no, no…the above "home alone" is not the title of my upcoming piece on work and relationships….sounds like it could be though doesn’t it?? ….no, i am not ready to write that piece just yet…another day….some good comments are still coming in…some truly poetic thoughts…..i will wait…or is that called stalling???

no, my home alone has nothing to do with anything other than i am truly enjoying being home alone…i had  an early evening meeting with mark lubell, magnum’s new york director, and my friend marie with a "job with no title" card hanging around  her neck….marie sort of does everything for me (thanks marie!!), but has this last year evolved into running my personal workshop programs…mark, marie and i are planning magnum’s  new educational program for emerging photographers…like you!!…somehow i got roped into leading this by my colleagues at a meeting where i was not present!!

anyway, meeting over….marie is finalizing a bad cold and went home to sleep early…mark had another appointment…no "take out" tonight…my neighbor, aussie photog david coventry, came by to have a beer, saw the meeting going on and said he would come back later….he never came back..home alone

now this is the "apple",  so there can be no doubt that if i made about two phones calls i could find out about some photo function or group gathering or gallery opening or some kind of new york "action" scene or whatever in about 10 seconds or less….it is even likely that i am actually supposed to be somewhere…somebody might be thinking i will walk through the door at any moment….i forget stuff all the time….but i did not pick up the phone to find out….silence..

i turn on my neon "bar" lite….tweak leonard cohen just a little louder,  but not too loud to wake little eva, 8, who lives next door…open a cold corona….i flip through a couple of new photo books…i wonder if i can afford peter beard’s new masterpiece….i start to think about what i am supposed to be thinking about….so much is going on around me now that i have to think like a race car driver or something…

total concentration….eyes straight ahead…..but i am not a race car driver….i am not in a race car…..i am driving  a jeep cj ,top off,  driving down the beach with the waves breaking green  and  the seagulls  scrambling out of my way  and  all i can see straight ahead is  just more pristine  beach and high  dunes…nobody  else…..all alone….

so my weird way of dealing with stress is to totally pretend there isn’t any….i do get classically  stressed for short periods of time, but quickly apologize to everyone  around me…my overall demeanor,  under the worst of conditions (like now), is pretty casual and even overly playful i think…but, you had better get a responsible second opinion from marie!!!

home alone seems pretty sweet in any case  ….i wrote an e-mail to my girl…wanted to  chat , but she is 6 hours ahead and sleeping (or at an all night club!!)….thought about looking at "living proof" dummy, but did not have the psychological  energy to think about  if the pictures were in the right place or not…so, i drifted over here to my cluttered desk, with absolutely nothing on my mind at all, and my fingers and my subconscious  did the walking….very strange….

but that’s all folks…done…over….i am heading up to the rooftop…there is the  most delicious weather in history happening  right now..the reason i live here is because of the rooftop view…i surely hope that i do not meet anybody up there……

L1002338

28 thoughts on “home alone”

  1. Aga_Luczakowska

    Corona … i just love that beer…

    New educational program for emerging photographers… great idea! how it will look like? workshop? seminars? … tell us someting moreeeee :-) , plz

    btw.. road tips are becoming life tips :-) … and i like it :-) It seems like most of us have almost same problems in our lifes

  2. piotr koszczynski

    Thank
    you very much for your effort and very important for me informations :) That’s true, that backup
    bodu is a mus on assigments, but (I believe) m8 has that advantage, that I can use my old M6 or MP
    as second body :)

    I thought, that only in Poland fotoreporters have such a hard life (from the
    financial point of view), but now I know, that it is world tendency: reportages, streets, documents
    are far cheaper for editors than for example fashion :( and m8 – reporter camera by roots, has the
    “fashion” price :(

    thanks again, best regards from Poland, and – if you want and have a
    little spare time, I invite you warmly on the http://www.piotrkoszczynski.com

    regards,
    Piotr

  3. Aga_Luczakowska

    I hope i am not ignoramus :-) but I dont like gear and equipment topics… same as Henri Cartier Bresson (i saw few days ago a film about him) i like the moment of shooting, not preparing prints… not gear

  4. Neil

    Grief! You Poles keep hardcore hours! I thought vodka was your social lubricant of choice? Not that I would disrespect Zywiec beer, even when its mulled (grazne).

    I’m interested in this new educational program too! Should’nta let that one drop unless you have details soon, we may get rabid ;-)

    Hope you find what you want on your roof (are you a Drifters fan?) and keep up the good blogging!

  5. Diego Carannante

    Alone … alone … sometimes it’s better …
    relax .. with yourself, absolutely alone … but with the best part of you … with the life.
    Cheers.
    D.

  7. David

    aga…do not worry…no more gear talk..i just thought that one question was fair enough…i prefer to think about pictures too…i just wrote a piece about your Mormon idea under the previous post..check it out…david

  8. David

    neil…

    i will let you know soonest what we come up with at magnum….whatever we do , and there are several ideas floating around, we want it to be something very very special for young photographers…

    we want to be like a fine wine…a little longer in the bottle, and very special in the glass…

    david

  10. David

    piotre…i could not get all of your pictures to open…i will try again later….david

  11. David

    neil…

    of course, i love “the drifters”….”up on the roof” appropriate for last night….”save the last dance for me” my favorite….

    david

  12. David WIlson Burnham

    I have a bit for you’re up relationships piece you are writing. “Love the camera and the images it makes”; other relationships get in the way of the time needed for the camera.

  14. Mariano

    I really know how do you feel like.

    Here in Valencia the bet is double the heartbeat of anyone now, so time to spare is priceless.

    And I’m agree with you, one of the best things of NY is the view from your roof, is like living in a frame where everything stay out of the record,

    Hope everything will go better and better.

    M.

  15. Sherman Charles

    ah ..a body alone is even sweeter when the mind can lazily drift about ..who knows, the soul might stroll right in ..

    pretty cool bar sign..just don’t play the darts drunk or you might puncture your neon..

    i see you stuck up the prints from your natgeo assignment..I really liked that article, both for your images and for James’s writing as well. Joachim Ladefoged’s work was great also in that issue. The shot of the fisherman in a cloud of mist reaching back with the bait fish reminds me of another fisherman photograph from Sam Abell.

    Anyway happy chillin…

  16. David

    hey mariano…

    i am pleased you are here….it gives me a chance to thank you so so much for your expertise in valencia…we could not have done that show without you!!! you stayed calm when the rest of us were in “panic mode”..when computer stuff goes crazy, i go crazy..but, you have the right demeanor to troubleshoot and make it all work out…

    and i truly love your “hell’s angels” work..stick with it and you will have a book…

    hola to my valencia friends please…

    abrazos, david

  17. David

    sherman…

    yes, i have worried about stray darts, but so far so good….

    joachim’s picture is reminiscent of sam’s photograph of more than 30 years ago i think…good observation…

    the pictures on the wall are actually for the working book layout…some of which were in the magazine…i always tack pics up on the wall to see how they sequence and see how they look over time…i have my coffee and move things around a bit and play…then i get sick of all of them!!!!

    david

  18. M.

    Thanks to you for been here swallowing some crap like we saw and standing lika a gentleman in front some histeric and demanding “students”, I told you that you have a lot of courage to afford these kind of works of those people, hahahaha.

    You know, I try to be patience and calm in nervous situation, so is my natural state.

    It was a pleasure to help in any way and hope to see us soon.

    I talked to Hell Angels president here in Spain, and they are note very enthusiastic with the idea of the pics and not even with a book, they say they have to ask for permission to hell angels wolrdwide, so I expect not very much succed in that. ButI´m perseverant so I´ll keep pushing them.

    I´ll send you some pics when they let me do it, hehehe.

    I´ll give hughs and kisses in your place to everybody.

    Take care

    M.

  19. David

    mariano…

    well, maybe you can just do harley bikers period…does it really matter if they are official “hells angels”???

    i had already forgotten about that one negative scenario…every once in a while i get a student like that…whereas i have no patience with computers like you do, i do try to max out my patience with students…however, i have asked for a student to drop the class..but, this only has happened maybe twice when i can see that a student will actually interfere with the education of the others…if the student is only painful for me, as in this case, i try to ride it out…and, in the end, this worked out just fine….

    abrazos to all…david

  20. Rafal Pruszynski (jinju)

    David, Ive been to NYC once. Fell in love with the place righ away. Man, are you ever lucky to live there. Great town. And the view must be great.

    Also curious about the educational training from Magnum. When are you opening up a Magnum office in seoul?;)

  21. Ross Nolly

    Hi David;

    You mentioned you were listening to Leonard Cohen.. Do you find you get inspired by music? When you talk about authorship, I find that the musicians I like often have strong authorship too.

    I often listen to Leonard Cohen, Natalie Merchant, Pete Townshend (from The Who), Suzanne Vega etc. All have individual styles, are deeply thoughtful and don’t bend their musical principles. I see plenty of similarities with photography.

    I follow Pete Townshend’s Blog & just read a section about not buckling down to producer’s (editors!!) & commercialism! If you swap the words music with photography it could have been your very own blog!! You might have to hit him up about breach of copyright!! :-)

    I’m going fulltime freelance PJ in july so am about to jump off the cliff. Scary, but exciting too. But as you said to me “I’m trying to minimalise as much as possible”!
    Re; relationships. I’ve found that if you’re committed to your work, your other half just about treats your work as “the other woman”!!! Or is that just my experience???

    Thanks for the effort you put in here It’s really appreciated.

    Cheers for now. Ross

  23. David

    rafal…

    no magnum office planned for seoul, but i will be there in august i think to shoot youth culture….

    i will keep all of you informed, of course, about our magnum efforts to reach out to emerging photographers…

    rushing to plane….

    david

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