FOREVER YOUNG

103 YEAR OLD TZADDICK

At age 103, Reb Odessar, a Bratslav Chasidic holy man was sharper than I was at 30. His eyes followed me wherever I moved as I carefully   chose a place to stand and set up the camera. He watched with curious intention. I apologized to him that I could not speak Hebrew very well. He spoke only three words to me in English, “You can learn.” Well now, yes indeed, I can.

ANSEL ADAMS

Art director / photographer, Lloyd Ziff sent me on assignment to photograph selected octogenarians for New West Magazine. There I was, in Ansel Adam's Spanish style house with working darkroom placed in the very center of his home. It was this meeting with a remarkable man that showed me that age is nothing more than a number, when one's destiny gives an artist no choice.

WALTER KOHN

NOBEL PRIZE LAUREATE
I met Walter when I restored a portion of Roman Vishniac's science photography for his daughter, Mara Vishniac Kohn. She married Walter, a theoretical physicist. He, along with John Pople, was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in chemistry in 1998 for his contributions to the understanding of the electronic properties of Silicon.

At age 16, Walter escaped from Nazi-occupied Austria on The Kindertransport, finding himself sent to an internment camp in Canada that housed enemy aliens; i.e, war-speak for someone not an official citizen of Canada. However, he was able to continue his education there and go on to study physics and then complete his Ph.D at Harvard. His brilliance was obvious to all that met him, even at an early age. Even so, when in the Canadian camp he was forced to wear a shirt with a bulls-eye on the back of it. One of the greatest minds in history could have lost his life on any given day with just one wrong move. Walter, Mara and I would drink schnapps long into the evening, theorizing how to make a better world for us all. He lived to age 94, his wife Mara, to 92. May their memories be for a blessing.

LESTER RODNEY

BASEBALL GREAT
Lester Rodney is credited with single-handedly blowing open the racial barriers of baseball. In the 1930’s as a sports editor for the American communist paper, The Daily Worker, he knew it was a travesty that in America, a qualified baseball player with the wrong pigmentation in his skin, was barred from major league ball. African American players were relegated to the Negro League only. Over many years, he continuously petitioned players, fans and owners to allow a black man, ultimately Jackie Robinson, to play ball. Lester won the battle in 1947. He transformed the grand game of baseball and American society as a whole. Lester Rodney was awarded lifetime credentials to any press box in the nation.

DAVE'S SON

There is not always a conscious explanation as to what I see. Sometimes it comes later. This young boy found his place nestled into his father's shoulder behind a giant redwood tree. He just fit. He felt safe. He had a good vantage point of me, my camera and what I might do next. 

BORN AGAIN AND AGAIN

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

This was a day when all of the stars aligned and so did the color pallete. His shirt, the poster, the background, the pencil; Amazing.

HOLLYWOOD BABY

LIAM

You know how people always hold up their baby above their head? If you don't, this is what the angle looks like!

CARLA & FRIEND

RANDOL SCHOENBERG

LILLIAN BASSMAN

Style was defined by Lillian. I photographed her for Descendants of Light when she was 88 years old. Often I ask people to show me choices of what they wish to wear for the photograph. "No," firmly said Lillian, as she visually scanned the area where I was setting up. She left the room and five minutes later returned wearing an overesized starched white shirt, black turtleneck and leggings and white tennis shoes, whose seams she had meticulously hand-painted black. With her bold black glasses and striking white hair, she certainly needed no wardrobe assistance from me. After all, Lillian started with nothing but had such talent for fashion and photography, before long she was at the top, working alongside photographer Richard Avedon and art director Alexy Brodovitch.

As I made my way down the long flight of steps from her converted carriage house to the street below, she only said one thing; "Good work." I replied with a wink, "Nice tennis shoes, Liliian."