Category: personal

David Bowie, Dead at 69

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So, David Bowie got the message. “Major Tom’s” circuit board frizzed. Iggy Stardust will no longer be with us and the world will be a lesser place. I am 68. Were I to die tomorrow, the world would not feel diminished a bit. Luckily, I can look at his picture and listen to his songs. Visit  You Tube today and “Let’s Dance.” Live while you can, have fun and don’t waste time hating or loathing or speaking bad of others.

Image borrowed from Billboard.

Duck and Two Sharon Ducks

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So, Sharon Duckman and I go to Sarasota with a group of Valencia Reservists, three busloads to be exact. People talking trash, retiree trash (grandkids, golf, cards, restaurants and where do you by bagels) don’t interest me and what I know doesn’t interest them. We stay by ourselves because I don’t have social skills and cannot answer questions like: what did you do for a living; where did you come from; and where do you live. Besides, nobody listens anyway.

We are walking around the Selby Botanical Gardens, looking at orchids and trees, shooting a few images. The sun is up, harsh and specular. To light one of my shots of Sharon, I take out a reflector and ask a passerby to hold it for me. In a flash of a second, she says, “Are you Lorin Duckman?”

Now, who would know me at a Botanical Gardens in Florida? “Yes, who are you?”

“I am you cousin Sharon Sumliner.” Her Father’s Mother and my Father’s Father were brother and sister.

We haven’t seen each other for twenty years, which makes her post Sharon Duckman. Still, I don’t know how she recognized me. She said it was my eyes and voice. I certainly didn’t recognize her. And, she did it so quickly.

But it was an extreme joy to see her; one which made the trip worthwhile even if I didn’t make any friends on the bus. We talked about family without figuring out why or how a family of the size of ours could dissolve so quickly. Lots of dead people whom we knew in common. Only a few around.

Seems to be happening to a lot of families. People die. People live. People move away. Many didn’t follow the Jewish lifestyle. Petty feuds. Short guest lists for weddings and bar mitzvahs. No family trees and no death notices. Life is complicated.

See Any Living Things?

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So, for a couple of weeks we haven’t been going out. Holidays have brought friends and relatives to the Sunshine State to escape the unpredictable weather in places north and west. The economy needs them; the environment doesn’t.

A little before noon, a New Englander approached me as I shot in the swamp at the nearby US Wildlife Preserve, Loxahatchee. Identifying himself as a hunter and lobsterman, he asked me if I had seen anything alive. No doubt he meant animals and reptiles who, as an outdoorsman would undoubtedly know, don’t come out in the heat of day. And besides, why would they come out when people were in their home. This isn’t a zoo; it’s a swamp.

Without going into the particulars of my response, let’s just say I pointed to the greenery around us, I noted that swamps were locations full of life and full of death. My simple answer which this image supports is “Yes.”

Cantor Efraim Sapir, Dead at 69

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So, at his funeral service, which I didn’t attend because Sharon and I were out of town and didn’t know about it, the presiding Rabbi said God didn’t take Cantor Sapir, he took himself.

Why? I don’t know. I wish I knew before he did it. Many wish they did, too. Could we have helped him? Who knows? Everyone must make their own decision when to live and when to die. Some may need to be told how much they are loved.

I didn’t know him well or for so long. We were the same age, almost. I envisioned growing old with him, learning more about all the things he knew: music, humor, talmud and the meaning of life. I don’t have many friends; he could have been one.

Cantor’s voices connect prayers with God. Efrain loved to sing in Temple, using melodies to rid the congregants of self-consciousness, elevating their thoughts and minds to holy places. He’d pause between some phrases to look out into the audience, listening for proof he had connected, him to them and them to the angels. He once told me that he had observed me banging my prayer book on a pew during a prayer and that I had used an alternative beat. I sit in the last row; how observant.

We did a photo shoot in my studio, a formal shot for the hallway and the Temple Anshei Shalom bulletin. It took two hours. He was dressed perfectly, hair groomed, suit/shirt/tie selected for the occasion. We exchanged stories, listened to cantorial music and played with the lights. During one song by a noted Cantor, he explained the guy was just singing nonsense words, because the music was so beautiful and he wanted to sing along. I told him, after the shoot, how handsome he was and what a joy it was to photograph him. He said he never saw himself as being so good looking and that my images made him very happy.

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The shot of him holding the Torah after the reading was the last shot of him. Taken two weeks before his death at Morning Minyan, it is not my usual kind of photograph. He isn’t looking at the camera and really doesn’t know or care I am in front of him. I usually go for the head, but I was drawn to his hands and the words on the Torah cover. You can see the joy in his heart, his love of Torah and feelings for humanity.

The Photo Gods helped me shoot this image. I wish God had helped me with fix his self image. He was a beautiful man, a significant man. My life will be less without him. You see, sometimes it isn’t how long you know someone but how well.

Salisbury, VT – Forgotten Lives

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So, I used to live in Salsibury, VT. Still have two friends who called themselves, “The Lake People.” They lived on Lake Dunmore, just up the road from Keewadin Dunmore, a camp for the privileged. People weren’t so friendly in Salisbury. Not a lot of Jews. A smelly egg place. Some antique stores. And the put in the power lines that drove out the wildlife, ruining my view.

I loved our house. Sharon hated it. Always cold. Bugs. Mice. Fear it would slide off the side of the rock.

We had turkeys and deer in the front yard. Hoards of mosquitos. Snow drifts that cost a fortune to plow. Wasps. Trees felled by lightning. Maple trees which someone tapped, paying us off in syrup of all grades. Our lives there were complicated.

When the cost of upkeep became too great and the ability to earn a living disappeared for many, people just left. We managed to sell our place. The new owner defaulted.

Moran Building and Hilla Becher

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So, Hilla Becher died at 81. She was too young. Another photographer who should have lasted longer.

What she and her husband brought to the party now seems banal and commonplace. But before them, people didn’t give the industrial plant any notice. We have all seen big building and smokestacks. Water towers in certain places are breeding grounds for microbial diseases. They not only saw the beauty in factories, silos and storage, they recognized them as art. Then they arranged them on posters, deemphasizing their importance,  for a second, while heightening your interest in seeing what they saw. No one had done it like this before. And all our attempts are lame.

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When I lived in Burlington VT, a town where the people were colder than the temperature, I wanted to shoot the Moran Building, a dilapidated structure on Lake Champlain. They had their people, their artists, their crew. Me. I just lived nearby, visiting everyday. Angry at the damage the plant did to the Lake and wondering if the next incarnation would make it healthier, I longed to get inside with my camera. One day I did. Just a short visit, enough to snap and show what I would do if given more opportunity.

The two recent UVM graduates, whatever Gov’t agency gave the money for coming up with a development plan and the fund raisers didn’t recognize my desire to contribute my work or my ability. They got people to paint images on the wall and make paintings. The architects sent me one message and probably went back to their photographer. I never heard from the Mayor or whomever controlled the art. One person told me I was on the team, though I didn’t get a jersey or a cup.

Never made it onto their list. Not a member of the inner circle of Burlington Artists. Didn’t work for the Free Press or 7 Days. Not a donator to BCA. Not sure they let people with attitude inside. They be happy with the same-old, same-old. So, we left.

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The Bechers. They live within me, too. Taught me how to see, better.

L’Shana Tova and a Happy New Year 5775

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So, it’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. No, not the beginning of the calendar year celebration you think of, but a time for spiritual rejuvenation. I can even pray for myself, something I usually don’t do and ask God to put me in the book of life. God did this for me last year obviously, or I would not have survived the recent removal of my gall bladder. May all of you fare as well. You are in my prayers.

So, we will eat gefilte fish and chicken. Have some chopped liver. Light the candles. And remember lost friends and family. We are pretty much alone, down here in FL. Most of our family has either died or intermarried. We carry on our traditions, preserving the memories of all those who came before, especially the ones who were needlessly and senseless killed just because they were Jewish.