Something Close to Magic

I like photographing pretty people - who doesn't - but I especially like photographing people whose lives are written all over their faces.  They may see age and wrinkles and scars but I see character and hard won fights, weariness and experience, wisdom and memories.  Struggle and survival leave marks, some good and some bad, but all worth capturing and being proud of.  Age is an achievement in and of itself and ought to outrank vanity.  Forgive me, dear friend, if you "look old" in a photograph I've taken of you - but you are - and you should rejoice in it.  Don't confuse old with unflattering.  Your eyes still crinkle with laughter, your silver hair tells of decades of living, those smile lines and crows feet are earned.  You may not like the way they look on you, but they speak to me.  I understand your vanity but can't approve of it.

My friend, Michael - artificially tanned with his lips botoxed, his abs corseted and his hair extensions secured -  has a birthday coming up.  He will take extraordinary pride in "looking young", never seeing that his looks have become a caricature.  A number of plastic surgeries - what an apt name for a cosmetic procedure - have given him a superficial sense of time travel, marginally alleviating his fear of aging and feeding his vanity with small doses of self deception.  He doesn't look younger, he looks as though he's had work done and

ironically enough, needs more to maintain the illusion.  It saddens me to see him fighting so hard for something so long lost.  In his 20's, he was darkly handsome, broodingly intense and seductive, catlike and graceful.  But in his 50's, he can't bear to look in a mirror except to preen and check his makeup.   He sees nothing but shadows, overlaid with a decrepit haze of the good years gone bad.  And he mourns - loudly, often and at length.

If all we measure by is vanity, then vanity will make fools of us all.  Give me a face with character and integrity.  Give me a face that tells a tale and I will give you my best work.


The challenge is not just growing older - we all do that without any effort whatsoever.  But to do it with grace and charm and a sense of celebration, well, that takes courage and style.

To do it while playing a squeezebox takes something close to magic.