Point & Shoot

Hold fast to your dreams, Langston Hughes wrote, without them, you are a broken winged bird, unable to fly.

The muse of poetry, just like the muse of opera and impressionistic painting, may have knocked on my door, but if so, I was out. I get my poetry and my art from music. Recently I was asked to photograph two family portraits and though I said yes it was with the strong understanding that such photography is not my strong suit. I'm more the blue jeans, smoke filled bar or outdoor festival kind of shooter. Give me a blues band and a harmonica player who pay no attention to what I'm doing and I'm in my element. But it's flattering to be asked so I almost always say yes.

My camera travels with me pretty much wherever I go and people have become accustomed to it. I shoot mostly on instinct, catching people unawares and genuine, intent on what they're doing or saying. Musicians are the best subjects - they provide a range of movement and gestures and expressions as naturally and effortlessly as they make music. Like a lot of photographers, I dislike having my own picture taken - my place is behind the lens not in front of it and that's by design. The pictures I like the best reflect an almost intimate connection between lens and subject, between shadow and light, between music and musicians.

There is poetry and art in photography. Sometimes it just happens, sometimes it has to be worked for and sometimes only I can see it. For me it's always been about patience, practice, timing and luck and the rare joy of having a picture turn out exactly as I saw it in my mind. These are small dreams but they matter, just as all dreams do. I think we all have art in our lives and that it manifests itself according to our personalities - music, photography,
writing, a flower garden, painting, poetry or even the children we bring into the world can all be forms of self expression, and self expression is a just a dream made real.

I will keep my dreams, no matter how unlikely they may be. Unrealistic or not, they are the source of hope.