For absent friends.......

Strolling slowly along the Seine today with my daughter Havana on a blustery, grey afternoon headed to a great little photo bookstore --La Chamber Claire, I chanced to see a postcard rack and in the center of it was the famous image of Che--by the great Cuban photographer Alberto Korda and right next to it an image by my favorite photographer Raul Corrales called La Sueno, which transported me to a very warm afternoon in Habana many years ago talking with the two of them. Wonderful friends, colleagues and fierce competitors. The tension created by the passion they had for life and photography--and frankly for women was palpable.

It was a very different time and place. They are gone now, but their images, their vision, will endure and not just inform, but educate.

This short journey today, led me to consider the longer path I've taken with the things I've gained from the work of other artists. As in all things for me the message-- the image, and the story were tantamount.

Such a great life, so many things I need to see.

The road beckons.

Red Heaven

Twice in the last three weeks Sports Illustrated has sent me to Lincoln cover games at Memorial Stadium.

As a child growing up in rural western Nebraska my earth revolved around Cornhusker football.

When the Huskers broke lose for 24 unanswered points in the first quarter of the game against mighty Mizzou the balloons flew, and the nation's best fans soared.

What would Rembrandt do?

Late last night I was roaming the back streets of ancient Zurich. 24 f 1.4 on a D300s, just appreciating a lovely early autumn time in one of Europe's treasures. Freed of technical limitations--that camera can literally see in the dark-- and it's so small and light, and with that lens attached I feel a connection to an earlier group of photojournalists working the scenes with fast 35 millimeter lenses attached to the smallest film cameras of the day. Romantic maybe, but those who have been on the ground doing this work can feel what I am feeling.

I was thinking about an earlier time in my life--my second trip to Europe--I was in my early 20's and had 18 hours in London enroute to a meeting with a baby orangutang in the Hague. (The trip with the small primate is a story for another day.)

My father was in the Army Air Corps during the second World War, stationed in Sherwood Forest, and always spoke so captivatingly about England.

I was determined to see all of old London town, and capture it on film. So I refused sleep. All night, strolling the city, making long, slow exposures on transparency film and the venerable, omnipresent TriX loaded in my Nikon F2, pentaprism--no meter, no motor drive--with a 24 2.8 attached. Having to make each exposure count--no blasting away hoping. It was about thinking first, knowing the limitations of the film, and then making it work as best I could.

I thought it might be my only chance to see one of the Capitals of Europe--as a young newspaper photographer in the South, visions of globetrotting were not yet on my horizon.

Half a lifetime later, 8 million miles flown, thousands of trips taking their toll on my back, so many visits out of the US to places relatively near and far that I lost count long ago, and I am still restless. Driven to photograph, to get what's in my mind and my heart captured on something--film, a sensor, paper--so that I can share it with the world.

I used to look at things twice, once especially for my Dad. Now I do the same, but now the second look is for Havana, my daughter who always reminds me to take a picture of what I see just for her.

While I was taking that slow walk in this wonderful Swiss city, soaking in everything around me I started thinking about the distant past. The great painters, DaVinci, Bruegel, Rembrandt, and I wondered what they would do with the tools we have now. What could they see, what would they record, where could they drive the art?

Or more recently, Gordon Parks. Imagine what he could have done with these tools. I know I would read his blog every day...........

I love the technology. And I am determined to use it to not do things more easily, but to do things better. To go further.

And those thoughts just pushed me to keep going, and looking. Enjoying.

Havana Daydreaming

I try to spend at least an hour day with books. If I am lucky that is an uninterrupted pleasure.

My daughter loves reading and art above all else.

As you can imagine, we really get along.

Today was delicious. Havana and I went through five photography books, front to back. Slowly. Savoring the art. Discussing the content. Appreciating the sacrifices.

Larry Towell--The World From My Front Porch Leonard Freed--Black in White America Henri Cartier Bresson--The Modern Century Keith Carter--Photographs--25 years W.Eugene Smith--Dream Street

It was a black and white kind of day.

Schipol, old friend

Laura and I are in the KLM lounge at Schipol. Interesting that in a year that has seen me on more than 100 different flights, the three airports I have visited the most are:

1) Jacksonville International 2) Hartsfield in Atlanta, GA 3) Schipol in Amsterdam

We are headed to Sienna, for the Palio. An incredible, centuries old horse race. Our flight to Florence was cancelled so we are scrambling to make other arrangements.

And by that I mean I am working two cell phones with agents on both sides of the Atlantic, and pounding the keyboard on my Macbook pro.

Laura meanwhile is on her machine cutting a video interview I shot Tuesday in Washington, DC--she'll finish it and upload before we catch our next flight in four hours. The old slogan, there is a deadline every minute, sure fits how we work.

And I would modify it to be not only a deadline every minute, but a different medium to file for constantly. Working in print, web, emag and broadcast television and radio gives us so many different outlets for the stories we want to tell.

Summer Nights

I visited an old family friend in Gainesville yesterday. Murray Lasley was my grandfather's best friend from grade school on. I lived in Gainesville for four years as a student at the University of Florida. I only went to visit Murray once when my grandfather died.

Until recently, I never appreciated what he means to me, to my family. He's a priceless piece of history that is slowly fading away. Part of me, as I am finding, is without doubt linked to him.

Murray has had a stroke and broken his hip since I saw him a year and a half ago, but the young man is still there.

He's been legally blind now for over 20 years. Glaucoma began to slowly take his sight in his mid-20s. But his stories are vivid and his mind sharp. He's speaks slow, but with purpose. And every word is worth hanging on to.

As I drove home with his stories fresh in my mind it began to rain. It was a typical summer shower in Florida. The kind of weather I remember from countless nights on the marsh, watching the heat lightning dance above the palm trees.

It didn't rain long enough to wet the ground, just long enough to create a low, thick steam.

I drove into Ponte Vedra Beach just after the sun went down - my favorite time of day - when the world turns a dense shade of blue.

I stopped at the beach just in time to take this double exposure on my D700.

Where the Wind Comes from

Here in the South the wind is created by the old ceiling fan steadily pushing a gentle artificial breeze over us as we work to edit our latest music videos. It's delicious.

The over the high Plains of Western Nebraska some of the most spectacular cloud paintings roll along, pushed by the constant winds.

When I was a child there was never a still moment. I had no idea there was a place where the air was heavy and motionless.

And then I moved to Mississippi and Florida.

When I have a chance to go home, either in my mind or actually traveling there, it's always the big sky that I think of first.

Old Order

The countryside clothes lines outside Gap PA took me decades and miles home to western Nebraska and a silent salute to my Mom whose hard work, practicality and sense of order define my thoughts.

Cycles

I’m leaving Amsterdam this morning and I am thinking about cycles. Not the bicycles which are omni present in this city of canals.

But how things repeat constantly, in photography, in life.

I hadn’t visited Amsterdam in years when this summer Laura and I were headed to Berlin. It was meant to be a simple trip. Jacksonville to New York to Berlin for the World Athletics Championships. 14 days in Berlin, followed by road trip through Europe to Rome to work on the Missy story.

We started the day exhausted. We had spent 24 days of July in Australia making “All Over Down Under” for Nikon. We had come back to the Florida on a Tuesday and Wednesday had left for Nebraska to do a shoot for the release of Apple’s Aperture 3.

Anyway, back to the trip to Berlin. Our flight to New York got off the ground late. Then it ran into nasty weather--although we never saw any--and had to divert to Dulles.

We sat on the ground in DC for for 3 hours, causing us to miss our flight from JFK to Berlin.

We were rebooked on a flight leaving for Paris, where we were meant to catch a connection to Berlin.

Then, we were late leaving the gate on our new connection, and by the time we got to Paris, 5 hours late, we missed the connection to Berlin.

Which brings us to my first trip to Schipol--the Airport in Amsterdam--in nearly 10 years. Now instead of going Jacksonville to NYC to Berlin, now we were going Jacksonville to NYC to Paris to Amsterdam to Berlin.

But the airport was kind to us.

Two months later Nikon officially launched their D3s and we were off to Amsterdam, then Edinburgh.

Not three weeks later we landed in Schipol yet again, this time we were visiting Amsterdam to do a seminar with Nikon Europe.

Three months later we were headed home to Florida from Helsinki and sure enough, stopping at Schiphol.

One week later I was back to Amsterdam to judge World Press Photo. I brought along an empty suitcase, just in case. Now it is filled with beautiful books--four of them by my friend Stefan VanFleetern.

And so it continues...

Prince of a Man

Last night I had a very rare, for me, and extremely pleasant treat. I had dinner with a Prince. Prince Constantijn of Holland, Patron of World Press Photo, came by the judging and joined us for dinner.

We spent much of the meal talking about photography, multimedia, video and the state of journalism.

The food was excellent, and the conversation better.