meet with the man of the hour and convince him to forget the notion of a thirty minute picture and give me a day or two. I must admit almost 90% of the time it worked, and next week I will tell you more, but now I must tell you about a time it did not. As you might expect, one of the times I was unable to plow through the linebackers and get to the CEO,…

At the time, I was living outside of New Haven, Connecticut in a small town, in a small house, near the ocean, financially and emotionally powerless to fight the enormous wave of defeat with my mother's death, and her third husband's refusal to abide by his own words. But, I did have friends, and I did have my small napkin. My best friend was teaching at Yale law school and had been aware for years and years of my struggles with my family. I remember one afternoon asking him if he would introduce me to the professor who taught contracts at the law school. He told me I was in luck (and boy could I use any I could get). This professor was considered one of the world's authorities on contracts and with this meeting my life would take a turn in it's course, either to drop any pretense of proceeding with the case, or to move forward. A meeting was arranged. He was an elderly, gentleman, who sat me down and asked me to tell him my story. I explained the events leading up to the hospital room and finally brought out the little napkin (which was now quite wrinkled and worn) and showed it to him. I will never forget his face. As soon as he saw the napkin, he smiled and almost started laughing. You see I was a young man in the presence of genius. I was ready to bow at the alter of respect for his wisdom, and with his almost laugh, I was sure he was laughing at me. He must have been thinking, "What kind of crazy kid are you?" Here is a man who had taught the Clinton's, etc. and here he was dealing with little old me. Contracts are a serious business, which takes expensive lawyers hundreds of hours of billable time to ruminate about all the fine distinctions that could possibly occur. How could this simple one sentence on an old, worn napkin, have any validity? I felt like a total fool, and was ready to walk unobtrusively, backwards out of his office, bowing in respect for his waste of time. But then, after laughing even more, he quieted down and said, "I have never seen such a thing", but as if the bells were ringing, the angels in songs of jubilation, announced that this little napkin was a legal contract and should hold up in court. He explained to me, that Sidney's claim of duress was invalid, as the courts only recognize physical duress, such having a gun held to you as duress. Emotional duress was not a valid excuse. He kept smiling and said, "If you get the right lawyer, you should win" and told me not to give up. He further asked to be kept informed about the progress of the case. I had raised his curiosity. Well, I now had the word of God on my side. But, I had no money to go forth into…

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…