In the mid late 1970′s, when life was both terrible and wonderful with alternating breaths, something magical happened to me.

I was an emotional wreck unable to relax or find peace. My father had died unexpectedly; leaving me emotionally abandoned without his power, financially struggling to survive, married with a young child, who needed his father as much as I needed mine.

Although I was surrounded by friends and my new family, unfortunately I felt alone, needing companionship and love, but unable to feel much of anything except a free-floating anxiety and a total overwhelming hypochondria. I did though never loose my ability to laugh.

So with this terrible mix of angst, and moments of happiness, I struggled with the unsettling and insecure life of being a photographer. I had no support either financially or emotionally from my side of the family, but I did have support from my wife who never stopped believing in me, and with her support which I will never stop being thankful for, I began to allow myself to fill my very soul with the idea (that I strongly believed intellectually) that I was a photographer of some worth.

Ok, enough of this lets get on with the story or I won’t finish it this month.

Somewhere in the 1970′s I went to Arthur Miller’s (the playwright) house with my in-laws. While there I met his wife, Inge Morath who was an Austrian born photographer, who was a member of Magnum.  For those who don’t know, Magnum at the time was a famous photography co-operative made up of legendary photographers (Cartier-Bresson, Gene Smith, Elliot Erwitt, Bruce Davidson, etc.)

While Arthur Miller was busy talking to my in-laws, Inge invited me to her studio, and we began to talk. She showed me her work, and a mock-up of a new book she was working on with her husband with photographs and text of their friends and acquaintances. Over the next months I saw her a few times more and ultimately had an opportunity to show her my work. She immediately seemed interested, and very graciously told me that I should meet Jerry Rosencrantz, who ran the Magnum library.

In the midst of all our conversations, Inge said to me once, something that I have never forgotten. It was a conversation like many today, about how competitive the small photographic market was. In the midst of this conversation she said to me, “Don’t worry, if you are good there is always room.” This statement has always remained with me, even in my worst moments and with all my fits of despair which comes with being a photographer.

Inge arranged a meeting with Jerry Rosencrantz, who wielded great power at Magnum, running the archives, the library, and overall coordinator for a bunch of romantic, uncontrollable photographer’s from around the world.

So upon meeting Jerry, he immediately took my work without uttering a word, and with the amazing speed of an Arab sheshbesh player, rifled through my work.

After looking at all my work, which took a total of 30 seconds, faster than my heart could even skip its first beat, he shook my hand, introduced himself, smiled and started to ask me who I was and where I’ve been.

I told him I was living a relatively quiet life in Connecticut, teaching and trying to survive. He told me, “Welcome to Magnum.” And from that moment on became my supporter and confidant.

Jerry told me it was a long process to become a full member of Magnum, but there was a way to begin the process. They had just started a program where on occasion they would accept a few young photographers and make them contributing associates, which meant they could participate in the organization, sell their work in the Magnum library, attend meetings (but have no voting power) and slowly get to meet all the other members so they could vote on your full approval into the society. I was told this was a long process.

Wow, what a dream come true. All the legends of photography that I loved were there. The library contained original prints of everyone, which I sifted through endlessly. Now I just needed to meet all the members, and convince them I was worthy of full status. This was easier said than done. Well at least I had Inge and Jerry on my side, which was a start.

So with this I began but where I ended up is a sad, uncomfortable and embarrassing ending to a wonderful beginning. Stay tuned.

P.S. I want to thank everyone for their heartfelt comments. I can’t tell you how touched I was by your words. It seems like without exception, the consensus is to continue. So I will try my best to live up to your support. Thank you again for all your kind words. Please keep reading.

It’s the three year birthday of this blog (Oh, how time flies. Happy Birthday to Mister S) and it’s time to reconsider it’s worth, it’s direction and it’s need. So, for this week and this week only I am turning myself inside out, and instead of addressing my questions, I am going to ask YOU, dear reader for your answers.

People ask me if I read the comments. I read with great anticipation every last one. It’s my only contact with you, the reader, and quite honestly, with the world at large.

As I mention often, I am quite a recluse, so I value and need your HONEST opinions. I have some questions I would love you to address to complete the three year anniversary. Don’t worry they can be short and sweet. But any response would be greatly appreciated. So here goes.

Someone recently mentioned that they had grown bored with the blog, but had recently returned. Are you bored with the blog?

Has it run its course?

Which segments do you like the best? The blogs where I write about my life and family and growing up, or the stories strictly relating to photography?

What do you think of me, am I self-indulgent or insightful and helpful?

Any thoughts at this time would be greatly appreciated, and I will read every one. If the consensus is to continue onward we will plow, if it is time to say Adieu, so be it and a graceful exit would be in the works.

Thank you in advance and good day.

Rodney Smith

As the guinea hens, wild turkey’s and even the snakes run for cover from the parched earth that I used to call a lawn, I am reminded about how abandoned and worthless I felt after my father’s death in the summer of 1972. Ever since I started at age 23 to be a photographer, I have struggled to find myself worthy and significant, yet at the same time desperate for people not to think me too expensive, elitist, out of reach, or even totally ridiculous. This particular affliction, to find the right emotional location where my bravado and fears balance each other has always been a constant struggle. The one place where I seem to be secure, where all systems are a go, even from day one, was in valuing my photographs. I am not talking about commercial usage or licensing agreements, I am referring to the purchasing of my prints for personal display or exhibitions.

I have always cared about the print. I became a photographer to make a beautiful and lasting artifact, and it is with this artifact for some unknown reason I seem to be able to draw a line, even when the earth is totally parched.

What I am talking about is how I value my photographs. This recalls two stories, one about Ansel Adams and Alfred Stieglitz and one about me.

Firstly about Adams, I can’t remember where I first heard this story, it may have been directly from him, but it has remained with me for at least 30 years. During The Depression, Ansel Adams was selling his prints for $25.00 to anyone who cared to buy one. This was a fairly significant sum, but far from out of reach for many. He made a pilgrimage to New York City to meet Alfred Stieglitz and during the conversation; the price charged for a print came up. Adams asked Stieglitz what he charged for one of his prints. Stieglitz answered $2,000. Adams was totally flabbergasted. He said, “How can you charge such an exorbitant amount. No one is going to pay that!”  Stieglitz’s response was, “I don’t care if no one wants it, it’s worth it.”

Wow, what strength of character, or what stupidity, depending on your point of view.

Now forgetting that Stieglitz was independently wealthy, I always loved this story. In the end, he was right. They were worth it, and much more than that. In fact, they were worth millions.

How do you know whether you’re worth it? Where do you draw the line, and if you should be like Adams and attempt at being responsible and available, or can one feel knowledgeable about your sense of worth and fight for what you believe? This is not an easy question.

Well this leaves me with my own little story. In my very early 20′s when I was just starting out, completely broke and alone with almost no support for choosing to be a photographer, my in-laws had many, many famous and wealthy friends.

Over a few years, I came to know and respect Richard Widmark the actor and his wife Jean. They had a house in Connecticut and a ranch in Los Angeles, but Dick Widmark was far from your usual Hollywood actor. He and Jean were actually quite friendly to me and my first wife, and on occasion would visit our house and take us to dinner in New Haven.  Dick and a few others were actually quite taken with photography, and at the time in 1973 when almost no one was buying photographs, Dick and Jean came to the house one afternoon and looked at some of my work and said they would like to buy a few photographs.

Boy, this could not have come at a better time. I was totally broke and any financial help was very much needed. They were the first people (I think) to ever express interest in buying my work, and I was very excited.

So Dick and Jean picked out four prints and asked me how much the photographs were. I said they were $75.00 each ($300 for four). To put this all in perspective, my mortgage was $135 a month, which for me at the time was a lot of money. So, $300.00 would help pay the mortgage for a few months.

Dick said he would pay $50.00 a print or $200.00 for the four. With this, my heart sank. Still $200.00 would help this young troubled soul, but despite honestly wanting to let go, I couldn’t. I felt in my heart they were worth the $75.00 and I said graciously to them that I could not lower the price, even though they were friends and my first supporters.

Dick said to me to think about this for a while. He knew how much I needed the money. When my in-laws heard what I had done, they were terribly disappointed in me. They told me he would hang the pictures in his house and many well-known people would see them, and this would lead to more sales. I think this was all true, but I still said no.

Was this the right decision, probably not, but today I would do the same. I can only say they’re worth it!

As we are approaching the midpoint of the baseball season and summer has now fully snared its grip onto the nation, I am reminded once again of my mother. She loved to take me to tennis, golf matches and baseball games. My mother was determined to make her son athletic, or at least someone who played some sport with relish. My mother tried everything to get me excited about sports. All true men were athletic and vital and I was going to follow in their footsteps. I must admit, my mother did realize early on that I was a loner and that I enjoyed being by myself, and even then other than having a small group of friends, I would never play a large team sport.

This is all very peculiar to me because although my mother would play golf or tennis with friends or go fishing with my father, her great contribution to the game of sport was that she always looked perfectly sporty, in her carefully chosen wardrobe. Even when going hiking, she would have the perfect classic leather walking shoe, perfect skirt, socks and blouse for her treacherous 1/4 mile, which usually lead to taking a break to go shopping. She always looked better than she played and was always trying new things, particularly with clothes to match the sport, and like my father was far, far more adventurous than I am.

Despite my mother’s intentions, by High School, I had lost most of any feeling for playing supervised sports. Coaches and I did not get along. I was too competitive. And I didn’t want to compete with anyone I might beat. Ironically, I can be very competitive with myself and I allow myself privately to win on occasion. Photography is perfect. I am all alone except for the help and comfort of those I choose to have around me. I have never seen another photographer work, nor did I want to. I have never assisted for any other photographer, nor did I want to. I obviously wanted to be alone, competing with myself, and success in the world of photography. But never directly competing against another individual.

The one sport I do enjoy is the All- American pastime of baseball, and for this I most probably should thank my mother. It all goes back to October 1956 when I was nine and my mother took me to my first baseball game, which happened to be the first game of the 1956 World Series between the Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The game was played at Ebbets field in Brooklyn, and we were sitting in the front row directly behind the Dodgers dugout. I do not know where this came from, but even at this game I found myself rooting for the Yankees and have remained a steadfast fan ever since.

Needless to say, taking me to this game, which was full of all kinds of excitement, never got me excited to play the game, but rather remain a spectator. I love the manicured field, the hotdogs, the pace of the game,  and I especially loved having the Dodger players Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, and Sal Maglie wave to me as they entered the dugout, even though I was secretly enamored with Whitey Ford, the pitcher for the Yankees.

Well, by the fourth or fifth inning we had all settled in and I was feeling very comfortable and excited, and I started talking to the elderly man on my left. I don’t know what prompted this or whether he first spoke to me, but I remember that he was very gentle and would laugh at me as I screamed my excitement onto the field.

He was surrounded by other men who were talking to him about many things other than baseball, mostly politics and business. At one point he turned to this nine year old and asked me if I was a Republican or a Democrat. As I had no idea what either was or meant, but was fearful of showing my ignorance, I emphatically blurted out Republican. With this he laughed, put his arm around me, and said kindly that we would have to change that.

Well the game went on that beautiful late fall day in Brooklyn. The Dodgers won the first game, but the Yankees won the series.

The next day on the front page of the New York Times was a picture of the Dodgers dugout with the players returning after winning the game. And there, sitting directly behind them was my mother and I, with a caption describing that sitting next to me was Averill Harriman, the Democratic Governor of New York. I realized that I had made a fool of myself and I was embarrassed, although I was happy and felt special to see myself in the New York Times.

To this day I remain very much an outsider, a spectator, but I understand the love of being with friends, enjoying the heat of a summer’s evening, the pace and the mood of the game. But most of all, I still love the hotdogs.

After a day of regret and sorrow, I have taken down yesterday’s blog. I have reread it a number of times and I felt it sounded bitter, insensitive and far too simplistic. In my 65 years of life I have found many people who have found comfort and great peace from their devout beliefs, and I only wish I could do the same. Perhaps my real problem is envy.

Anyway, I am so sorry if I failed to inspire and applaud life in all it’s great variety. Good luck. Happy Fourth of July.

Until next week.

Well the clock has struck and it’s way past midnight, a time I normally want to avoid like the plague, and for some reason I find myself wide awake thinking about Florida. Why is it that these family thoughts would come deep at night festering and pushing their way into my psyche. It’s probably because I spent the day at the water staring at boats and the ocean. Ironically it’s one of the most peaceful things I do and enjoy. As I am about to tell you, one might think this would not be the case.

You see in the last months under no fault of my own, I have returned to being relatively thin. I have lost my adult bubble and have returned to my late adolescent figure, which was always very skinny if not downright scrawny. I’m not there yet, but a little more time and I should be able to fit into the beautiful white linen suit I wore at my first wedding in 1968.

This has set up a whole new look at my clothes and thoughts about mens clothes in general, but that is next weeks ramble. I am now here to describe the winter of 1955, when my family made our annual winter pilgrimage to Florida, in particular the Casa Marina Hotel in Key West, Florida.

In the fifties, my mother was terrified to fly (as there were only prop planes) which she quickly got over with the onset of jets and flew millions of miles to shop and sight see in every conceivable corner of the earth. But at this time we would all take the train from Grand Central Station one evening, sleep in luxurious sleeper cars and arrive the next morning able to open our window shades to the miles and miles of orange groves passing by our windows. We had arrived in Florida. By lunch we were in Miami, a few hour drive and we landed in Key West.

It was here on vacation where I truly learned to be afraid of most everything. You see, unbeknownst to me at the time (as I was only eight years old) my Father being omnipotent in almost everything he did was an avid deep-sea fisherman. He could have been Ernest Hemingway’s soul mate, competing vigorously with Ernest to see who could catch the biggest fish. Three or four times during our stay he would rent the largest and best equipped boat with many outriggers to go as far out in the ocean (it felt like we were crossing to Spain) to capture the truly big fish, the marlins and the sail fish. Obviously, some days were better than others, but catching nothing, rather than discouraging him, only made him want to go more. He was like the old man in the sea, except he was young, determined to catch the biggest fish of the year.

So let’s get back to me. I had no interest in fishing. I wasn’t even interested in standing on a dock and throwing a line into the water. This has no appeal to me. Live and let live is my motto and why spend precious hours trying to catch something I don’t even want to eat. I was all of four foot and weighing about 75 pounds with a 24-inch waist. Skinny was an overstatement. For years they had been force-feeding me emulsifiers and milk shakes to fatten me up, but to no avail. My anxieties were simply too great.

My father would hear none of my lack of interest in spending a long day looking for the great white whale. He was determined to teach me to fish like a man. The boat would rock worse than a roller coaster while trawling ten miles off the coast of Florida. This was my first major terror. I kept pleading with the captain to stay within sight of land. Somehow I had this idea that if the boat sank (which I was sure it would) I could somehow find my way back to shore. But we were way beyond seeing anything. I was completely lost and felt totally groundless. It was just one big horizon of water.

But, more importantly in true Hemingway style my father thought it appropriate that I should have a line to myself. I should fish like all the men, the only problem being I was a terrified little boy.

So for hours we would trawl the deep blue waters off the Continental Shelf and my father caught a relatively small sailfish that was at least twice as big as me. As far as I was concerned sail fish, shark, etc… were all the same to me. They were enormous and could swallow me in one gulp.

Right before we were about to begin to call it a day besides being terrified, bored, and sick, I was like a roasted, fried, red tomato. I was beginning to get ready to hand over my reel to the crew-member when I felt this enormous pull on my line. I was no match and in one swoop I was lifted from my chair and was about to be propelled off the back of the boat, when one quick acting crewman grabbed my legs as I was dangling with rod in hands almost completely out of the boat and about to fall into the scariest ocean I had ever seen.

They pulled me back into the boat, we lost the reel and the fish (good riddance) and I was sufficiently traumatized enough by the event to last a lifetime.

Of course this never daunted my father. The next time, they simply strapped me to the chair with belts that went around me at least six times. I felt like I was in a straight jacket, but at least I was safe.

The huge fish, the endless forbidding ocean, my scrawniness and fear left their mark on me. So now that I approach being svelte and suave and debonair in my new form, I wonder what dark forces lie below the ocean ready to pull me in.

Approximately every other week I make my way into a foreign and somewhat unknown territory called New Jersey. I am on a mission. I head straight to Horizon Nails to get a manicure, sometimes a pedicure, or a back massage by one of the fifteen Korean women or men that work there.

Actually my preference is for women for the manicure and the men for the massage and pedicure as they are much stronger and far more helpful in relieving my aching and saddened legs and body. This is definitely a peculiarity of mine left over from my childhood, where I’ve described before, my father and hundreds of men in a Al Capone style, would sit in a large room, catered and pampered by women who did manicures and facials. The only men in the room were the clients and the barbers.

So there I sit for an hour in the midst of affluent American suburbia with all the women arriving in their Mercedes, talking about shopping, their next vacation, their children’s school events, etc. This is American wealth. These are the ladies who lunch, who go to the swim club, tennis club, golf club, or any other club they want. And then there is me alone in the midst of all of them.

Depending on the time of day they enter wearing their workout clothes, their after lunch attire, or their pre-visit to the plastic surgeon botox wardrobe. It is all part of the American preoccupation to keep oneself young, vibrant, and for women in particular beautiful. For women, how they go about maintaining their beauty, for me is truly questionable. I’m not sure the process is working. They work very hard on their nails and every other centimeter of their bodies.

Horizon Nails is my insight into American, wealthy, suburban popular culture. Firstly, as I sit in my pedicure chair, I watch the array of colors these women choose for their nails and toes. Women used to look beautiful with a classic red nail but now they have discovered multiplex coloring. It goes from black to blue to pink to green to orange and one more unspeakable look to another.

They all have so much money, but they all are so unattractive, at least to me. The Korean women who work for them wear a simple uniform, which makes them seem quite attractive, and way ahead in the beauty contest.

Their clothes are extremely expensive, filled with every new fashion, but are so full of bangles, missed matched colors and styles. It’s as if they choose their clothes with their eyes closed. What happened to style and taste? Or did we never have it?

Yet, still money may not buy you love but it does seem to buy them some happiness. They are off to Florida or the Hamptons or to the swim club in their violet nails or turquoise toes. They had been plucked and shucked in the desperate attempt to remain youthful.

I applaud them for their energy, commitment and enthusiasm. I just wish I felt they knew where they were going and how to look as they arrived there. There is not a drop of elegance or refinement in the lot, just money. Next stop Palm Beach.

In the mid 80′s, when I was humming along doing a great deal of portraiture of The Titans of American Industry, I was asked by a creative director (who shall remain anonymous) to make portraits of the most senior executives of a rather eccentric and interesting creative financial service company.

I had never worked with this creative director before, and if I recall correctly I was to photograph three executives a day, providing numerous choices of each at one location. I believe there was to be three days of shooting spread over a month’s period as they had to fly the in the executives from all over the world and coordinate a schedule to get three together for a day.

I had found a rather large and eccentric house and gardens in Westchester, New York, where I wanted to photograph the first three subjects, three men. I had scouted the location beforehand and chosen it very carefully, and felt it appropriate to make interesting and hopefully exciting portraits. It was slightly eccentric, yet elegant, with interiors and exteriors that would provide me with an opportunity to shoot a whole range of variations on each subject.

This was portraiture of men. There was no stylist, hair and makeup person. It was simply the three men, some assistants, and I. On the day of the shoot, these Masters of the Universe arrived each in a simple gray or blue suit with one tie and actually were in good spirits and quickly managed to get into the spirit of the shoot. These men were extremely bright and despite their lack of understanding of photography they were risk takers and enjoyed the slightly unusual approach to making portraits.

They were all young, probably in their mid forties and still happy and excited to have their portraits taken. Unlike other shoots, these men were all very cooperative.

So the day progressed and we were all working very hard, and having fun, actually laughing together and they seemed tireless in their enthusiasm to help execute anything that was asked of them.

Everything was shot in Black and White (as that was all I shot at the time) and quite honestly it all seemed perfect for the location and the intensity of the shoot and the spirit of the subjects. Their curiosity about life extended way beyond the financial world. They were curious about all aspects of life and it showed in their faces.

The day concluded, we said our goodbyes. Two of the executives left immediately to catch a plane to return to London, and the other was leaving the next day for the West Coast.

Now, prepare yourselves for what happened next, for this too could happen to you.

The next week after the creative director had just the day before received all the contact sheets from the first day of shooting, and had a day to carefully go through them, he called me in a state of delirium. I thought he must have been taking something I probably could use, as he was so giddy and happy. He pronounced to me that this one-day of shooting had produced the best series of portraits that he had ever seen. Everything worked. The men looked serious yet confident, the location was appropriate, and he was so happy with the results. “There is not one bad picture!” He proclaimed. He told me that I should be so proud of myself, and with this statement and his goodbyes, he started laughing with pure joy.

Well at first I didn’t know what to make of this. I was relived and happy at first. I actually was thrilled that he was happy as I too thought the pictures were quite good, although perhaps not to his level of euphoria, but I am always reluctant to get too thrilled about my own work.

I felt happy and proud that he had said these things as he had worked with the best of the best for many years. It was quite an honor to hear his comments.

So as the day progressed I was beginning to feel more, and more bravado. My chest must have been sticking out like a male peacock. There was a new strut in my step, and I was beginning to actually believe his words and feel like I was now six foot five instead of the usual five foot seven. I was towering over the world and I could stand tall, upright and be proud.

The next morning I received another call from our creative director. This time his voice was far more somber and sounded quite disappointed. He told me that the night before he had shown the work to his wife because he was so happy with the results. She thought all the men looked mean or unhappy. Why weren’t there any smiles in the pictures.

And with this comment, in less than 10 seconds he was miraculously able to make a 180-degree turn and decided she was right. In what the previous day he thought was the best one-day shoot of his career, had now turned into a dismal failure without one good picture. He told me he had gone through the whole set of contact sheets again, and could not find a single frame he liked. Oh the power of wives! Photographers should have fear and loathing and sickness unto death at the thought of some wife or sister overseeing one’s work. He said he wanted to do the shoot over again, this time with everyone smiling, but I refused. I told him the pictures were good (as he originally thought) and that I had done the best that I could. With that he said goodbye, hired another photographer who shot the same men smiling in banal, predictable poses. I got paid but I realized that fame, fortune, and glory are as fleeting as a smile.

Many years ago I was asked by Town & Country magazine to photograph an elderly Lady Caroline Blackwood at her home in Sag Harbor, Long Island. In all the years I have been a photographer, this was the only assignment that I have been asked to do for them, so I must assume, and rightly so, that I failed miserably.

The shoot and all it’s ramifications has remained with me all these years, and I have tried, to no avail to resolve the complicated issues that this shoot presented to me. It raised questions as to what it truly means to be a photographer and what is one’s role when making a portrait. Interestingly enough the above painting was done by her first husband, Lucian Freud, who is one of my favorite painters.

Lady Caroline Blackwood in her day was an extraordinary Anglo-Irish beauty whose family was heirs to the Guinness fortune. She married Lucian Freud, the painter, was photographed by Walker Evans, and Lord Snowdon, and ultimately ended up with Robert Lowell, one of America’s finest poet’s. All her husband’s were very tortured and depressed people. Their temperament wore off on her. Her personal life was tumultuous like all these men. She married and was filled with fits of depression, alcoholism, etc. But as a young woman she was an eccentric and elegant beauty with turquoise eyes that continually captured the interest of photographers and painters.

And now along comes me, some 35 years later. The magazine had sent along many beautiful portraits of a young woman who was truly extraordinary. And asked, and expected me to make a portrait of this glamorous woman today.

With my folder filled with images of this beautiful, delicate woman in hand, I made my way to her home on Long Island, and was greeted by a woman who had been transformed into an extraordinarily depressed, highly unattractive, alcoholic, whose body face and mind have been ravaged and destroyed by years of unhappiness and abuse.

This woman had no aesthetic relationship to the young vivacious Caroline Blackwood in my folder. She had aged beyond belief, her face distinguished and lined by years of alcohol and to make matters worse, she came out to greet me wearing skin tight leggings and an inappropriate blouse which we asked her to change, that made her look even sadder. She too, I could tell, felt terribly uncomfortable and never was without a drink in her hand. In retrospect if the magazine had realized what my subject looked like at the time, we may have brought a stylist, hair and makeup person, and scouted a new location that would have been more appropriate and have been able to find something more fitting for the needs of the magazine. But this was not in the budget and this was never requested of me. I was simply asked to shoot a portrait of the present day Caroline Blackwood using her own clothes at her own home.

So this is where my story really begins. You see I immediately saw the dilemma that I faced. Why was I there? From the onset I was extremely uncomfortable. I didn’t know where to look. I shoot portraiture, yet what the magazine requested and what was asked of me was to shoot a more glamorous picture of an aged beauty. I was there to find some glamor and beauty, to remove all the sadness and wrinkles on her face, and make this woman somewhat reminiscent of the youthful beauty seen above.

Most photographers could do this. They would work to flatter her features, to soften the light, to stand back and find some way to hide what lied before them.

For myself at the time and as well today, I am completely torn. My instinct is to get right in there with her, to hold her hand to look deep into her soul and reveal all her fears and unhappiness. This is portraiture. I am not frightened by her disfigurement and unhappiness. I actually find it interesting. I wanted to reveal who Caroline Blackwood was at that moment, but (and here lies the dilemma) I also wanted to protect her from my camera. By looking for the real Caroline, what had I accomplished except exposing a deeply troubled and sad person who wore this sadness not only on the inside, but also all throughout her face and body language. What great insight was I providing to myself or to anyone else, yet it was not my intention to simply make her look like something she was not. There was no way to find glamor in the present day Caroline Blackwood. At least there wasn’t for me.

Obviously today, the photographer or the magazine could retouch and resolve some of the issues. They could have softened everything and perhaps changed the photograph into an illustration, but that is not my style and that was not the way back then.

I blew it. I was lost. I don’t know anymore today what the right answer is. In retrospect the problems are the same today as they were then and I am not sure I have learned anything. The light I use is revealing and penetrating. It may be, but it also may not be flattering. My instinct is to get close, when maybe it would be best to stay far away. I am not thinking of pleasing the subject, I am thinking of finding a way into the person I am photographing. What I find interesting, the general public probably finds unflattering. Irving Penn often had this dilemma. His subjects were terrified that he would make them interesting, but unattractive.

So there you have it. I took an unattractive and unsuccessful portrait of Caroline Blackwood both for the magazine and for myself. I failed on all accounts by not pleasing myself, n0r the magazine. The many early beautiful portraits of her were the real Caroline at the time, but what who was the real Caroline these many years later?

She died not to many years after I shot her portrait and she deserved much more from me, but I am not sure what that means. Do you?

Leaving on a freight train this week. See you again on Monday.