Selfie Abuse

I don't do selfies. Technically, I'm terrible at it, all thumbs as to which buttons to push. And there's the fact that I've never learned the art of the fake smile. Even before the advent of the phone camera, I had very few snapshots of myself.

Do you think it's odd that a professional photographer like myself has so few snapshots of his life and travels? I do. And that was the situation before losing the few pictures I had along with everything else in my apartment in Lower Manhattan.

Frankly, I don't understand why so many people feel that they must have a picture of themselves standing in front of every statue on Planet Earth. Honestly, I don't get it.

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I used to photograph celebrities from the theater and music world. In Rome, I worked on the edge of the movie business. Nino Manfredi was the Italian actor I got along with best, a good guy and a great talent. The only celeb snap I've been able to find is this one of Oscar-winning actor, George C. Scott working on his makeup for the role of Abraham in the John Houston film, The Bible: In the Beginning ... 

Below is my most treasured personal picture, my wife Eloise. It's a portrait, more than a snapshot. We were together for 12 years and remained close after our divorce right up until she died. That was just a month before the Mulberry Street fire. 2018 was not a good year.

 

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This will be my last weekly blog for a while. 

I've started work on a memoir about growing up in Brooklyn and I find it hard to tap into the same source (my life) on two different projects at the same time. 

I plan to continue writing and publishing my blog but just once a month. 

Thank you all for putting up with my blah blah. 

Reluctant Nomad

Port d'Andratx on the west coast of Mallorca, a view from where I lived for three months

Patrick is a relative of mine who's created a nomad lifestyle for himself. Since the arrival of the pandemic, I've lost track of how he's doing with that and where he is at the moment. I do hope things are working out for him. He's smart and energetic, and he has skills. 

I've been a nomad many times myself. I'm a nomad now. Before there was the World Wide Web, before there was the ability to work online from almost anywhere, photography and writing and the post office made the nomad life possible for me. 

Travel is attractive and romantic. Everybody likes to travel. It's an adventure—one more hill to climb, one more land to see, one more stranger to befriend. But as a nomad, you're always passing through, never really an pivotal part of anywhere. As the title of this blog suggests, you're a stranger in a strange land.

Winter is lovely and mild in Seville

As an assignment photographer, my main work was in the travel marketing genre. Travel marketing is the stepsister of advertizing. My clients were airlines and tour companies. I would fly First Class to exotic places and stay in lush 5-star hotels. But I was not on holiday, not there to relax and enjoy leisure time. The pleasure I had came from the work I did. And I did enjoy the work, but too often I was on the road alone for two or three months at a time. Back then, I had a home to return to. I was a part-time nomad. Too often, the time I spent at home seemed to be the part-time part. 

Yes, travel is an adventure, but as with most adventures, there's a dark side.  

Liverpool? Am I finally settled in my new home, this port city on the Irish Sea? No, I'm not. I'm still a nomad, still living out of a suitcase. As with Rome, Mallorca, Seville, San Miguel de Allende, Oxfordshire, Montreal, and Washington, DC, I'm not sure that I'll be staying here. 

Cafe 't Smalle, a brown cafe in Amsterdam and a gathering place for locals and nomads