As much as I love this wonderful city in which I (sometimes – ha) live, during the summer it becomes a home base that I tag long enough to do laundry and (haggardly and frantically) try and catch up on responding to e-mails, paying bills, shoving disks in the mail, FTPing images, responding to phone calls, exporting, transcoding, etc etc etc…

Not that I’m not doing a lot of these things from the road, but most of my coffee-shop-on-the-road-work-time is purely post-production.

My brain is foggy, sorry.  Was up til 5 AM.  I had so much I wanted to say!!  Now I’m wracking my brain to piece it all together.  LA was great.  Seattle was superb.  Denver was delightful.  There was a lot of airports and take-offs and landings.  There were delicious free cookies (as usual) on Midwest Airlines, and there was a darn good sunset up above the gray clouds covering New York when I landed yesterday.

I’m wasting your time, so let’s just look at some pictures, shall we:

Haven’t been back here in 2 years. Still a magical place…

I’m about at the half-way point of a month of pretty intense and constant travel. Currently I’m in Seattle staying with my buddy Johnny, working, going to meetings and (this Friday) doing a shoot. It’s been 2 years since I was last here, and I’m reminded on this trip just how much I LOVE this town.

I had a request from a nagging reader (haha) that I do another map of my summer, so I drew another one while stuck on a 4.5 hour flight with nothing else to do. I also doodled some other stuff:

Read/view while listening to Blind Pilot.

Yesterday was one of those travel days where everything goes wrong. I should have been westbound on a plane from MKE to LGB that would have had me in before noon with a rental car awaiting me on my arrival. But because I missed my flight it ended up looking a lot more like this: Bus from MKE to ORD, 3 hours of waiting, flight to Charlotte, North Caroline, more waiting, long, boring, endless flight to LAX. No rental car. Metro trip from LAX to Long Beach. All told, it was a 15 hours travel day.

This morning is a lot more peaceful. I’m using the time difference to my advantage and I’m sitting at my usual Long Beach spot – Portfolio coffeehouse. It’s 7 am and it is COLD! I’m wearing a sweater and denim shirt and still the cool air catches me off guard when the door next to me pops open. It’s making me so excited for New York fall weather.

Yesterday my sole entertainment on my cross-country flight was the latest issue of DETAILS magazine. Let me just say that I read every piece of text there was to read in that thing purely out of boredom. One of the articles was a one-page interview with Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy. Now don’t get me wrong, Seth is a comic genius (maybe just purely a genius) but we do not share the same worldview. One of his comments caught me off-guard: “Carl Sagan said that we are ‘significance junkies.’ We love to attach patterns to everything we see. Not everything has meaning to it. I can’t afford to let it turn me into somebody who suddenly believes that he’s being watched over by a higher power. It’s kind of arrogant; that’s a lot of bandwidth for whoever is up there to have to maintain at any given time—Andy Dick alone would take up so much time and energy.”

It’s within my personality to make connections. In my mind – probably to a fault – everything has meaning. Everything is connected. Even my long day of travel was filled with meaning: creative ideas I wouldn’t have otherwise had, personal thoughts I wouldn’t have realized, people I wouldn’t have met. For instance, I met a woman sitting next to me who was en route to visit her estranged daughter and son. She had a fascinating and heartbreaking story. I couldn’t help but think, as I usually do, what if I hadn’t been on this flight? I would never have had this interaction.

Sitting twenty feet from me right now is a man named Fred. Fred is my personal prophet. I’m kind of kidding, but kind of serious. He’s an older man that reads the paper at Portfolio nearly every morning. And sometimes he ropes me into conversation and usually tells me incredibly profound things about my life. And then I won’t see him for a year and then we’ll pick up where we left off the last time.

Today I’m too tired for prophecy so I’m avoiding eye contact. But Fred is one of those people that, had I not had the first interaction, I wouldn’t probably not have continued to have this bizarre, fascinating relationship with the man of the years. A string of interactions linked back to one latte and bagel and Thomas Merton reading session where it all started.

I guess despite Seth’s words, and despite my (possibly) over-imaginative propensity to find meaning in everything, I can’t help it. Because I believe in God, and believe he has a purpose for us, the meaning is there. I don’t have to pull it out or connect links… it just rises to the surface.

The photos in the post were from a year ago in August. My screen on my camera was broken at the time and I accidentally overexposed all of the pictures so I pretty much discarded them… However, I revisited them yesterday and found new hope in them. They’re more contrasty (woah, blacks) then usual, but I kinda like how they’re sort of a mixture of moody/dark and light/ethereal.

This summer is already kicking last summer’s behind as far as mobility is concerned. It started out in Phoenix, then a road trip to Indianapolis, two separate trips from Indiana back to New York and two separate trips back to California, and then a brief trip to New York. This week has been a no-post week for me because I’ve had a full-time employee all week (tumorless Nate) and we’ve been slaving away to get him trained on some photo-stuff, and myself caught up on all the post-production that seems to be constantly piling up.

And the traveling seriously hasn’t even begun. Posting this blog entry is the last thing I do before a road trip back to Indiana, then Chicago, and Wisconsin. From Chicago I’ll fly to Los Angeles, and then from Los Angeles to Seattle. From Seattle I’ll head to Denver, then back to New York for multiple shoots and meetings, and then I’m (likely) off to Peru for a few days before I head back to New York for a few days and then head to LA.

That will take me through September 5th. Phew. I’m exhausted thinking about it.

So I’ll be working on post-production, as well as a full rebranding campaign while on the road– with (luckily) Nate working for me now doing some of my post-production.

This is the drawing I did on my table-cloth at the airport last summer. Maybe I’ll do another one for this summer:

Spent the day yesterday shooting a wedding at the St. Regis in Dana Point, CA in a black suit with sunburn. But I guess the sunburn was worth it because at least I have a little viddy to show for it. Enjoy…

Heading to LAX.

Well this California trip has been a much appreciated break from the heat/humidity of New York – but it’s almost been TOO cold (the grass is always greener). Yesterday morning I wore a sweater and flannel at 6 AM when I got up to go surfing.

But today, after 3 days of cloudy dreariness, we had loads of sunshine. I went with Chad and Katie to the beach and got a proper sunburn. Made a little video which is exporting… probably put it up in the morning.

I went with Bonnie to see the The Young Veins play on a rooftop 48 floors up in midtown.  St. Germaine, music, beautiful weather, with a good friend.  The night felt like a smile and a sigh.

I’ve started putting together these little videos here and there.  Each video takes about 40 minutes to piece together.  I guess it’s sort of a creative exercise that you guys get to be in on… I didn’t plan to do any recording so I didn’t get good sound of the actual show… but I put together a little something anyways.  I think that last little shot of Bonnie is lovely.

Day 5

At around 3:30 AM Ben woke me up from my spot in the back of the truck. Incredibly groggy, but only a little stiff, I climbed out, pulled on my shell to warm up, and followed him into the main compound of Villa Creole. Ben was trying to utilize the time in the middle of the night while everyone was asleep to use the minimal (and usually crowded) wireless signal that was available. We needed to figure out transportation and a method of getting cash in so we weren’t helpless. Most importantly for Ben, however, was his responsibility to get his own mother to safety. I could tell this weighed on him, and the longer we stayed in Haiti, the more I felt his urgency to make sure he got her out and to safety.

While Ben used the internet, I pulled a couple of table chairs together, still aching for a few more hours of sleep, balled up to keep warm, and caught a few more winks. After an hour or so of relatively restless sleep– I’m pretty good at sleeping anywhere, but I guess everyone has their limits– I sat up and chatted with Ben. We reminisced about the last couple of days. We talked about the little boy, about his severed foot, his helpless parents. We talked about Doug– our loyal companion who has, to say the very, very least, a lot of personality. We talked about what we could do to begin getting ready to get Ben’s mother out of Port au Prince and safely to the States. We talked about what we could do for Haiti once we returned.

As dawn crept in, dreary-eyed journalists and doctors began slowly emerging from all areas of the compound– some from tents, others from hotel rooms, others from under blankets in the grass. As they had the mornings prior, the doctors rose early, ate whatever food they had with them, stuffed their day-bags, and headed out with the morning light to work, many of them at General Hospital.

The sky turned from cool blue to pale pink-and-orange, and the hotel staff brought out a meager complimentary continental breakfast. I was incredibly grateful for hot coffee (regardless of quality) and juice, yogurt, and some pastries. It seemed so far out of context, especially after days of mostly consuming Clif Bars. I went and alerted our Haitian brothers, who were emerging from sleep and from the truck outside, that there was breakfast. And though part of me felt guilty how accessible these amenities were for me, and how inaccessible they were for the many outside, I poured myself a cup of coffee, grabbed a pastry and cup of yogurt, and sat down with our “crew,” watching the sun slowly fill the compound with light.

One of the first orders of the day, for Ben and I, was to find a way for Doug to get back to Santo Domingo. It had become clear that his resources were depleted as well as ours, and he wasn’t any good as a rescue worker unless he was able to get back to Santo Domingo and receive aid from the people in his organization back home. He was also a real challenge of personality, and Ben and I decided that for the rest of the trip, we would accomplish the most by breaking away.

Throughout the past several days I had tried my best to be patient with Doug’s temper-tantrums, wild-goose-chases, hyperbolic self-acclimations, and awful bed-side manner. But it was really Ben that seemed to have the patience of Job. Often when Doug was being difficult, I was fuming, but Ben would quietly appease Doug, or seemingly acquiesce to many of his complaints. I understood that, at least at first, Ben felt a loyalty to Doug. It was Doug, after all, that had orchestrated (ahem, conned) his way, along with Ben, onto a plane that brought them in from Florida so that Ben could get to his mother.

But by the morning of that fifth day, Doug had pulled his last antic– even for Ben. And Ben had what he referred to as a “come to Jesus” talk with Doug. Essentially, he shot straight with him. And it was bizarre the impact it had. Instead of retaliating, or throwing a fit, Doug was agreeable. He had no resources, was low on money, and would go back to Santo Domingo where he could contact his people and regroup. Now the only challenge would be getting him there.

Discouraged that we wouldn’t be able to find a way home for Doug, but feeling a sense of responsibility to make sure he made it home safely, we asked around at the now-bustling compound if anyone knew any options for getting back to the Dominican Republic. Somehow through the early part of our search, Doug had befriended some people from The Christian Science Monitor, and before we knew it we were putting his stuff in the back of their large van, and were sending him off with hugs and waves. I don’t think he really wanted to go, because he must have said good-bye four times. Once or twice the door to the van would shut, the engine start, and then our hearts would flutter as Doug would emerge again to retrieve something else he’d forgotten, hug us goodbye again, and then climb back into the van.
But sure enough, by nine o’clock in the morning, we waved and watched the van filled with our friend and the correspondents from The Christian Science Monitor bounce down the road. Ben and I secretly wondered if the nice people on their staff would toss Doug onto the highway after an hour. But we trusted their patience and generosity and went back to the compound, smiling, relieved, bathing in the morning sunshine, and made plans for our day.

We decided that the best option for our driver, his truck, and the rest of our companions, was to send them on home to their families. They had been hired to travel with us up until this point, but we had no money left to give them, and no specific work to offer them. Ben and I would be alright, could find transportation, and had a wealth of resources at Villa Creole that we had access to. So we said good-byes, gave hugs, and watched as they rounded the curve away from us, back to their toppled homes.
Back inside Villa Creole, I cradled another cup of coffee and discussed the days’ plans with Ben, Simon, and a couple of young French reporters. I had a strong urge to go straight to General Hospital to see if their was anything I could do to help there. Another contact of mine, Jakob, who was a Swedish photographer from New York, had been sending me status reports from the hospital. He told me that he’d been able to help the doctors, and they generously allowed him to take pictures as well.

Simon and the two French reporters, who had been working as a set of three most of the week, had already been to the hospital and were making plans to head out into another part of the city. Both of the reporters were on assignment, and Simon, who was in Haiti independently, primarily stuck with them. The compound was pretty well cleared out by ten o’clock. Most of the journalists would work out in the city through late morning and early afternoon and would return by late afternoon to transmit their photos and stories back to their editors.

Short on cash, and pleased at the thought of a nice long walk, Ben and I decided to head down to General Hospital, a few miles away at the bottom of the hill, on foot. I left my big backpack at the front desk of the hotel, packed my day pack with everything I would need for the day including a water-bottle, Clif-bars, my camera, and few other odds-and-ends. I walked down the stairs, past the fallen foyer, the stairs to the second floor dangling above me, and into the bathroom that had been okayed for visitors to utilize.

I looked in the mirror. I don’t know that I’d seen my real reflection in several days. I look haggard. My sinuses were stuffed with exhaust and dust, and there were dirt circles accenting my sleepy-circles under my eyes. I had faint stubble, and hair like Peter Pan’s. I had pulled on a clean white t-shirt for the day, which was at the moment the only thing making me look even remotely presentable. I splashed water on my faces, brushed my teethe, scrubbed out some of the obvious dirt marks, and headed back upstairs.

My plan was to meet Jakob at General Hospital in one hour. The walk was down-hill, but we were unsure just how far it was. An hour? Two? Before we left the hotel compound I handed Ben one of my favorite vintage t-shirts– “No Guts no Glory”– and we ripped it into rags for him to use as a face mask. I had been using the same t-shirt I had torn up my first day in Port au Prince and it had been serving me well. At that we headed out like bandits down the hill.

Taking a long walk through the city was a unique and compelling way to survey the damage. Most of the time one could watch the horrifying scene from the safety of a vehicle. Viewing everything from inside a car gave a false sense of protection, and a very real sense of separation. With a window between you and the fallen bricks and broken people outside, you could watch but not be involved.
Along the way we stopped periodically to chat with locals. One man was selling giant tortoise shells. I stopped and ask if I could take a picture of him with the shells. He struck a dignified pose.

The winding road down the hill from Petionville affords a truly magnificent view of valley below. As we walked, Ben told me about the Haiti in which he had grown up. Although Ben had been born into incredibly meager conditions, he seemed to have mostly fond memories of his childhood in Haiti. After his mother transported him to New York, he had returned often and was always treated like a prince by his family. For those of you well-traveled in the third world, you know there is no feast like the ones prepared for visitors from afar.

Our walk was in some senses light– we laughed and retold the same stories about Doug. As big-hearted as he apparently was, it was such a relief to have the liabilities he carried off of us. Ironically, now with no truck, drivers, or cash, we felt freed to actually help.
But as we walked we also bore further witness to the massive destruction of the city. We walked past one collapsed building after another. Everywhere there were signs that said, “Nous avons besoin d’aide” — “we need help.” As we climbed over crumbled cinder blocks, splintered wood, and exposed wires, we walked past a small cement building that had remained relatively intact. It was sandwiched between two partially collapsed structures, with the spray-painted scrawling in English “God is good.” It reminded me of Ben’s mother the previous day who, on our return home from our long day as a make-shift EMT crew, threw her hands in the air and said in English “Thaaank you God, thank you!” waving her arms. I also remembered the early morning praise songs. I wondered if I’d have had the same perspective in the face of such adversity. Truly, I admired the strength of their faith.

Partially because of the condition of the road, and partially because of our frequent stops, the walk down hill took far longer then I imagined. Jakob, the Swedish photographer, was texting me that he was getting ready to take off. By the time we arrived at General Hospital, he was gone, and the gates to the entrance of the overcrowded compound were packed with Haitians pleading their cases and begging to be admitted. Some had family members with urgent needs, other just hoped that they would get some water or food.
Their hopes were likely in vain as I later discovered that water inside General Hospital was scarce both for the patients who desperately needed it, and the medical staff that were at risk of getting dehydrated as well. Ben and I managed to work our way through the mass of people to a narrow opening in the gate where a few bewildered U.S. soldiers blocked our entry, informing us that the press was being evacuated and no more people were being allowed in without some kind of identification as medical personnel. We told them we were there to help, not take pictures, and they hesitantly acquiesced.

As could be expected part of the hospital had completely collapsed– in fact the nursing education building was flattened. We were told that more then a hundred young nursing students had been crushed. The horrifying smell of the bodies inside wafted throughout the nearby facilities.

Parts of the the hospital complex that had been deemed sturdy were being used as operating rooms, and pre-op and inpatient units. Most patients that weren’t been currently treated were placed outside, where a miniature tent-city had been formed to shade them from the blazing mid-day sun. What formed over the top of the maze of dilapidated hospital beds was a massive network of blankets and tarps, strung with ropes to trees and poles, forming a collective quilt of meager covering.

Ben and I split up and agreed to meet back at the front in few minutes once we’d surveyed the scene. I walked through the constant crowds of people and took in the whole scene. I stopped a couple of times to take a few pictures, but for the most part kept my camera in my bag. Sure enough, journalists were slowly being pushed out. I watched an Australian news crew conclude an interview with a doctor who was clearly in a hurry to get back to his patients. I watched some photographers steal some pictures of a few desperate Haitians, who looked up with big eyes that said, at least in my mind, “Fine, take a picture. I don’t even care. Just take your picture and go.”

One journalist particularly caught my eye, however. She was kneeling alongside her translator at eye level with a patient. I didn’t catch the exact conversation, but her mannerisms with the young man were sincere. Every once in a while she’d tilt her head and say something to the patient, and then look to her translator. The young man would answer and she’d jot a few notes down, hardly breaking eye contact. After what seemed like a great deal of time, she finally lifted her camera and made a gesture that said, “May I?” He nodded, she snapped a couple photos, glancing up at him between shots.

That, I thought, is how it’d done. Make the personal connection. Give them dignity. And ultimately, give them the option to opt out. I realize this isn’t always plausible– and some would find me naive to think that it’s really ever plausible in such circumstances. Maybe that’s true. But it’s ideal. And the interaction not only impacted me, but impressed me as the best example of how to be a good photojournalist.
Before I even had the opportunity to head back to our agreed upon meeting spot, Ben found me. He was heading out with an ambulance crew to pick up people in need of medical care to take them to Sunapi. Ben asked me anxiously (the team was waiting for him) if I wanted to go. I told him no. I decided I wanted to stay and see how I could be of help at the hospital. We had no way of keeping in touch as Ben’s cell phone wasn’t working, so we agreed we would just meet up at Villa Creole later that night. And just like that, we parted ways.
I wasn’t really sure where to be– or who to talk to. There were people at the hospital from organizations from all over the world, including multiple red crosses, and dozens of NGOs. So after making a brief circle of the the ground, getting a feel for the layout of things, I approached a random doctor who simply appeared to be more in charge then other doctors around. Illusion or not, he was the man to talk to. I told him I was a photographer, had no medical background, but was at least a healthy body and would do anything he wanted me to do. I told him I was putting my camera down for the day.

Without a moment of hesitation he slapped a badge on me– he was with the International Medical Corps– and gave me a job: assisting a young doctor named Patrick to put together a new pediatrics ward in a portion of the hospital that hadn’t collapsed. Along with Patrick we assembled a group of young Haitian volunteers and began begging the stout, sharp-tongued Haitian woman who operated as the pharmacist to give us a supplies to stock the ward. Since supplies were terribly scarce, she took her job very seriously as the gatekeeper between doctors in various roles that tried to beg and coerce her into giving them more of this or that. By the end of the day, I’d sweet talked her into giving us pretty much everything on our list, and I think she still liked me when it was all said and done.

Patrick could not have been much older then me. He looked to be 29 years old. But back in California he was an emergency room MD who split his time between the states, and doing work with IMC in Iraq. He was friendly and hard-working and impressed me immediately.
The team of young Haitians that were with me spoke no English, and I no Creole, but we sweated together all day, gathering usable hospitable beds and mattresses from empty, dingy corners of the hospital and corralling them in two large rooms at the top of a stairway in the back portion of the hospital. As soon as a few beds were set up, doctors and nurses were bombarding us with requests to bring children in. There was simply no room anywhere else. Frantically, I continued to haul filthy mattresses in, dust them off, and cover them with hospital gowns so they could start laying children on them.

For the first hour or so of working, there was no doctor in the new pediatrics ward we were assembling. But finally one arrived. She was frantic, clearly stressed. I did everything I could to help her set the unit up comfortably so she could make rounds and give proper care. Her name was Dr. Conde, and she was a Haitian-American from Brooklyn. Other nurses that accompanied her were Haitian-born as well. One of them lived blocks away from me in Harlem.

At first I don’t think Dr. Conde knew what to make of me. I didn’t tell her I was a photographer, just a volunteer with the International Medical Corps– which was true. But the longer I was with her, rushing in and out of the pharmacy, grabbing meager supplies when I could, and helping transport children from stretchers onto beds, the more she warmed to me. And she was a good doctor.

Finally the two rooms that made up the new ward were filled with young children– many of them no older then three– some of them literally minutes old. I was hot and incredibly thirsty when I glanced out the window and saw that the sun was sinking below the horizon. I was losing light, and there was no electricity in the building. I asked Dr. Conde if it would be okay if I took a few pictures. “Of course!” There was no more work for me to do, so I grabbed my camera and made a single round through the ward.

Most of the children I was photographing had seen me around all day. As far as they were concerned, I was a doctor. So when I approached their beds with a smile, there was a warmness already between us. I followed suit with the journalist I had seen earlier. Whenever I took a photo, I made the “May I?” gesture. And sometimes I would even get a smile. There were children with recently amputated limbs, severe burns and lacerations, struggling newborns, head injuries, and on and on.

After I finished taking pictures, I asked the nurses if there was anything else I could do. They had one more request: there were some limited pain medications being given, but the nurses were starting worry. As dusk passed, and darkness set in, they were deeply concerned that in the night, with no pain meds, no one would sleep. That the children would cry in agony all night, exhaust themselves, and exhaust the staff. So I set off on my last mission for the day.

I ran down to the pharmacy to make one last minute inquiry, but found the doors locked and bolted shut. I made a few circles of the compound. Most volunteers had left. The medical help at boiled down to the skeleton crew. But I caught a glimpse of Patrick hauling a man in on a stretcher.

“Patrick!” He looked over at me, clearly exhausted. “We need acedomedophine for the kids.”

He pointed me in the direction of a storage closet that might still be open. “We have some donated supplies we’ve been hiding in there. See if you can get to them.”

As I was walking away something dawned on me and my heart sank. “Patrick!” I called after him again. He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Where are you staying?”

“Villa Creole, in Petionville.” My spirits rose again. “Perfect! Me too. Can I get a ride back there?”

“Of course.”

With that I hurried off to the IMC horde, which turned out to be a few meager boxes of random, mostly useless, medical supplies. But there was adult-strength acedomedophine which could be administered in small doses to the kids. I grabbed a box of it and ran back up to the nurses who almost kissed me.

When I left the ward, it was completely dark. The nurses were making rounds with flashlights and getting ready for another long night shift.
I hurried back to the IMC makeshift headquarters on site and barely made the vanload that was heading back up the hill to Villa Creole. At this point I was well past my deadline for meeting Ben, so I hoped he hadn’t somehow left without me. I piled in with the International Medical Corps crew, who I decided were a pretty likable bunch, and we slowly bounced and bumped our way up hill back to Petionville.
When I arrived at Petionville I managed to scrounge a bottle of water. I pulled two Clif bars out of my bag and sat down at a table by the pool. Virtually everyone, doctors and press alike, had arrived back at the hotel base and were buzzing around me. Ben, however, was nowhere to be seen.

After sitting alone for a few minutes munching on a carrot-cake flavored Clif bar, the IMC crew found me and pulled chairs up around my table. Patrick plopped an ice-cold Red Stripe down in front of me. Most of the day I had been keenly aware of my inability to really help any of the patients at General Hospital. But it was nice to feel appreciated and, more importantly, to feel a sense of community. I sat for a while and chatted with them as they recounted stories from the previous days, as well as from their time in Iraq and around the world.
Around 10 PM, I received a text from my friend Jonathan. Jonathan was a friend of mine whom I’d known for years. We originally met because of a trip I took in 2006 to Uganda. I had stayed with him in Lira, Uganda where he was working to start an orphanage, so we were used to seeing each other in the context of the third world. He traveled far more then I did to impoverished places all over the globe, producing video pieces for various organizations. The night I was contemplating going to Haiti, I had called Jonathan.
“Hey man” I had said, “What are you up to?”

“Oh, just got back to Orange County. Hopefully I’ll be back here for a while.” He hesitated. “Well, actually that’s not true. I’m possibly going to Haiti tomorrow.”

“No way! Me too. That’s actually why I’m calling!”

Jonathan informed me he was waiting for funding for a possible trip to Port au Prince. We exchanged information and he gave me some leads on contacts in Haiti. One of them was an orphanage called Child Hope International.

Jonathan is a rare gem. Once in Uganda we had been driving to meet someone at a local restaurant. It was 10 o’clock at night and we were already hours late. But yet at the site of some street children he recognized, he pulled the van over and spent a half an hour catching up with the boys, making sure they had a place to stay, making sure they had food. He had a preferential view to the poorest– often quoting Psalm 68:5 which calls God the “father of the fatherless.” Fatherless himself, Jonathan has a massive heart for the orphans of the world, and he’s devoted his young life so far to that end.

Jonathan had been to Haiti before and had a lot of quality footage of conditions before the quake– specifically of the orphan situation– which was something few news organizations had. So now Jonathan was working closely with CNN on a documentary on which he later became co-producer, along with CNN’s Soledad O’brien.

Throughout my trip so far, I had been texting back and forth with Jonathan– mostly for general news and to share tips. But now he was texting me, anxious to meet up. I told him I was at Villa Creole. He said he’d been there before and was not far down the road. In a matter of a half an hour he, along with his girlfriend Lindsay, who was there for Food for the Hungry, arrived at Villa Creole.

I was elated to see them. I gave Jonathan a bear hug. He and Lindsay looked at the buzzing makeshift newsroom/compound around them and then assessed me. I was more of a wreck then when I had woken up. Now covered in more dirt, the physical labor of the day had caused me to sweat, the dirt and filth on me to cake and smear, and I’m sure I smelled atrocious.

As they started asking me questions about my situation, I started to become aware of its’ bizarreness. We walked outside of the hotel to the dark driveway where their car was parked.

“Where have you been sleeping, brother?” Jonathan asked me.

“Well, wherever. Last night I slept in the back of a truck.”

“How much money do you have?”

That I didn’t know. I pulled out my wallet and slid the remaining cash out of it. It was then that I realized I had only eight dollars. I didn’t say the amount out loud, they saw it.

“You only have eight bucks?” Lindsay sounded startled.

Well, I had more then that in my bank account obviously, I retorted, but there weren’t exactly a plethora of financial institutions from which to withdraw money.

“Maybe we shouldn’t hang out in the dark out here too long,” I said, “last night there were gunshots over by our truck.”

“Adam,” Jonathan was concerned, “you slept outside while there were gunshots?” The situation was actually starting to strike us as a little humorous. It was apparent to them that I hadn’t really thought about the situation, and we all three laughed a little about it. I probably did look pretty silly– gaunt, filthy, with only eight dollars in my wallet, in a ravaged country far from home, and beaming wildly to them as I retold my adventures over the last few days as if it was all part of a hilarious lucid dream.

“Well, you know something, so far God has pretty well taken care of me,” I said. “I haven’t needed anything.”

“Well maybe us arriving is God taking care of you” Lindsay mused. Almost immediately after she said those words, we heard the “pop-pop” of further gunshots not far from us. We hit the ground. While flat against the ground ducking for cover, with Jonathan’s car next to us, Jonathan smiled over at me, “You’re coming with us.” I agreed.

First, I needed to leave word of where I’d gone in case Ben arrived. At this point it was late, almost eleven. I talked to several of the journalists that had seen me with Ben, as well as the front desk. I told them to tell Ben that I was going to the Plaza Hotel and would be back in the morning. They all agreed, and I climbed in to Lindsay and Jonathan’s car and headed down the road to the Plaza.

The Plaza was a whole other world. It was a fully functioning, fully intact, first-world style hotel. The first thing we did was drop our bags off in their air-conditioned room. I marveled at the amenities. Then we headed over to the hotel restaurant. I filled my plate with food from the buffet and found a seat. Jonathan and Lindsay joined me as well as a young California guy from a small local non-profit. Shortly after I began eating, Soledad O’brien and her producer sat down with us. Everyone began recounting the devastation they’d seen. But mostly, conversation transferred to politics, bureaucracy, and philosophies about the plight of Haiti. As we chatted, I became suddenly insecure of my appearance. My jeans were covered in dust and my fingernails were black. Everyone else here was showered, and under the circumstances, pretty well groomed.

After dinner, I went back to Jonathan and Lindsay’s hotel room and took my first real shower in Haiti. It was, needless to say, so refreshing. I looked down at my feet and watched the gray water drain away.

Before heading off to bed, Jonathan and I went up to the deck overlooking the massive tent city outside in the main square. Anderson Cooper was concluding his evening broadcast. We watched in awe as Cooper did what he does best. It was such a strange site to stand twenty feet from a CNN broadcast, giant floodlights illuminating the tent-city backdrop that represented such tragedy in a country so neglected and spat upon by the rest of the world.

I went to bed early. Jonathan had to meet with CNN producers about his piece, to review footage and talk logistics. I curled up inside my sleeping bag and slept soundly until about 6 AM when the second earthquake shook the grounds of the hotel.

The creative habit is my therapy.

It’s drizzly and warm in Brooklyn today. Last night I stayed at the Lippke Studio until late working and then had a nightcap with Andrea and Ira. It was great to catch up with my dear friends and re-hash the last couple of weeks with them.

Still working on getting back into a groove. I’m hoping to get caught up on work this week so that I can play a little this weekend without stress… Perhaps some bike rides and escaping the heat in a museum or movie theater or two.

In other news– I might have just knocked some time off of my probationary period as a true New Yorker. Does getting mugged help push me up the list? No? Well how about getting mugged– and then chasing my mugger 6 blocks through SoHo?

Needless to say Ira was gracious enough to pass on his gently used iPhone 3G to me to hold me over until I upgrade in September. And don’t worry– I’m totally fine. No harm done. I hope that guy needed my phone more then I.

Some random thoughts from reading today since I don’t feel like writing many of my own words:

…You cannot tell me who I am, and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you? Others can give you a name or a number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something you yourself can only discover from within.

That brings us to a second problem. Although in the end we alone are capable of experiencing who we are, we are instinctively gifted in watching how others experience themselves. We learn to live by living together with others, and by living like them– a process which has disadvantages as well as blessings.

The greatest of disadvantages is that we are too prone to welcome everybody else’s wrong solution to the problems of life. There is a natural laziness that moves us to accept the easiest solutions– the ones that have common currency among friends. That is why an optimistic view of life is not necessarily always a virtuous thing. In a time like ours, only the coarse grained still have enough resistance to preserve their fair-weather principles unclouded by anxiety. Such optimism may be comfortable: but is it safe? In world where every lie has currency, is not anxiety the more real and the more human reaction?

Now anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity.  It is the fruit of unanswered questions.  But questions cannot go unanswered unless they first be asked.  And there is a far worse insecurity, which comes from being afraid to ask the right questions– because they might turn out to have no answer.  One of the moral diseases we communicate to each other in society comes from huddling together in the pale light of an insufficient answer to a question we are afraid to ask.

But there are other diseases also.  There is the laziness that pretends to dignify itself as dispair, and that teaches us to ignore both the question and the answer.  And there is the despair which dresses itself up as science or philosophy and amuses itself with clever answers to clever questions– none of which have anything to do with the problems of life.  Finally there is the worst and most insidious despair, which can mask as mysticism or prophecy, and which intones a prophetic answer to a prophetic question.  That, I think, is likely to be a [religious person's] professional hazard, so I purify myself of it at the beginning, like Amos who complained, “I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet, but I am a herdsman, plucking wild figs.”

-Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island

Well, I’ve been back in New York for almost a week now and it’s been great to get relatively back into the swing of things. I’ve been working on post-production, going to client meetings, enduring the unbelievable heat and humidity, and… eating ENORMOUS amounts of Italian food. On Tuesday I headed out to Long Island in the car I’m borrowing from my parents along with Nate, Holly, Hillary, and Allison, and we gorged ourselves on a 5-hour long feast of epic proportions. Allison’s very Italian grandparents graciously hosted us and served up an authentic Italian feast.

We then spent the next 24 hours in a carb coma. It was well worth it…

(Click here to see a slightly larger version of the above image)

Last night I rode my bike from my apartment at 148th street down to Hell’s Kitchen– 46th street. New York was a maze of police, tourists, families, road-blocks, police horses, and children. I weaved my way slowly down the Hudson, the sun exploding over the Jersey skyline, and finally made my way into mid-town, covered in sweat from the heat and the ride.

Once the fireworks started (shot off of 6 barges, 1,500 shells a minute for 26 straight minutes), I stood back from the group of friends that had gathered on the rooftop of a Hell’s Kitchen apartment and thought about this city. About how hard it’s outer shell is– but how beautiful it’s people are. I prayed for its people and remembered how much I love it here. It was a good moment. And later as Vic and I sat in lawn-chairs and chatted (we felt like the god-fathers at the party), I knew– I felt it– that I’m where I’m supposed to be.

At least for now.

I have clearly been silent here.

In fact, I was shocked to see that the last time I posted was on May 24, 2010.  So, for all of June and some few days in May and July, I just haven’t been present in the blogosphere.  Some time in the middle of June was the two year anniversary of the day I posted for the first time.  Since then I’ve posted some 559 posts.  Blogging, for me, is an outlet.  But mostly a creative outlet.  In general (but with some exceptions) I tend to keep it pretty professional.  Yes, the things I write and the pictures I post are reflective of my life.  But this website is primarily a forum for sharing images, and less a place for spewing my deepest thoughts and desires.

That is why, my friends, I went 40 days without posting.  Because sometimes life takes over, and what can be very therapeutic (blogging) is instead a complete drag.

In other words, when things get heavy for me, sometimes I’m just silent.  But fear not… I’m here.  I’m back.  Ready for action.  After 36 days away from New York, I’m back.  I did some spring cleaning today (since I missed out at the end of May), and I’m now sitting on my bed, with a terrier at my side, on top of a pile of freshly laundered sheets, pillow cases, and duvet covers, thinking.  Feeling relieved.  Feeling like I’m getting back to reality.  Feeling the heaviness start to lift.

I’ll keep things generally brief.  I’m terrible at that… but it’s worth a shot.

For those of you that regularly peruse the images on this blog, Nathan Pelz will be a familiar name.  Or at least a familiar face:

Back in May (oh my gosh– has it really been this long??) it was discovered that Nate had a baseball-sized tumor in his abdomen.  After visiting with an oncologist, Nate and his wife Holly made an appointment for an out-patient needle biopsy for Friday, May 28, 2010.  It was supposed to be quick, relatively painless.

With some freedom in my schedule during that time, I flew out to Phoenix to hang out with Holly and Nate, two of my dearest friends, as they awaited the results of the pathology report.  However, by the time I woke up at 6:00 AM the morning after Nate’s biopsy to head to Laguardia, I had a frantic text message from Holly that Nate had been kept at the hospital overnight and had been in extreme pain.  She was, understandably, terrified.

It would be a project beyond what I’m capable of completing right now to try and transcribe how the next 6 weeks played out.  Your best bet is to head over to the blog we created where you can read and see much of the details of the journey Holly and Nate have been through. I told Holly’s sister, Hillary, that I couldn’t write anything on here until now.  Whatever I would have written would have been charged with way too much melodrama– something I’m often prone to when writing about things that profoundly effect me.  So I’ll refrain from being too verbose with the exception of a few minor points…

When I was in Haiti in January I held a 7 year old boy with a gangrene severed foot while he was anesthetized (needle-to-bone) for amputation.  He weeped, clawed at my neck, cried out, and eventually wet himself in my arms.  In the hospital in Phoenix, I spent four nights up with Nate.  The type of pain he was feeling, I was told by one doctor, is some of the worst pain a human can experience.  I stayed up through the night watching Nate sweating, shaking, yelling.  And there was nothing I could do about it.  It reminded me of that boy in Haiti.

Even now, I have a hard time thinking or talking about those nights in Phoenix.  As much as this last month and a half has been a roller coaster , those were by far the worst parts for me– culminating on the fifth day.  It was then that Nate sat his brother and I down in the hospital room to tell us, with a trembling voice, that he had an aggressive tumor that was wrapped around his superior mesenteric artery, that it was inoperable, and that it was probably going to eventually kill him.  I’ll never ever forget that moment.  Only thirteen months after Nate and I shared the burden of carrying our twenty-six year-old friends’ casket, I was now watching Nate face his own mortality.  And as I sat in the hospital room with Nate, many of the same emotions from that friends’ funeral started flooding back.

But at the risk of continuing my reputation as a plot-spoiler, I can tell you that this story has a happy ending.  However, before things went from bad back to better, there was an interim of waiting.  And during that waiting I saw some pretty powerful things happen.

After being taken by air ambulance from Phoenix to Indiana University Hospital in Indianapolis, I drove Nate’s car, along with Jon’s brother and Holly’s good friend Allison, to Indiana.  On the morning we arrived, a group of people crowded into Nate’s hospital room to pray for him.

I remember he was looking frail and broken.  He was still battling severe pain, was confused by the many unanswered questions, and overwhelmed by the possibility of the worst.  Yet we gathered, a scattered and awkward community, and joined hands around him.  We were a complicated crew.  There was certainly some broken relationships– perhaps some poisoned relationships.  But we all had one thing in common– the desire for a miracle.  I looked around the room.  I knew all those people quite well.  I knew the brokenness. I also knew how all these people loved Nate.

And then Nate’s father, Dave, asked him if he had any thing he wanted to say.

Nate was exhausted.  But he managed to say a few words. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know that God wants to use this to heal broken relationships.”

I guess I don’t know how to feel about everything that happened.  I mean, primarily I’m just thankful that my friend, who I thought might be dead by now, is very much alive.  But when things like this happen I’m always knocking my head against the wall, trying to figure out in the midst of the aftermath– “How should I now live?”

And I know it’s not about me.  It’s not even about Nate.  But it feels right to look inward before I look outward.  So that’s what I’m doing.  Now that my feet are back on the ground, that’s my starting point.

In the mean time, please check out Nate and Holly’s complete story.  Read the comments.  See how a community of people rallied and prayed, and how things went from bad, to worse, to better, to worse, to best.  You can also check out local news coverage of their journey here.

Consider my silence here broken.

I don’t feel exhausted, though.  I feel relaxed and grateful.  New York is warming up, it feels like summer already, and I’m so excited for the month of June to come.  It’s going to be an incredible month, I can feel it.

Meanwhile I’m continuing to get caught up on past shoots and blog posts.  Back in November I had the pleasure of documenting and attending my good friend (and colleague) Ira and his wife (and good friend) Andrea’s wedding.  I’ve shared the video on here, but I haven’t shared some of the images I caught in between shooting.

Ira’s brother (and good friend, and fellow photographer-extraoridinaire) Samuel Lippke co-documented and took care of photography end of things.  You can check out his photos of the week here.

This was one of the most fun weeks of my life.  Enjoy!

I decided captures were in order…

Landing in Denver.

Outside Carnegie Hall before the Opera.

I go past 30 rock every Sunday on the way to church... but this day (I think in Feburary) I decided to take a quick pic... as they say.

Arriving for my end-of-February trip to LA. SNA is becoming my airport of choice thanks to my United loyalty.

A wintry breakfast in Harlem.

Herminone a la Burberry en GQ.

Portfolio is one of my Long Beach, CA haunts... I have a quote above my bed from the Arcade Fire that says "Sleeping is giving in, so lift those heavy eyelids." As I get older, I'm fighting a losing battle with sleep.

Manhattan... Beach, CA. 5:30 AM.

"When you're poor, you live off what you see."

Samuel Lippke Studios.

Charlie wearing my old westsuit looking like a 3-year-old.

A storm coming in from the West towards Denver. Denver trip 1 of 2.

That Denver storm the next morning. Stuck in Denver.

Some MoMA design inspiration.

Out the plane window. Lately I always sit on the left window if I can. That's Manhattan btw.

Denver from above. Trip 2 of 2.

Some vagabond stopping through New York en route to far off lands. We get a lot of those. A LOT. Conner Cress, Ladies & Gentlemen.

LiNK. www.linkglobal.com

Some airport. Maybe Newark?

Downtown LA after a shoot.

The first week of blooming spring.

Our new street. Hamilton Heights. Manhattan.

Central Park.

Spring is a confusing month, weather-wise.

more inspiration.

Central Park. (and Ben Bishop's hands).

I went to a show the other night that was really nostalgic for me. A couple years ago when I was first posting photos from my time spent on the road on this little blog, I went to see a couple of great British imports– Johnny Flynn, Mumford & Sons, and Laura Marling. I was blown away, and sort of fell in love with this wave of Brit-folk that was coming from across the pond.

I’ve continued to follow all three bands (along with Noah and the Whale), and have photographed Mumford & Sons’ live a couple of times since. It was a blast to see Laura again the other night at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. She’s such an old soul, with incredible music-writing ability and an impeccable sound. Above is a little (shaky) video I made of her song “Hope in the Air” from her album “I Speak Because I Can”– which you should buy now. I also am posting a little recording (below) of a cover she did of Jackson C. Frank’s “Blues Run the Game.” Really beautiful.

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In the midst of running some errands in the city today, I stopped at the MoMA to finally get a glance at the incredibly comprehensive Henri Cartier Bresson exhibition. Bresson was born in 1908 and lived to be almost 100 years old. He is widely considered to be the father of modern journalism. I must say walking through the exhibit was overwhelming– but I felt somehow connected to Bresson. Even though his work is prolific, far greater, and more comprehensive then my own, and much of his photographs were taken over 75 years ago, I feel very connected to the man, to his work, and to his eye.

In an era where photographers’ work are typically very specialized and stylized (something I can’t always relate to) I appreciate Bresson’s ability to just TAKE A GREAT PHOTOGRAPH– whether it’s a moment– a shadow, a bike whizzing by, trees in the wind–  a portrait of a famous artist, or of a moment of great suffering.

Looking through his work I felt connected to the people and places he saw because I’ve photographed, in my limited travels (compared to his) many of the same places– industrial China, Turkish workers in Istanbul, England, and France and so on.

If you get a chance while in New York before the end of June, stop by. You’ll get an education– not only in photography, but in history, and especially in how to see.

I’ve now logged 100+ hours on the project I’m currently working on. I’m terrible with spoilers… but I can’t help it.

For those of you that have a self-hosted WordPress site like I do, you might be experiencing the same unbelievably aggravating image-upload issues that I am… It’s frustrating when you go through the trouble to upgrade software, and it’s a downgrade. Fix this, WordPress. You’re making my blogging life not-so-fun.

Now that I have that off my chest… Here are some photos from a week I spent in August in the Santa Cruz mountains with some of the people I love the most in the world in the place that I love almost more then anywhere else in the world. Having not looked at these images in 9 months, they have new meaning to me and I was surprised how much I love them– I almost don’t remember taking them.

This is also a prime example of how constantly behind I am on post-production… I just finished editing these photos.

I spent the weekend in Santa Maria, CA with 25 friends– old and new– for the 3rd annual Fauxchella. It’s our own gorilla music festival where we hang out, eat, and collaborate making music for 48 hours– culminating in a Saturday night concert and dance party.

You can see last years post from Fauxchella here, and I’m sure Laurel will have a big blog post of her photos soon.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures throughout the weekend (although the ones I did were apparently mostly of Ashley), because I spent the weekend filming everything along with my good friend Todd. So I’ve posted a little video from Saturday night of Josh performing. More to come.

Meet Angi Welsch. (And meet Levi, and the rest of a mixed family of 16). I wrote a lot of stuff that I decided was bollocks. Just enjoy this tiny preview of what really needs to be seen in person. At the very bottom of this post is the piece that I traded with her for. Love LOVE it.

Me making a mess at age 25.

Me making a mess at age 2.

Levi making a mess.