No Complaints

Look at that cover, it doesn't really look anything like my original. Sometimes I just want to complain about print quality, color fidelity, etc, etc, but this was licensed through Mira...
and I got paid. No complaints!

Who Speaks For The Birds?

I can't escape it, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in the Gulf of Mexico, is everywhere. Every network, not just cable news channels, devotes the major part of their news broadcasts to the spill.

Whether it's a live feed from the seabed of oil just gushing out of the blowout preventer or it's shovelers on the shore, BP executives lying to Congress or some poor bird lying oil-soaked on a beach, an idle fisherman, the President or Billy Nungesser (or Bobby Jindal or Haley Barbour) grousing about the slow progress of clean-up and the loss of tourist dollars... I simply cannot watch any more news.

My dad used to quip (when one of my brothers or I had taken more food than we could eat): "A funny bird, the pelican. His beak can hold more than his belly can!"

My problem is that I've photographed pelicans in the wild and to see them covered in Louisiana Sweet Crude, getting a sponge bath so they can live a few more days (they usually die, even after being cleaned), makes me sick to my stomach. Have you ever seen a pelican fish? They're amazing! Who speaks for the birds? Not Haley Barbour, not Charlie Crist.

But there's an 11 year old girl living on Long island in New York, Olivia Bouler, who wrote to the National Audubon Society, fairly distraught over the plight of the birds she saw on television. "I am a decent drawer," she wrote, "and I was wondering if I could sell some bird paintings and give the profits to your organization." So she began sending original bird illustrations to donors who contribute to oil spill relief efforts.

She has a Facebook page that I'd like you to visit, and help her raise some money to save the birds.

Photography Is Not A Crime! Everyone Go Out And Shoot A Cop!!

I have to say at the outset that I have enormous respect for police officers. They have a tough job and they're, pretty much, walking targets. My little brother (right) was one of New York's Finest (he still is, in my opinion) so don't take the title literally or I'll be coming after you. I am, however, disturbed by a recent trend that's emerging, primarily in the United Kingdom, of photographers being arrested for making photographs.

Though I do a fair amount of editorial work I wouldn't call myself a photojournalist. Photographing feature stories for magazines isn't the same as going off to a war zone (actually done that!) or covering the White House. Just the same, I'm convinced that deep inside each of us, wedding photographers too, is a reporter, a photojournalist.

When I was a student I had the privilege of being Editor-In-Chief of my college's newspaper and I'm familiar with, and a big fan of, the first amendment, the one that guarantees freedom of the press. Here's what I learned.

Opposition to the ratification of the Constitution was partly based on the Constitution's lack of adequate guarantees for civil liberties. To provide such guarantees, the First Amendment, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, was adopted on December 15, 1791. It reads..... "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

So, you can imagine my surprise when I read an article on gizmodo.com that this trend is emerging here, too. "In at least three states, it is now illegal to [photograph] any on-duty police officer." The article continues, "The legal justification for arresting the 'shooter' rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested."

This is outrageous! Photographers are not terrorists.

One of my colleagues, Marcus Maddox, was admonished not to photograph an on-duty police officer at the Taste Of Randolph street festival here not long ago. He was actually complimenting an officer on the immaculate condition of her kevlar vest, asked to photograph her... he asked politely... and she produced a card quoting an obscure city ordinance prohibiting the photographing of police officers. He had an easier time photographing the police in Hanoi. "You can't spit without tripping over a cop in Hanoi," he said. "They actually posed for me, but here in Chicago? No wonder the rest of the world is confused about America."

Attempts to restrict our first amendment rights need to be loudly opposed, even when made by state/local governments, which reminds me of this... There's another interesting law known as the 14th Amendment. Though the main focus of the 14th is to define citizenship and the apportionment of representatives, its Due Process provision effectively prohibits states from withholding rights granted by the US Constitution. In other words, if the first amendment guarantees your right to photograph whoever, wherever, whenever; the fourteenth amendment guarantees that no state (or municipality) can enact a law which takes that first amendment right away from you.

Certainly, this is about police officers being caught, "on film" as it were, engaging in misconduct. If that's the case (what else can it be?), maybe the police shouldn't be engaging in misconduct.

Flag Day Is June 14th

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Canon EOS-1N, 70~200/2.8 Canon Zoom Lens EF L Ultrasonic, Fujichrome Provia 100

I'm On The Road To Find Out

Yesterday was Memorial Day and I wanted to do something more than barbecue, so I did a little research on military cemeteries and found that the closest one to me (in Illinois) is the Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, about two and a half hours south of here. I thought that was going to be a little far to drive to shoot rows of flags and headstones in uncertain light (rain was forecast), and being a holiday I really didn't want to wake-up at two o'clock in the morning. I also discovered Wood National Cemetery in Milwaukee, about an hour away, and so I mapped a route there. Still, I wasn't keen on waking-up at three o'clock and I was wracking my brain for an alternative when I remembered that Fort Sheridan has a cemetery and it's only twenty minutes away. I could wake-up at four o'clock and be there before sunrise without breaking a sweat.

Good move not driving down to Elwood. I later learned that President Obama was going to be speaking there and, in retrospect, there was little likelihood of my getting anywhere near the place on short notice. Also, he got absolutely drenched in the torrential downpour that eventually ensued and I wasn't up for getting wet, either.

Fort Sheridan turned out to be the perfect compromise: close-by, sleep-in, okay light and I was home with about five minutes to spare before it really started pouring. Coffee at my desk... priceless!



Not a bad shoot, but something struck me as I made my pictures. Two months ago I was driving across Connecticut, having survived the flood in Providence, Rhode Island (the day before), when I passed a farm that had an awful lot of crosses planted in the field in front of the farmhouse, close to the road. It was a striking scene and, despite the heavy overcast, I stopped to photograph it. I spent only a few minutes there, but it's been in the back of my mind for the two months since because I really don't know what it means. Yesterday, it was brought to the fore by one of my compositions in the cemetery and now I have questions.....



Is it a memorial? To whom? Fallen soldiers in our recent incursions into Iraq and Afghanistan? A protest? Against what? Anti-war or pro-life? Maybe the Catholic church? Religion in general? What is it? Do you know?