The Beauty of Film

Following Henri Cartier-Bresson's adage, all I took with me was one camera, one lens, one film. While I was in Mexico, I admit, I was jealous. Shooting digitally for work for the last 8 years, I was craving that instant gratification I've become so accustomed to. I watched Josh and John look at their pictures each night. Occasionally while we were out shooting, one would ask me how the picture looked, or what I got. I'd jokingly show them the back of my film camera. "Looks great!"

And after picking up the film at the lab the other day, that trace of jealousy I once felt was wiped away. The excitement of seeing those images for the first time, and the beauty of them being captured on film, was well worth the wait.

Let it Snow...

Christmas came early, and I saw snow in Tampa today. It tasted like soap. And evaporated before it hit the ground. But still, for this Florida girl, it was a nice treat.



My all-time favorite snow story is from the one time it's ever snowed in South Florida... January 1977... Jim Lushine, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami, was driving home from his shift about 4:30 a.m. A light rain, interspersed with little white flecks, was falling. He thought they were snow of another kind: cocaine spilling from a smuggler’s plane.

Evidence of my Existence

We are neurotic children, photographers, our emotions never straying far from illusions of total defeat. Of a career lost, a life in ruins. Particularly during those projects we have yet to get our arms around. Perhaps it is a perverse stimulus, this cloud of dissatisfaction that hovers above our heads: an incentive to keep looking, trying, creating.

-- Jim Lo Scalzo

GAMEDAY: Doug Williams

Doug Williams was the first African-American quarterback to not only start in, but also win a Super Bowl, while playing with the Washington Redskins in 1988.

Really nice guy. I just wish the reporter had left me more than two minutes at the end of the interview to photograph him. Grumble, grumble.

Fiona

Unfortunately, this was a quick hit, buzzing into the life of Fiona Masika, a 12-year-old Ugandan AIDS orphan who's spending one month living with host families and attending classes at St. John's Episcopal school in hopes of increasing cultural understanding and spreading awareness about HIV and AIDS.

Aside from the initial assignment to photograph her at soccer practice, I was able to squeeze one more trip in to visit her in school and at home before the story was published. It's not complete by any means, but I'm posting it simply as a reminder to myself to follow up with her... because this should be her last week here... and it's a story worth doing right.

One Voice

I know, I know... Less talk, more photos. Here's a photo I shot for our One Voice column.



During a recent afternoon spent waiting for customers, Nicholas Dampier, 8, holds a sign advertising his yard sale, while neighbor Darren Danforth, 8, tilts his head back to get a better look at a Finding Nemo disc in a View-Master toy for sale. The story, in Dampier's words: My mom wanted my stuff to go away, so she sent it to my dad. It was my idea to have a yard sale because there's no room here at my dad's to keep it all. I've got stuffed animals, a yo-yo, a jump rope, a plastic desk from when I was little, and lots of other fun things. My one sale came when I went inside to have lunch. Someone stopped and came up to the house. I made $3 on a few Matchbox cars and a Hess truck. That's all. So I'll be back out here next weekend.

On Pain

Mexico was like a dream. One I didn't want to wake up from. The difficulty in coming home was thinking I have nothing to come home to. What I do have is a dog that makes me smile, some books I like poring over, and some good friends that give amazing hugs. While trying to make sense of it all, one friend introduced me to Lebanese philosopher and writer Khalil Gibran's work The Prophet. The chapter I read over and over again today is On Pain:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief. Much of your pain is self-chosen.

His word's resonate and speak to a deep, dark place inside me. Right now I'm trying to find some understanding in this pain in my heart and aching in my head. It also reminded me of my favorite Audre Lorde poem:

Be who you are and will be
learn to cherish that boisterous Black Angel that drives you
up one day and down another
protecting the place where your power rises
running like hot blood
from the same source
as your pain.

When you are hungry
learn to eat
whatever sustains you
until morning
but do not be misled by details
simply because you live them.
Do not let your head deny
your hands
any memory of what passes through them
nor your eyes
nor your heart
everything can be useful
except what is wasteful
(you will need
to remember this when you are accused of destruction.)
Even when they are dangerous
examine the heart of those machines you hate
before you discard them
and never mourn the lack of their power
lest you be condemned
to relive them.

If you do not learn to hate
you will never be lonely
enough
to love easily
nor will you always be brave
although it does not grow any easier.

Do not pretend to convenient beliefs
even when they are righteous
you will never be able to defend your city
while shouting.

Remember our sun
is not the most noteworthy star
only the nearest.

Respect whatever pain you bring back
from your dreaming
but do not look for new gods
in the sea
nor in any part of a rainbow.
Each time you love
love as deeply
as if it were
forever
only nothing is
eternal.

Speak proudly to your children
wherever you may find them
tell them
you are the offspring of slaves
and your mother was
a princess
in darkness.

Pigjam

The Plant City Pig Jam... I pictured pigs in all shapes and sizes... Characters like Porky and Piggly Wiggly walking around greeting families... People wearing plastic pig noses... Pink everything... But not so... Instead all I found was some good Q... Which is really all I can ask for sometimes...



While the temperature rises at the grill, and the pressure is on for the best bbq competition, Kurt Miller of Palm Harbor, left, helps wipe the sweat off the face of friend Lionel Cunningham of Tarpon Springs at the 5th annual Plant City Pig Jam Saturday afternoon. The line of customers reaching around the corner, Cunningham was on fire while hoping to prove to people why Florida Skin & Bones is ranked sixth in the world. Cunningham says the secret is in the dry rub and finishing glaze. "We tell people to try the first rib without sauce, because chances are, the meat's so good they won't even need it," bragged Miller.

¡Viva San Martin!

4 a.m. comes early. Before San Miguel de Allende's church bells could jar me from my sleep, the alarm clock did. Dressing in the dark before dawn, I mumbled something to Josh about this feeling a lot like work.

Francisco, our faithful driver, stopped his taxi in front of our building at 4:30, as planned. The journey was cold and quiet. Neither able to communicate effectively, neither sufficiently awake.

The town we were headed to -- San Martin -- is not on a map. But when the occasional burst of a distant firework lit up the sky, we knew we were getting close. Through the dark, winding, mountain roads, we knew nothing of what was ahead. Coming down a hill, Francisco slammed on his brakes, my heart racing, unsure about what was going on, until the dim beams of his headlights traced the faintest outlines of about a dozen horses and their riders, galloping down the two-lane road... headed to the same place as us.

We got as far as we could in the car, the rest we'd have to do on foot. The ever-present "welcome to Mexico and Mexican food 24-7" quest for a bathroom led me off the dusty, dirty road, through alleyways and past vendors starting to cook breakfast for the tens of thousands about to descend on San Martin....and into one of the most beautiful sites I've ever seen. Off in the distance, every inch of hillside, was coming alive with the pink light of morning, the red fires of caballeros trying to warm to the day and the blue steam rising off the backs and breath of their horses. A priest clad in black robe, entered a circle of cowboys, blessing them and their horses with holy water.

2,500 horses... 25,000 people...

I stood, dumbfounded for a minute... sensory overload... not sure of where to begin. One of the best parts of being a photojournalist is getting to witness things that others don't. Being let into intimate, private, REAL moments. Getting to see beauty in its purest form. Meeting genuine people and getting to share in something special. San Martin was all of those. There are very few times in life where I walk away from something feeling as though there's no way the pictures could have done the scene justice... this however, was one of those times.

12 hours later, hitchhiking down a long, dusty road, thumb out, and hand-scrawled San Miguel sign being held up at every passing chance, a truck pulls over and takes pity on two wayward travelers. Thankful, we sat in the bed of the pickup truck, watching the mountains roll by, silence overtook us both. Reflection on all that we had just seen and done weighed heavily on our minds. Smiles on our sun-soaked faces.

I know a picture is worth a thousand words, but the experience needs only one: epic.

I am a Lucha Libre

100 Years of Solitude

Oaxaca is beautiful...vibrant...wonderful...alive...

It's everything I'm not.

As my body floats down countless colorful streets, ears taking in the mariachi music that acts as a soundtrack for my trip, eyes chasing light and figures and faces, my mind is elsewhere. Further away. Somewhere darker, more clouded, fuzzy. It's hard to pour my heart into anything these days when most days I question whether or not I still have one.

In a country of 108 million people, how is it possible to feel so all alone?