Times Square, February 20, 2010

My kids seem obsessed with knowing a person’s age. Somehow, to them, it connotes where the person fits in the world.

Dad, how old is the Naked Cowboy?

Fifteen. [That's my stock answer when it's clear there is absolutely no reason I should know the person's age.]

Yeah, right. Anyway, I don’t think he looks that old. [Which has come to mean relative to my wife and I.]

Hmm…. I’m walking here! I’m walking here!

I live where I grew up, in Princeton, NJ. While the town has changed over time, as any place would over 46 years, it remains essentially the same. What has changed the most is the surrounding area.

Back in the day, as a kid, Princeton was surrounded by a belt of green 10-20 miles thick. Made up of farms and woods, it was a buffer that was as much psychic as it was physical. It kept the rest of the world at bay and it ensured a sense of small town life even though New York and Philadelphia were only 50 miles away.

Once, when probably 13 or 14, I went on a bike ride with a friend. We headed northeast along the canal and then at a certain point veered off. Up and out of the Millstone River basin, hours seemed to go by. Hot and thirsty, lost in every sense of the word, we were rewarded for our efforts when a Stewart’s Drive-in appeared off on its own, inhabiting a space carved out of a cornfield. Where was it? Where were we? We didn’t know and to a large extent it didn’t matter. It was summer, the days lasted forever, and it was hours until sunset. We had enough change for drinks, the owner pointed us back towards town, and after ten miles or so, biking through woods and farms, we were home.

Princeton is no longer isolated in that physical sense. The sod fields which lined Route 1 are gone, replaced by malls, shops, and hotels. There a long lines of traffic headed into town in the morning, out in the evening. Most of the rest of the land has been developed for housing or office parks. But traces of the buffer remain. To the east and the northeast of town, on the other side of the lake and the canal, there are still fields. Decent sized swaths of land, divided by long stretches of evergreens which rise three stories tall.

Plainsboro, NJ, February 16, 2010

Plainsboro, NJ, February 16, 2010

Click images for larger versions.

Princeton, NJ, January 26, 2010 - Click Image for Larger View

This morning, before work, I was in our basement crawl space on leg three of replacing the battery backup sump pump. An odyssey which began two days earlier and required no less than three trips to Lowe’s.

It should have been simple. I already had a battery backup sump pump in place. Swap it out with a new one and move on.

Leg #1 to Lowe’s – get a new sump pump kit to replace the one that was at least ten years old. I already had a relatively new battery to use with it. Leg #2 to Lowe’s – get a new battery because the new kit is not working. Leg #3 – return the new kit because it’s still not working with the new battery and swap it out with another new kit.

This morning’s work went quickly and was a relief on two fronts. The second new kit was working and nothing blew up. Not that anything should blow up but working with a lead-acid battery and all its warnings of dire consequences is not fun. In the midst of this it dawned on me to open the small window in the crawl space. Let in some air as to avoid working with the battery in an unventilated space. I stood up as best I could, hunched over in the 4 foot high space, and opened the window. It pulled in and down, revealing all the grime that a ground level, rarely opened window, can hold. Quite pretty in its own way but instead my attention was drawn to the screen and out the window. The past two days of rain had cleared, a spike of morning sun was raking across the lawn, and a couple of birds flitted about here and there.

Instantly, I was thinking of the movie, The Incredible Shrinking Man. I had seen it on TV as a kid. The great b&w, the oddity of his marriage as he grew smaller, living in the doll house, the fight with the cat, trying to find food, killing the spider, and finally the twist at the end – the imprisonment caused by his size inverting itself to enable his freedom. He became small enough to fit through an opening in the basement window screen and walk out to freedom.

Still from The Incredible Shrinking Man

Maybe it was the window screen and ground-level point of view, the morning light, or the birds outside that sent me flashing back to the movie. Maybe it was sharing one of the movie’s themes, the frustration of feeling out of control. In my case through another hardware store project where I was at the mercy of incredibly bad quality control. Last summer I tried to buy a power washer only to give up after two of them were defective. The summer before it took four trips to two different hardware stores to find a hose which didn’t leak on its first use. Regardless of the reason, it was refreshing to pause and think about something completely different for a moment, to be drawn back to another time, and to see the world anew from the perspective of this forgotten window.

A few days ago the New York Times ran the story of Louis Mendes, New York City street photographer. At age 70 he does what he has done for forty years. He creates portraits with a Speed Graphic and Polaroid film. While others, working the same crowds, require crews just to round up people and find paying customers, Mr. Mendes is able to work on his own, do very well, and charge twice as much. What sets him apart is his experience, presentation, and control of his craft.

Louis Mendes by Ozier Muhammed/The New York Times

He dresses the part, always looking dapper and inviting to his subjects. His product looks different because of his eye and because of the tools he uses.

This is not a film vs. digital debate. It’s not a paean for the cameras of yore. Every photographer needs to find the tools that suit his or her goals and style. I found David Gonzalez’s profile of Louis intriguing because there seemed to be some great business lessons in between the lines. These lessons apply whether you are creating $20 street portraits or $200,000 large scale productions. Know who you are and what you do, dress the part as a means of encouraging your subject or your client, put a value on your experience, and have something unique that sets you apart and gives clients a reason to hire you.

Ultimately, there’s nothing new in this. The guides I just cited would work at any time. But with the start of a new year, in a profession and an economy which are challenging at best, it seems a good time to say, “This is who I am and this is what I do.”

When meeting with a new client, “This is who I am and this is what I do.”

When sending out a promo let it shout, “This is who I am and this is what I do.”

When working with long-term clients, “This is who I am and this is what I do.”

Welcome to 2010.

I thought the red coat was a bad choice. It looked great but it looked to be too light weight. I was sure it wouldn’t be warm enough. I was sure we would end up having to buy another new winter coat along with it and this second coat, bought out of parental pragmatism, would never get worn.

But I was one lone male voice in a house full of females. A voice after the fact since the red coat had already been purchased. And what did I know?

I think one of my New Year’s resolutions should be to be less practical.

Isabel, Leah, and Bix; making latkes. Princeton, NJ, December 12, 2009

Kelev tov means “good dog” in Hebrew. If you are looking for a nice story of understanding this holiday season look to Miky, the rabbi, and the policeman – a Western coming soon to a theater near you.

Graduate Student’s Desktop Image on His Laptop
Princeton Theological Seminary, 9/21/09

Who knew they snapped together? It would have helped Mel Brooks here:

I went out to photograph today. Unlike my last foray this past Saturday, the weather was nice and remained so. But like my last foray, the excursion yielded only one image. Odd, maybe so. Or maybe not so much. More and more I’ve found when working on personal projects that images often come on their own in between everything that makes up a day. Getting from point A to point B for other reasons.

Today I opted to go south into the Pine Barrens. A place known for its desert of scrub pines, its sandy soil, its folklore including the Jersey Devil, and its strong military presence. I took many back roads and dirt roads, surprised to see that I was passing dozens of Fort Dix’s shooting ranges, each right on the road, no fences, nothing.

I was born in Fort Dix but have little connection with it beyond that. It’s a place of ghosts. My father was stationed there when I was born. I remember driving my friend Leonard there in his parents’ Volkswagen Rabbit so that he could catch a military flight.

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time in the Pine Barrens camping, hiking, and canoeing. Lately, it has been a place we pass through as we go to the beach.

New Egypt, Hockamik, Cookstown, Browns Mills, Hanover Furnace, Whitesbog, Upton, McDonald, and Four Mile. Towns small and smaller. Some doing fine, some barely functioning, and some historic sites with little else. I was on my way to Chatsworth. I don’t know why. It was stuck in my head when I mapped out the route. Maybe it had been the starting point for a hike or a canoe trip? Or maybe it was from John McPhee’s book, read back in high school. In Chatsworth I found my one photo and moved on.

East along Rte. 72 to see if I could get an image of the expanse of pines from the hilltop while others rushed to and from Long Beach Island – I couldn’t. A quick jaunt south to Warren Grove but our discovery from last summer, Lucille’s Country Cooking, was closed. So, north, west, and north; the back way through Woodmansie, Bullock, and Wheatland. No signs of towns, just deep woods with houses set back deeper, barely visible. A possible photo here or there but the internal debate of stopping or not always taking over.

A second straight version, still deciding which I like better.

Pinewood Antler Club, Chatsworth, NJ

July 13, 2009