Cost Of War

This whole week leading up to Sept. 11, every time something comes on the tube I've switched to the other channel. I can't watch the airplanes crash into the Trade Center towers, I can't stand to watch it come down one more time, or watch as those workers are covered in that killing dust. It seems to me to be an orgy of sadness that is pointless. As a country we have done nothing to curb our addiction to oil. How many lives were wasted on both side, how many trillions of dollars have we spent, how many freedoms have we given up in the name of terror. I've got to shake my head at our collective foolishness that has lead us down this path. Take a look at this and just think for yourselves what this war has cost us. Cost of war.

Oops

Mean to post this one, done this spring. With my friend Vada who trusts my ideas and shares her's as well. Like the peaceful nature of this one. Thanks

Grass

Hey Dr. L. good hearing from you. September is not quite as full of doctor visits as I thought. I find that getting older is not at all for sissy. It involves a lot of plain old drudge work, seeing doctors, getting test... Couple of things I like are the medical students who do my work-ups. There all very serious and business like, very likeable and so young. Then there’s the grass.... I’m staying on the right side of it! Have a good day all.

Doctor Visits

As you may understand this month and the next one are going to be filled with doctor visits. When I get the chance to catch up I will. In meantime enjoy this photo.

The Eye

Well I apologize once again reality has tunned this blog to health issues.

Recently I was mowing the yard at a friend’s house, being a cloudy day I didn’t wear my sunglasses, I did not wear my safety glasses either. As fate would have it a small piece of wood hit my eye, but no harm was done so I press on. The next morning I noticed that it took longer for my eye to wake up and get with the program. I put some drops in and really thought no more about it, like most men I put it out of my mind. A few day later again my eye was having trouble waking up but now I saw a haze around shiny objects. By mid-morning it would clear but I called my doctor and made an appointment.

A week later I saw my doctor, told her what had happened to my eye and wanted to know if I’d done serious damage. After the examination she told me I was right to come in there was something going on with my eye. Then for the next few minutes she let me sit there while she finished her notes. I was on pins and needles waiting for her to give me the bad news. She said that when she looked in my eye I had many tiny hemorrhages in the back of my eye. Still had 20/20 vision but I’d need to be followed by a specialist, made the appointment for the following month and gave my condition a name. Central retinal vein occlusion is one of the leading causes of blindness in older Americans. Not to worry I was told I still had perfect vision with my glasses.

The week before my appointment I had a scare and went in as an emergency patient, thought I saw bright lights and thought I had separated my retina. I hadn’t but I still needed to see the doctor specializing in CRVO, vision still 20/20. I saw her the following Tuesday, was told I was very lucky and we’d take some photos of my eye and go from there, vision still 20/20. Told it wasn’t as bad as she first though, keep taking my eye drops and come back in a month. I was very happy and went home and almost forgot about it till later in the month I was aware my vision was quite as good as it had been. On the next visit my vision was 20/30, I was told the treatment consisted of a shot in the eye. Visions of Clockwork Orange came into my head, all I could think of was this pretty lady coming at me with a needle for MY eye. Told me not to worry, we’d give it another month and see what my eye did.

Next appointment vision down to 20/40, I could no longer see clearly out of my right eye. I knew there was a car on my right side but I could no longer tell you what the license plate was. I couldn’t read with my right eye and focusing a camera you could forget about. Now we talked about the shot in earnest, she told me about a new drug that they’d just approved only drawback that it was $2000. Gulp! my Medicare would cover it, but lately I have a lot of health issues what would happen if I reached the donut hole? I decided I’d ask her the next week when I got the shot, in the meantime I turned to Google and YouTube to see what I was getting myself into. Found lots of literature on the drugs and the procedure, then saw the right way to get the shot and the wrong way. Saw what must have been an intern giving the shot, his hands we shaking so badly his assistant had to steady them. But it gave me a great overview to the procedure and answered a lot of my questions.

The following Tuesday I was ready, my vision was worse I knew and didn’t need to be told it was down to 20/50. Before I could even speak my piece about the cost of the medication she told me she was switching to the tried and true medication. I might need more shots, but the other stuff had too many side effects for her comfort to take the risk. How really nice that we were on the same page, still visions of Clockwork Orange were passing through my head seeing the instruments. After a quick check of my eyes, she prepared and disinfected my eye and gave me the shot. I couldn’t really see her stick the needle in my eye, but I saw her finger on the plunger; down, down, down it went shooting the medicine into my eye. Now I was truly blind in that eye, everything was absorbed into the haze. She cleaned my eye, gave me a prescription for drops and I was on my way.

Thank goodness I had a friend driving me, as a reward I took her to lunch at my favorite India food place. Then pick up my prescription and got home into the air conditioned coolness of my place and took a nap. My eye was driving me crazy, felt like I had eyelashes in there, as the medication to numb it wore off my eye throbbed. At lunch my eye started leaking blood and that got worse till later that afternoon I could almost feel it begin to drip. I squatted down to get something out of the crisper, something came over my eye and I almost called a cab to take me into the hospital. But after a few moments it cleared, I was ever so thankful that I had to go back for a test the next morning.

In the morning my vision began to clear slightly, I could focus with my right eye. Full of hope I went back for my appointment, the tech photographed my eye, showed me what was wrong and what they hoped I’d get. I ask if we could check the pressure in my eye, just for grins she said lets test your vision... almost back to 20/30. I could see the damn eye chart again, could read almost four lines down. I am trying to not get my hopes up too high, giving my eye a chance to rest and repair itself. Neither one is easy for me, went for a walk in the park, it was turtle day, watch as a big one glided over the creek bottom and I felt free of worry for the moment. Because of the drought I could cross the creek without getting wet, climbed the little hill I ran as a boy and explored till it got too hot and I needed to get under the air conditioner. Feel very peaceful now as I write this, I can see better not quite as well as I did before but now I have hope. Its been a really tough couple of months for me. More health issues are coming up, but I feel hopeful now that I can see better. May not last forever, but I have my friends and the people who care about me. I am a lucky man.

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Ghosts

My phone is infested with ghosts, long lost loves of my life calling in the middle of the night. I recognizes her voice at hello, memories came flooding back and even in my half daze sleep I knew it was her. We talked like it was last week when last we spoke, though a decade at least has passed. I can be hard on friends... though I still love them, to think they are making a major mistake. I’d thought I’d rather remember her as she was, entrapped in amber. That not how life is lived fortunately, my friend have vivid lives, dynamic ongoing lives, that what attracted me in the first place. Lives lived on the edge, thinking life might cut short, now the reality of our age and circumstance.

Like seeing yourself reflected in a mirror, this person know me, who I am, where I live no matter the address. She knows about me, the young me, the growing up me, has experienced the low me, the almost beaten me. Know the struggle I have endured, the mistake I have made, known the passion of the young, knows the successes and my failure, she being one I’ve regretted. I didn’t support her idea of marriage, going on instincts I decided I knew better than her in matters of love. No matter how it may have turned out I was wrong, I’ve regretted my mistake ever since. As I grow older I can see where I have failed my friends... now almost too late I am trying to make amends where I can, it’s my loss where I can’t.

Like a bolt out of the blue we reconnected, found her on one of those popular website’s, and made contact. But nothing beats hearing her voice, so alive, so full of memories, I hated having to catch up, tell her all the things we now share... how I now understand the losses she suffered and know the effects of life altering changes one endures. With a much greater empathy I know what she suffered, that knowledge gave me the strength to carry on while I lay paralyze in a hospital bed.

I knew her voice at hello, the half amused warm melodious tones, the compassion and love her voice held after all these years. I am truly blessed in life, to those people who I have chosen to be my friends so many years ago... even though I didn’t keep my end of the bargain. I love you all and I am truly sorry for my mistake in judgement, I know better now. Life doesn’t often give you many chances at do overs, I’m so happy to make amends where I can. Still I remember her voice.

Walking the Mall

Well I’ve finally fallen into the abyss, I’ve begun walking in the local mall... no dogs, no heat, no rain... no fun. Soon I’ll be nodding hello’s to other oldsters who walk the mall with me. The thing that strike me is how empty of business it is. Store after store, acre upon acre of failed business and no one to take up the slack.

I remember this mall from my childhood, remember riding there on my bike wide eyed at the man in the rocket suit and the carnival rides. My friend Roy who insisted that I was chicken for not riding with him, green and not with envy was he. Later I remember standing in line for Rolling Stones tickets in my teenage years. I remember the name change rolled out with great fan-fair when I was hired as a photographer documenting the affair. Now it’s showing its age as am I. The stores one by one have failed, its only a shadow of its former glory, one wonders how long they can afford the upkeep.

I feel a certain kinship with this mall, stores now standing almost empty as one by one my systems start that long slide into failure. In the grander scheme of things I’m a young sixty-three, I have my health for the most part, I have a job that I enjoy. But the same drive that told me in my mid-fifties to start looking and actually reading the signs that I wouldn’t be able to do the physical part of the job were showing. So now I’m in a better position that I was six years ago, although my business has failed with the new economy, I have some skills that I can use to my advantage. Unlike the mall that is just waiting for a buyer to tear it down and use the land to make stand alone businesses. I’m learning to transition into new more prosperous realms, I am developing new skills to keep active while not letting the old skill go fallow.

In this brave new world of ours where other sixty-something’s are dropping like flies, where even fifty-year olds are having a hard time coping I’m still working. Not at the money I was making, not at the level that I was used to, but I’m getting out there, meeting new people and doing my part to keep alive. I’m working with friends, marketing a product I am proud of for clients I’m proud to be associated with.

My vision for the future looks good, 20/20 or there about’s, and on a personal level my vision does seem to be as bad as first figured. Don’t mind telling you I was scared, but there’s reason for optimism. I keep seeing those little black spots (floaters), now I’m glad to say that sometime are birds flying high up. Sometime there just spot in my hardwood floors, sometime they turn out to have legs and are bugs! Going to keep eating those carrots while keeping busy, maybe they were right about masturbation, you will go blind, and fifty-three years later I seem to, least I didn’t get hairy palms! So all in all not a bad forecast! Now after ten years if we could only bring our troops home and give them a rest they so badly need!

P.S. I’m taking GenTeal eye drops, they’re a gel formula my eye doctor recommended. Very good drops.

The Eyes Have It

I know I said no more comment about health or my stroke anymore, but I’ve had a scare. About a month and a half ago I was working on a friends lawn, fool that I am I didn’t wear eye protection because the dust mask fogged my glasses. She has a very sandy lot, the dust is something fierce. A small piece of wood flew up and hit my eye, didn’t think much of it and keep going. Then the mower died and I was much more concerned about that. Later that evening I noticed a soft blur to my right eye, I figured no big deal it’ll go away by morning. Still had the blur in the morning, had things to do and I used some drop and didn’t give it a second though.

A week later I decided that it hadn’t gotten better so I made an appointment with my eye doctor which I figured was about right for my eye, probably scratched the damn thing, no big deal. Now we’re about two, three week from the injury, I noticed that I had trouble getting the eye working in the morning. I saw a haze in my right eye, hard to open the eye as well first thing upon waking. Now I’m worried, think this is a bigger deal than just a scratched eye. I go to the doctor, wait while she does her thing, puts drops in my eyes and does some test that I didn’t think I did that well. She told me I did the right thing in seeing her, that she noticed something going on in my eye.... she has my attention now. I wait... and wait, while she goes through my chart and updates it...... I wait. Finally she turns and says when she looks into my right eye she can see small hemorrhages against the retina. Says I need to see a specialist very soon, not today but the sooner the better; say’s she’ll make an appointment.

Like most men I calculate the odds as her nurse calls to make my appointment. A month out, no big deal... I should get carrots the next time I’m at the market. She copy’s the information for me, I’m concerned but not worried... I can handle this. Getting home I call the friend with the offending yard, tell her about my appointment, she asks me why so long? Now my concern goes up a couple of notches, she tells me that if it was her eyesight she’d want to be seen as soon as possible. She has a really good point! I call the specialist, they can get me in a week early, I take it. It takes me a few days to realize that in addition to the hard to open, haze around the eye when I first wake, now I see a spider-web in my right eye. Very gossamer but black, darts away when I try to focus on it. It does not go away as I wake up and get moving. I turn to Google and find that it is a sign of a detached retina along with a bright flash of light which I don’t have. Panicked I call the specialist to hurry the appointment, hell I want to get in right away. No dice, the doctor doesn’t come in until Tuesday at the earliest so I have the weekend to go.

Now I don’t know about you, but when one thing goes wrong everything seems to follow. On Friday I break my glasses. Now I am truly fucked... I have blurry vision, see spider-webs in black, I have a new word processing program that I need to learn ASAP and on top of all that I now have to find out about my glasses. To make a long story short I don’t have to new glasses, they can order the frames. I got an emergency appointment with an eye doctor, when they put the drops in to dilate my eyes the cobwebs go away and I’m told by the doctor that tortured me that I am a very lucky man. Plus my frame came in the next day... I feel blessed. Still have to go see the retinal specialist on Tuesday but I go in feeling very lucky and very blessed. Wonders never cease!

Women

I’ve always had a special love of pretty women. As far back as the fifth grade, I discovered that women, no matter their age could affect me and my judgement. I got to be a school crossing guard that year, had a badge and everything. One morning while helping the other kids cross the street safely a girl I knew from the library came up to cross. I was smitten with her, the way she walked, the way she talked and she was standing there next to me Well you could smell the brain cells frying, we were talking, I heard the mamma guard whistle and I step into the street to let the little girl cross. All should have been well, I mean she talked to me, but she was in the middle of the street crossing against the what little traffic there was when I figured out what happened. Or there was the time I was chosen first base umpire also in the fifth grade. My friend had slid into first base just ahead of the ball and I called him safe as the pretty young teacher, who was head umpire called him out. She came trotting out to confer with me, as I looked into her pretty face I knew I was doing wrong, but I just couldn’t contradict her... out he was Oh it wasn’t a pretty sight to be inside my head as I grew into adolescence and the view didn’t improve as I grew older.

As a young man I could be an asshole to those I loved, I won’t pretend different. I could be difficult, opinionated and wanted my way most of the times, but I could be charming and sweet as well. I tried to live the life I’d be taught by my parents to live and they ended up divorced. Monogamy wasn’t my thing though I tried my best, I guess the grass was always greener on the other side. Finally I grew up enough to realize I could love someone in small doses, but she had to be strong enough to have her own life that was important enough to her. The best sort of relationship was to live close together, see each other most evenings, but have our own places too. When it seemed like a good idea I could be monogamous, but only if my partner was also. I was prone to long term relationships, of doing all those couple things, but having the space to do mine.

Now what you ask does this have to do with photography, not much. But I am approaching my sixty-third birthday in a few weeks and this is what you get. I’m reminiscing over my pasts as I look to the future. I’ve reach the point where I’m like a dog chasing a bus, what will I ever do if I manage to catch the damn thing. But I still have a little chase left in me and a deep appreciation for the beauty of women. Like the bus it’s not about catching it, it’s all about enjoying the chase after it

Tax Day

“ The camera just helps you show other people what you see.” Greg Iles in Dead Sleep






The best tax day ever, a lovely nude model, great conversation and a home made meal to end on. Then because I shoot film I had a week of waiting, hoping the film wasn’t too out of date, that the processing would be right. Nothing short of birth could be as difficult as waiting to get that film back in my hot little hands. Now for the time I live for, the time to let my work sink in... to study every little frame and find the treasures. I can breath again The time before digital wasn’t easy, terror was a day in day out part of the job. Certainly there was polaroid to ease that terror, but until that film came back from the lab you were on tender hooks. Once you could see the contacts, once you could actually see the film to know it was alright life just wasn’t the same. Film came in different flavors too, grain you had to plan for and it was on every frame. There was a certain level of skill involved, you couldn’t “fix” that in Photoshop.

I hadn’t picked up a camera in over a year and I was plenty rusty. I hate to admit it but I had trouble know exactly how my cameras worked, which button to push in what order to get the damn thing to rewind. Then there was the lovely young woman semi-nude or nude before me waiting. Honesty is the best policy, I told her a story about the first time I shot a model. She was one of the cool girls in high-school, very blonde, very pretty and impossible beyond me. I got so nervous I almost dropped the screw in lens I had in my hand. I told her how I was thinking, considering the best lens to use with her. The model I had before me laughed, I shared a secret that somehow made us both human with all the failing of humans, made what we were trying to accomplish more real. We could relate to one another, trust one another. Made the fact that one of us was nude so much more comfortable in mind and sprit.







I love working with nude models, of getting those arms and legs just so, the get the look I want with the feel I want, to be able to share with the viewer how I
see this person before me... what I have discovered in her. I ask a lot of my model’s, I ask for there trust to get the image I see in my mind. I ask for the latitude
to try something so very personal to see how it might look, how an idea I have might translate to film. It’s a bond we share... it’s a trust that she is allowing me and my vision. All of my models are lovely young women, my age give me a different perspective on age. My most recent models are in the thirties, a few years ago the average age was early twenties. I like this age, more mature, more comfortable in their skin and they know something about life.

Then after we share a meal together, something I’ve made especially for her, time to decompress, to get back to the every day world. This young lady and I have shared something special, we’ve shared a vision... ideas that we both bring to the shoot. Is it something to change the world... probably not, but just the act of creating something that didn’t exist before feels so good.

Model: Vada