Photographs I've taken...
These are some of the photographs I've taken. Click on any image to see a larger version. Some of these photos are quite large, so if you have a slow connection they'll take a while to load. To return to this page, use the browser's 'back' button.
These are a couple of photos I took in Israel in 1971. I don't know who the man is on the left - I just thought he had an interesting face, and he obliged me by letting me take his picture. He seems a bit amused...
I shot the photo of the shepherd under difficult conditions. I was living on a kibbutz at the time, and we were having a field trip of sorts. We were riding along on the flatbed trailer of a tractor, passing the field at about 30 mph. I had only one chance for the photo, and nearly missed it because of our speed.
These were orchids I encountered in a conservatory in Lincoln Park, Chicago. I never met an orchid I didn't like. These were especially cooperative - they were gorgeous, and in the conservatory they were in good light with no wind to spoil the shot with motion. If only all my flowers were so well-behaved.
These are photos of me in 1979, 2001, 2005, and 2006. I look kind of scary with a beard. Some have unkindly suggested a resemblance to Rasputin. Small children will often cry when they see me. Something about the beard seems to really upset them.
These are some scenes from skid row, taken in about 1977 - just when I quit drinking myself. My work had taken me into that area at the same time, and I was given a very close look at what might have been in store for me, had I continued to drink. I went back there with my camera to try to capture some of the bleakness and despair. I didn't succeed. It's something you need to see for yourself. Photographs just can't convey the intensity of the feelings.
In 2003, a fire swept through my apartment, leaving me and five other families in that building homeless. I lost almost everything except for some computer CD's and a few photographs that escaped the flames and water. Nothing else survived. The fire moved so quickly that I barely had time to put on a coat; I left without my shoes, and could take nothing with me. The hallway was pitch black, because the lights had failed and there was smoke everywhere. On my way down the stairs I banged on everyone's door, and we all escaped unhurt.
Although this fire left me with nothing, I realized that I still had everything I needed. I had a good friend who came to pick me up that late night, and let me stay at her place. Other friends also opened their homes to me, as I struggled to regroup. The company at which I had worked (I had lost that job just prior to the fire)(this was a difficult year) took up a collection for me and came up with several hundred much-needed dollars that helped me move into a new place. Total strangers were donating clothing, upon hearing about my misfortune. Until the fire, I had always had a somewhat cynical view of people and human nature. I was humbled to realize how wrong I was.
One of my interests is close-up photography. On the left, is a photo of a dime showing the motto, "In God we trust". On the right is the 'o' from that motto.
The man on the left is the Reverend Iberus Hacker, who was something of a con man, a Baptist preacher, and an avowed homosexual. Iberus worked his "cons" with various governmental agencies, trying to get benefits for the poor. He would use threats, sweet-talk, media attention, anything he could, to try to help the poor in his community. Here he is performing at his cafe, the Great American Coffeehouse. This wasn't a great success. It was a great meeting place, though, for people who were "different" - who didn't fit into mainstream society. All were welcome there - minorities, pagans, homosexuals, people with disabilities, those who had nowhere else to go. Iberus even held church there in Sundays. While I had no use for church, I sometimes heard some of his sermons, and they made sense.
The man on the right, who appears to be flying, is my kung fu teacher, Sifu Andrew Lee. I had watched Sifu Lee practice this routine, so I knew how it would progress. When it came time for Sifu to jump and touch his toes, I knelt down for the shot, so as to exaggerate the apparent height. In reality, Sifu was roughly at chest level. Even so, this is a very difficult move to accomplish, jumping through the air and being able to touch your toes, then unfold and land gracefully.
No photo album is complete without cute pet photos. The cat in the left two photos is long gone to that Great Catnip Patch Up In The Sky. You'll note how her fur matches the shade of the hat. I took a photo of the cat, and labeled it "Before". I then took a photo of the hat, and labeled it, "After". Some people were horrified to think I actually made a hat from my poor cat, so I needed to take a third photo with the cat happily playing, in plain sight of the hat. Some people just don't have a good sense of humor...
The black cat is still around. I named her after a Russian word meaning "bunny", because of her strange behavior. She would jump straight up, trying to reach whatever clothing I had hanging on the hook on the door. She'd jump up and try to catch her claws in the clothing. If she succeeded, she'd hang there for a while, presumably until she got bored, or figured out how to unhook her claws, or whatever. Or, she'd pull the clothes down onto herself. If there were no clothes on the hook, she'd jump up anyway, for no apparent reason other than she's seriously weird. Weird or not, this is one smart cat, and very affectionate. The other cat, alas, was about as dumb as a cat could get without being demoted to ferret.
Finally, just some more pretty flowers I met along the way. I love flowers.