Since I was a young boy I worked in gardens. It was one of the few activities my father and I did together when I was very young, and even in high school, I worked one summer with our gardener putting in a sprinkler system.

In graduate school, as a part-time summer job, I worked as a gardener, and without my realizing it, I began to absorb a great deal about gardening.

I understood the mechanics of good gardening, and I must have watched fairly carefully because I learned a great deal about trees, pruning, and their characteristic shapes and vagaries.

The one thing I also remember was how unimpressed I was by most gardens. They were all perennial or annual gardens, placed for color and shape, but had no architecture or design.

Sometimes people would place gazebos or small structures for visual interest, but most American gardens on a small scale had no visual interest to me. They were simply filling space with color and adding some comfort and shade to an area. They were unmemorable.

Then with a loud bang, and a small boom, in 1986, Bennett Robinson, an art director I have described earlier, at lunch one day, said to me that my exteriors were really interiors. I was always creating outdoor rooms to place people in. With this comment my conscious photographic world changed forever. He was absolutely right. I love placing people in things, never beside them. I want them to be integrated into the landscape as if they always belonged there, or at least they felt at home.

Around this time, when money was real money and it was really green, there seemed to be plenty for all, as if it was growing on trees. Not just for the ten people at the top, but it seemed to be being spread more evenly through society. At this time I was often sent to Europe on assignment.

As I would find myself scouting locations in France, England, and Ireland in particular, I was more and more attracted to the formal gardens of Europe.

I think it is important to back up a little bit. These European gardens (The National Trust Gardens of England, and The French Royal Gardens, etc.) are on hundreds of acres and have matured over a few hundred years in a far more hospitable climate than America. But, at the same time in Belgian, Jacque Wirtz was beginning to recreate the gardens I loved, on both a very small and large scale.

So what is it that I love about these gardens? I love the repetition of shape that goes on forever, the allays of trees that have been pollarded to the form of shrubs, the rooms within rooms, the whimsical shapes of the topiaries and the grand scale of the plantings. There is also the visual sight of greens being imbued with more green, layer upon layer.

This is more than planting a few perennials in a garden. It is an elaborate landscape design, playing not on color but on shape and form, and I have always felt right at home standing there right in the midst of it all.

My pictures for the last 20 years are instilled with these spaces. These are rooms and spaces where I would hold out my hands, look upward, and yell hallelujah. Not to what God has single highhandedly produced, but rather to what man can aspire when he’s at his best.

One morning I was asked into Graydon Carter’s office, the editor of Vanity Fair, just as the world was collapsing under the total notion that greed is good, until someone noticed maybe it wasn’t.

Anyway, the point of this ramble is that, upon entering his office and sitting across from him, his first words to me were “I hear you are difficult.”

With this, I laughed and mentioned to him that it was all based upon one’s point of view. From my perspective I am totally professional, deliver what is asked of me (rarely is anyone unhappy with the results of my work), and I will fight hard and long and hard for the picture. It is my job and my calling, and my work is very important to me.

I also try to be extremely generous and hopefully kind for all who work for me, and I have had the same crew for over 15 years.

So if you mean I am not a pushover, I fight for the picture and my rights and demand perfection, well I guess that makes me difficult.

I didn’t really understand the full ramifications of his remark until later, but in retrospect I wonder if my difficulty referred to the picture making process alone.

There is one other point that needs to be mentioned, which also may have been entwined with his remark, before this preamble can end and I can get on with the story.

I have never liked nor sought out photographing celebrities. I love writers, poets, scientists, but the fascination with the celebrity in this country goes only skin deep for me.

They are usually cunning, demanding, insecure, and generally unhappy with themselves, which prompts them to love to role-play. I don’t like being beholden to their whims and needs, so there again maybe he was right, I am difficult, but I photographed CEO’s with flair and although extremely difficult, it was satisfactory for all.

Well, with this exchange we shook hands, they used a picture of mine on a book jacket, and I was given an assignment to photograph Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes. They were the new stars in “Promises, Promises” a soon to open Broadway Musical revival, and I decided a restaurant or cafe was the appropriate place to shoot them given the story line of the musical.

All went well until the morning of the shoot. We scouted many locations and found a Bar/Restaurant in SOHO in Manhattan that worked perfectly. All through the production process, there was a young producer/photo editor with us from Vanity Fair. She was fun, helpful, vivacious, and very cordial. I liked her a great deal and she tried very hard to secure the location we wanted and provide us with everything we needed.

Some days before the shoot, I had signed off on my simple two-page contract with Vanity Fair, with some negotiations about usage rights, but things we were all able to settle amicably without much discord. We were now all set for the shoot.

Two large location vans arrived outside our location, and I entered both to introduce myself to Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes. I tell them about the picture. My ideas for the wardrobe, styling and makeup, and surprising both were agreeable and both were very complimentary about my work.

We talked about a half hour and I left them alone with the stylist and hair and make-up stylist with whom I had given strict instructions on how I wanted them to look.

This process usually takes an hour or two, so I disappeared back into the location to begin to work with all of the assistants to set up lights that we needed to supplement the natural light. I was hoping to shoot entirely with available light, but I needed to be prepared in case it got overcast or there simply was not enough light.

Just as we had completed all of our production work, and everyone was about 15 minutes from show time, I was summoned over to four people, whom I have never seen before. Two are publicists for our celebrities, one is a publicist for the theater, and the other was the producer for the show who couldn’t be nicer and happier, promising tickets and free handbills to anyone that wanted one. He had gotten publicity in Vanity Fair for his new show. All was wonderful and free. The three other publicists introduced themselves. They were so slick and feigned great interest and excitement in the upcoming portrait, and just like Cinderella’s slipper as the clock was about to strike twelve, and our celebrities were about to walk into the restaurant, these three models of good faith, good cheer and good will brought out a new contract for me to sign. It was only about 25 pages removing all my rights to ever use the photograph for any purpose without their permission.

They had so conveniently pulled this out at the last moment, without my ability to concentrate on the contract or without my ability to have my lawyer present.

We were now at the OK Corral. Guns were drawn. They said their clients would not come out of the vans until the contract was signed. Finally, after a heated debate, the only thing that they agreed to was to remove the clause that prohibited me from using the photograph for personal, non-commercial use, but they were adamant about everything else. It was made perfectly clear that the contract must be signed before we could move forward.

As you might expect, I was furious and told them how unscrupulous I felt they were to pull this trick at the last moment. With this I told all the assistants to tear down the lights, “We are leaving!” I am about to enter the vans to tell our celebrities what had happened, but I am refused to talk to them until the contract is signed.

So this is how I am difficult. We started to pick up everything and leave and off in the corner I see the young producer from the magazine in tears. I went over to her and she pleaded for me to sign the contract. She might loose her job if they can’t find someone quickly to replace me. I told her that my contract is with Vanity Fair, not these publicists, and I will not sign this contract from these publicists that was thrown in my face at the very last minute.

She is hysterical and pleads for the magazine. The producer is epileptic with the idea that maybe he can’t get a picture in Vanity Fair, but the publicist hold their ground and say that it is important that they control the image of their clients. I asked if they were willing to pay for the rights they were demanding, and obviously they offered nothing.

This was fine with me. I was ready to leave and then once again I see this young girl in the corner crying. I just couldn’t hurt her. Ironically, I don’t care about celebrity pictures, obviously the publicist seemed to care much more than I did. So like an old fool who has lost his way, I agreed to take the picture, kick out the publicists from the shoot, and save the young producer her job. I don’t know what happened to me that day. I got weak, but it won’t happen again.

Ironically, the next time I shot for Vanity Fair, it all went smoothly, no publicists, no problems, and no difficulty.

We finally arrived at the ranch.  Immediately Terry and I left with the ranch manager to scout locations, while our two precious and fragile girls were left in the van with the rest of the crew.

This was my first really really big mistake.  I am used to working with stylists that I know well, who I trust and who know my tastes.  They get a little bored with me because I am so predictably classic and hopefully elegant, but I totally trust them.

Also, usually I would go over the wardrobe, hair and makeup and other details before we begin to prepare for the shoot.

But I was dealing with a general’s daughter as a stylist, who was used to commanding everyone around and we were so late that I ran out of the van leaving all the girls to themselves.  I was trying to quickly find a few places to make some pictures.

The ranch manager was wonderful, gracious and actually quite a normal, good spirited person.  He only wanted to help and off we went on a tour through the most glorious and majestic landscape I had seen in a very long time.  There were long undulating fields of wheat, beautiful pastures, mountains and I felt like the “Sound of Music” must be filtering through my head as we continued our tour.  The problem was not that there was not enough good locations, the concern was where to begin.

I had trusted my instincts that there would be a great landscape, without scouting it.  And for this part of the shoot, the Gods had been very kind to me.

I think it’s important to remember that I have always considered myself partially a landscape photographer.  I can feel a relationship with the earth, and feel at one when I find myself in the right place at the right time.  Today was such a day.  I felt the call of the wild and it felt exhilarating and I was full of anticipation.

With the scouting complete and my excitement for the beauty of the location reaching expansive proportions, we drove back to the van to grab the girls and start our day of shooting.

As I walked into the van full of good cheer and ready to air kiss anything that moved, I stopped dead in my tracks as out stepped two of the ugliest vampires I had ever encountered.  If these were supposed to be attractive women, I’d roll over dead on the spot.

Firstly, the hair was pulled back so tightly.  I was surprised it was still attached to their scalps.  It was made into one tight square topped by another.  It looked like an unattractive Christmas present.

Then, the makeup.  It was so black and so ominous around their eyes.  If looks could kill, I’d be dead.  Their cheeks were bright red, their lips purple and the clothes only got worse from there.

What had happened in two hours?  I left these people to their devices and they come up with King Kong’s mistress.

Well here is where the rubber met the stylist.  I told her this was completely unacceptable.  The hair and makeup people must have thought that this was a Dracula movie and everything looked wrong.  I took the stylist’s hand and took her outside and said, “Look around you.  This country is so beautiful.  The hand of God is at play here and we have two girls that look like Satan is in control.”

And with this, in the spring of 1996, a comment was made to me that has lingered with me ever since.  I was told by my friendly stylist and art director that she was put on this earth to do “intellectual fashion” and that’s what we were going to do.

Now I have been around the fashion world since I’ve been a boy of five and never have I ever heard someone describe what we do as “intellectual fashion”.

With this brilliant comment, I was now ready to strangle not only the two models but the hair and makeup, stylist and every other person on that crew.  They were all so excited.  To them it was new and fresh, and to me it felt so ugly and inappropriate to this place.  We fought and screamed.  They toned things down but the battle was lost.  The energy and enthusiasm dissipated.

During the course of the day we would move the van to various locations but no matter how much I tried, my heart had left my soul.  We finally ended up on a hilltop late in the afternoon, where everyone except Terry and I were inside gossiping about celebrities, sex and other significant topics.  Right at this point I felt I was in one of the most spiritual places I had ever been.

It was so serene and peaceful and beautiful.  God had placed his hand there today and somehow I could feel it but I couldn’t reach out with this group to touch it.

I ran into the van and told everyone to come outside to feel how beautiful it was, but they showed no interest in the outside only the gossip that was going on inside.

With that I said my goodbyes.  I’d had enough.  I said Terry and I would get back to the hotel ourselves.  I spent almost an hour there finding some peace from the day.  I was so disheartened by what could have been but was not meant to be.

As Terry and I were reluctantly getting ready to leave, two cowgirls on horses came riding up to us to ask us how the day went.  They were beautiful.  America at it’s best.  Unpretentious, unassuming, and straight forward and Terry and I both thought, these are the girls that belonged in these pictures.  Although they didn’t know it or probably care, they had more style in their fingers than the models had in their whole bodies.

So this is how the story ends, not with a bang of great pictures but with a whimper of what could have been.

In the spring of 1996, Things were chirping along. The buds were on the trees and unlike Mr. Elliott; I was finding April to be far from the cruelest month. In fact, the promise of spring has always been my favorite season. It always seems to hold out a potential for renewal and beauty.

Anyway, I received a call from the New York Times magazine to do a fashion shoot in California. That was great, with camera in hand and with my trusty long time assistant Terry, off we went to Los Angeles.

For those who don’t know, an editorial or magazine shoot is in some ways quite different from a commercial assignment. Firstly, the magazine provides the stylist, and all the production, wardrobe, models, hair and makeup, etc. that is needed for the shoot. I am generally very involved in the process, but obviously not enough on this shoot, as time would tell. For commercial assignments, we do most, if not all of the production.

I think in this case it is best to keep everyone’s names under the paper, as all involved, are very well known, flourishing more than ever, which goes to show you how much I know.

The shoot was to be at Tejon Ranch about an hour and a half northeast of Los Angeles. I had never traveled to the interior of California and really had no idea what to expect. What I did know was that the ranch was over 250,000 acres and they had been willing to help us secure the use of one of their bi-planes for an hour or two. I never would normally proceed to a shoot without first scouting the location but as this was only to be shot on the landscape, I agreed to spend the day on production in Los Angeles. Money and times were tight at the New York Times and they simply did not have the funds for me to spend an extra day to scout.

I had received some old scouting pictures and the landscape seemed quite majestic, quite beautiful actually. I must admit I was surprised and happy. I had feared a barren, dry desert.

Now let’s return to the story. As agreed the call time for the shoot was 5:30 AM at a location van parked outside the hotel. It was close to a two hour drive in the van, and then at least two hours for hair and makeup and of course an hour for the models coffee and before you knew it, it was lunch time before we had even taken a picture.

We had two exquisite long legged girls, whom we had brought with us from New York. Los Angeles, the swimsuit capitol of the U.S. has more silicone filled, brainless blonds than I can stand; so we brought (I thought) rather unpretentious, beautiful girls.

Well 6:30 rolled frantically into 7:30 and by 8:30 AM the morning of the shoot everyone is in hysteria. One of the girls has not shown up. One of our beautiful, professional, Polish wonders of the twentieth century, had gone out late the night before and had found the love of her life, slept with him somewhere, and no one could get a hold of her.

We were now approaching 8:45 AM, with the gentle kind photographer (that is me) throwing up in the back of the van. The airways are abuzz with trying to find a new girl when quite nonchalantly our Polish beauty walked sleepily into the van and asked for a cup of coffee as if there was no reason for hysteria.

Well upon the sight of her I thrust out for her neck to disengage it, or at least knock something of value into it, but I was restrained and off we went on our day, three hours late to begin with.

I was told by the stylist (who in this case was both the art director and stylist for The Times) that these girls are very fragile and delicate and need to be taken care of. Yelling at them would do no good, despite the fact that I thought they are complete airheads, intellectually vacuous, and unprofessional to the core. She was convinced that they were great at what they did, which forgave their sins. And they were to be adored. We must make amends, and we all hugged and air kissed all around and slept for the next two hours making our way slowly to the Tejon Ranch.

The fun is really just beginning. Stay tuned.

It looks today that the TIME for blogging is going to sneak past me. In lieu of blogging, I will post the most recent cover I shot for TIME Magazine. Till next week.

Everyday, for almost one hundred days, I walked, drove and ran all over Israel and occupied territories in my efforts to find pictures. I shot 88 rolls of film in 100 days (no bracketing then, less than a roll a day).

On some occasions if I was working in the old city of Jerusalem, I would meet Alexander Schneider (know as Sasha to his friends) a Lithuanian violinist, and Nicholas Nabokov a Russian-born composer and choreographer for lunch in a little restaurant that sold a famous fish from the Sea of Galilee. Both Nicholas and Alexander were both in their late seventies and each had been married five times. They had known each other for many years, and with a little wine the conversation would flow about their various wives. Each would confuse which wife was present at what time, and by the time the fish arrived I was on the floor hysterically laughing at the utter confusion and despair of trying to remember what wife had done what to whom, who had been where when, what affairs had preceded what wife, and all together a complete riot of confusion.

So this is life in your late seventies. Even though I never expect to have five wives, I loved their intimacy, their laughter, and mostly the fun they had with life.

What happened to all this? Where did it go? I think laughter turned into greed and humor piety and morality.

The world was wonderful and so funny in these years. So after this humorous and historic exchange on women, with wine and laughter, lunch arrived with the whole fish placed squarely on Sasha Schneider’s plate. The eye of the fish was staring directly at me and to this day I still have a strong aversion to anything that swims in the water. Sasha noticed that I was uncomfortable.

In his strong Lithuanian accent he looked at me and said, “You don’t like the eye of the fish? It’s the best part.” And with this he cut off the fish’s head and slurped the eye in his mouth and responded with deep satisfaction as he swallowed it.

I will never forget my complete disgust and fear at what he had done. He laughed at me with his deep baritone, affectionate, Lithuanian laugh as I almost threw up on the floor. The more disheartened and uncomfortable I became, both men seemed to become more and more happy. Sasha slapped me on the back and said; “Now you are a man!”

Well I don’t know if that made me more of a man, but despite my unease I was a part of the group. I loved it all. I felt it all so deeply. The good times, the lunch and the food.

At that lunch Sasha said he was off after his nap to the music center to teach a Master Class to Israel’s prodigies. He said Isaac Stern was there now and told me to go over for an hour and sit in. “You’ll Learn something,” he exhorted me. So off I went to the music center, which was adjacent to the place we were living. I was quietly ushered into the room where Isaac Stern was teaching who I was told was Israel’s greatest violin prodigy.

He seemed about eighteen and like me you could feel the majesty and awe of being in this room with this extraordinary talent.

This is what I remember, this is what I learned as I had been exhorted by Sasha to listen.

I am a classical music fan, and for some unknown reason I have always been, even since I was a young boy. I like all types of music, but Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Brahmas’ are not just entertaining you, they are screaming at you to listen, to feel their call from your heart. Their music is full of emotion and has always appealed to me.

Now back to the story. Isaac Stern and the prodigy were practicing a small section of the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s’ violin concerto. It is a piece I know well. First came the prodigy, he played flawlessly for three minutes. Technically, and most probably emotionally for him a virtuoso rendition. It was perfect, but…

Then immediately upon completion as the notes still resonated in my ears, Isaac Stern picked up his violin and played the same three minutes of the concerto.

The lights exploded, my heart swelled with wonder and joy, and as Sasha had exhorted at lunch on this afternoon, I truly learned something.

The Israeli prodigy was technically (perfect like the Yale students I would teach some years later) but his rendition was lacking soul history and emotion. It was the same notes that Isaac Stern had played; yet they were worlds apart.

Isaac Stern had invested not only his time and energy, but somehow found a way to his very being. His notes were as if the Gods were singing. I remember thinking that if only I could make one picture that has the emotion and power of Tchaikovsky and to be able to express these feelings to the world as well as Isaac Stern.

My life in those hundred days was changed forever. To this day I am trying to live what I learned in Jerusalem.

Shortly after arriving in Jerusalem and having just barely settled into my routine, I was told that I had been given the privilege of meeting the Prime Minister (Golda Meir) at her office. So one morning off I went to her office and there, with the Mayor, I was introduced formally to my hosts. They asked me if there was anything I needed, or any member of parliament I wished to meet, and all I could say was that I wanted to meet Bedouins in the desert, and meet not the celebrities of the country, but rather its common folk both Arab and Jew. I wanted to feel and see what was worth all the killing and fighting for the last 2,000 years. With this comment I was told I was on my own, they could be of no help to me, but wished me good luck. As I was leaving I was told that if I wanted to meet the one Bedouin member of the Israeli Parlament, I should go far out into the Negev desert and follow the telephone line. With that, a quick cup of coffee, a few handshakes, I was off, somewhat relieved, a little confused but ready to do battle for my pictures.

With that meeting I started my daily ritual of looking, walking, driving each day to find pictures. I worked everyday but often would return in the early evening as the sun was setting and hear Isaac Stern practicing the violin. I would be in the middle ages during the day and return to the most civilized and gracious place in the evening.

So in the next few days I climbed into Jon’s VW bug and we set off into the Negev Desert. Farther and farther we went. Jon had some idea where the Bedouin encampment could be and we drove for hours looking until finally at a small crossroad, a telephone line appeared out of nowhere. It was as if a tree had just sprouted. Where it had come from I had know idea, but as was suggested to me, we began to follow not the little brick road, but the telephone poles that seemed to stretch out for eternity. For some time we traveled along a paved road and then suddenly in the middle of the desert with nothing more than a small dirt path, the line switched direction and followed the path deeper and deeper into the desert. It must have taken us at least one hour to finally arrive at small tented camp in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.

There were no men around, only veiled women and children working with goats and camels. No men were apparent.As Jon spoke Arabic, he explained that we had traveled for hours to meet the sheik and wondered if he would be so kind to let us visit for a few minutes. Over the course of my stay I travelled to a few other Bedouin camps. I learned you will never know how you will be greeted. It can be quite dangerous and a rather unnerving experience. This day I was all innocence and luckily for me we were graciously invited into another world.

Okay, we have to stop for a moment.

I was in my twenties, but I never realized how little I knew of the world. Sure I had read National Geographic religiously, grew up in The Big Apple, had travelled to many places and by now had photographed migrant workers all over America. I had even lived in some very poor rural communities in West Virginia, but somehow had missed something important. The world was truly a wondrous place, exotic, romantic, dangerous, forbidding, and filled with taste and smells I had never encountered before. As I walked into that tent, I was walking back into time. We now live in a culture of social networks, where it is all there at the present. The art is vacuous, the culture is lost and where, oh where is the romance?

Now back to the story. The Israeli government required that any member of the parliament be reachable by phone, and as this was way before the creation of cell phones, computers, twitter, facebook, email, etc . (thank God) the government at great and very controversial expense, had brought a hard phone line out to the tent of Sheik Allee (I think this was his name) their newest member of parliament. So as the tent flaps were opened, and as we walked into the inexplicably cool tent, the air smelled of tobacco cumin and sweet tea. Sitting there right beside the sheik was an old fashioned black rotary dial phone connecting him directly to all the powers at large. You might as well have run a phone line to the moon. You were as isolated and alone in the Negev as one must feel on the moon.

He was surrounded by bodyguards with long scimitars and flowing black robes, sitting or lying in the tent and at first I didn’t know if I was to be beheaded or handed a cup of tea. Luckily, the sheik spoke some English, was somewhat gracious, yelled something in Arabic and immediately two veiled women entered the tent and served us all tea.

It turned out there were many death threats made on his life and I understand that some years later he was killed with his body guards.

That day, unlike many other days while in the Middle East, I was given permission to take his picture and pictures of the other men, but never of the women.

I learned so many things in the Middle East that I will never forget. Mostly I began my slow journey deeper into myself and became even more aware of who I was and where I stood in the world around me. I found courage I didn’t know I had, a rigor, a forcefulness and true joy in being a classic romantic, living and feeling the joys, the sorrows, the envies of life and having a tool to express it all. Oh, what a life!

Sorry, I have been out of town, out of sorts, out of bounds and totally outside this week. Stay tuned, next week I will be back ready to roll with a little rock.

With my beautiful letter and crest from the mayor of Jerusalem in hand, I went off to El Al Airlines to see if I could barter for three tickets to Israel. I had no money, and even though I figured living for free in Jerusalem was probably the equivalent of living for three months in Connecticut, I still didn’t have the money for the airfare.

So I finally made my way up the corporate ladder, letter in hand, to the head of the airline in the United States. He looked very carefully at my work and the letter, and said, “You are a true artist, but you don’t understand what an artist is in the Middle East. An artist is someone who can twist and turn his or her way through the system. The artist is one who can manipulate his or her way through the maze, and you dear boy are not that person.” With that rejection, which I could not figure out if it was a compliment or dismissal, I left the corporate world behind.

Ultimately, I borrowed two hundred dollars from every friend and enemy I could find and on a fateful day a few weeks later, at the very back of the plane, stuck between four Rabbi’s with long beards praying, swaying, and chanting that the plane wouldn’t crash, we left the surly bonds of New York.

When we landed in Tel Aviv (to the roars of the passengers on the plane) I was met by a street full of soldiers with machine guns, and my friend Jon standing there smiling, with his little VW bug with Florida plates. He had been able to avoid arrest, catastrophe and mayhem by pretending not to speak Hebrew and showing only a Florida license. No one knew what to do with him, and just shook their head while walking away dumbfounded.

He took us up the windy drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, from a mixture of Miami and pure glitz to one of the most special, beautiful, and perplexing cities in the world.

Miskenot was extraordinary. It was set into the foothills of Yemin Moshe, a district of Jerusalem overlooking the old city. There were twelve beautiful apartments. At this time it was almost brand new and they were extremely rigorous about its occupants. I understand that as time went on, and as the city received less funding, things changed. But at that time, what an honor it was to be there.

There was Arthur Rubinstein, Isaac Stern, and Alexander Schneider who were teaching master classes at the Jerusalem Music Center. Alexander Calder, E.L. Doctorow, the editor of The Economist magazine, the dean of The Yale Law School, and Nicholas Nabokov (and a few others I cannot remember) and little old me.

We all would get together on occasion for dinner or tea, and I became the local moneychanger for the group. As they were all so well known, they would never venture into the deep heartlands of the Arab Quarter of the old city to exchange their money for the best rates, I did this for them. They all treated me as an equal, a friend. And my dear friends, this is where the story really begins and ends.

You see, my in-laws at the time were equally famous, and I had met hundreds of well-known people through them, but this was the first time I began to be considered worthy and valuable on my own right. Sure, I had inklings of success but I could wallpaper my walls with failure after failure.

My family on a daily basis would tell me to get serious and get a real job, and no one, but my wife at the time supported me emotionally in being a photographer. I was on my own emotionally and financially.

Jon Broder had helped give me a gift I would never forget. In the end he never wrote the text, and I ended up writing the small text for the book. Elie Wiesel wrote the introduction, and the book was published by Nan Talese (Houghton Mifflin & Co.) and called In the Land of Light. The photographs are from an earlier, more journalistic me.

What happened to me in Jerusalem changed my life in many ways. The experience of being taken seriously, to laugh, eat and tell stories to others, filled my bereft soul with fullness. It was a turning point where from there on, no matter how many difficult things there have been photographically (and there have been many, many difficult times) I realize photography was the right place for me. Taking photographs has always been as much, if not more, about what lies behind and supports the picture, as the picture itself. The photograph is the kiss, the celebration of so many forces that preceded it.

Many people have asked me how and why I became a photographer in the first place, but as far as I can remember, no one has inquired what was the most life-changing day in my photographic life.

It all began on a beautiful day in Virginia, in the spring of 1970. On the long green verdant lawn, a thousand students serpentined their way in true Jeffersonian style to receive their diplomas. Standing in front of me, purely by chance, was my friend Jon Broder.

It was the end of the sixties, and everyone was on a quest to find their true callings. Some were off to Hollywood, far too many to Wall Street or Law School. I was on my way to Graduate School to study theological discourse, and understand this creature called man. At this time I also knew I was vaguely interested in photography as well.

Standing right in front of me was Jon, and as the line was serpentining very slowly, we began to talk about our futures. Why we hadn’t done this before, I do not know, but no time like the present.

I informed Jon about my future and he began to inform me about his. He told me he wanted to be a journalist, and saw no reason not to jump right into the eye of the volcano. The next day he was off to the Middle East to take intensive Arabic and Hebrew classes. I was a little taken back by his courage (or maybe his lack of it) to run to a place that was so dangerous and on the verge of war. We made our way to the table, received our diplomas, shook hands, and went our separate ways.

For the next six years I never heard from Jon. We each pursued our careers and our lives. I had married once, Jon two or three times. It seemed like every girl he kissed, he felt the need to marry, only to learn a few months later what a mistake it was. In the meantime, he learned Hebrew and Arabic, had an interim assignment to cover Richard Nixon at Key Biscayne, Florida, and then ran back to the middle east with a VW bug and Florida license plates.

I received a call six years later; Jon had become the bureau chief of the Middle East for the Chicago Tribune. He had already covered two wars and was a real correspondent. On this fateful morning call, at 4 a.m. EST, Jon informed me that I had won a very special fellowship. As we hadn’t spoken in years I was in shock that he knew where to find me in Connecticut, but he did. He told me that he had been following my career from afar. He told me that I was awarded a special gift from the mayor of Jerusalem to come and live in Jerusalem for up to three months in a special place called Mishkenot Sha’ananim. It was a special artist colony for up to fourteen very well known, highly established people, but on a rare occasion they would take a chance on an unknown, a nobody like me, whom they felt showed promise. Magnum had done the same thing the year before.

It was 4 o’clock in the morning. I had no idea what he was talking about, what I had won, or anything else he had said. What I do remember, he said that I had a few weeks to get my family and myself together. He said that I would be receiving a formal letter soon.

I also remember his saying, “You’re a very lucky man and you don’t even know it. You and I are going to work on a book together, I’ll do the text and you’ll make the photographs.” And with that he hung up.

The next week I received a formal letter from Teddy Kolleck, the Mayor of Jerusalem, inviting me to live at the cities expense for the next three months. My whole life changed, but not in the ways that you might expect.

To be continued…