so many....

Another cold day in San Francisco but also a colder day elsewhere. There's always someplace warmer o colder than where you are, and if you think of it, you can warm yourself with that thought. Who doesn't dream?

With the news these days attacking and hounding yet another personality with details of a personal life, it just seems so insane. Who is the perfect husband or wife? Who can honestly say that their life is the only life that is without mistakes? There isn't one individual in this world who is perfect... of course, if one thinks this, they are probably living a lie.

For many years I've know people... many people. As a photographer, I meet a lot of people and many become friends. Still others become close friends. In my life young and old, I've had the curse or blessing to just have people come up to me and tell me things. Intimate things.... very personal things a stranger shouldn't be told. Yes, this continues to this day but I am not complaining. I am honored any person would trust me enough that they share tidbits of their past, current or future life with me.

Some persons I've known are in such depressing relationships - it's so unfair to both. I have known and still know many others (growing by the year) people who are in "relationships" but it's an unreal situation. I know too many women who are married who sleep alone.... rarely if at all, talk to their husbands. Why is it it's mostly women and not men? Regardless of gender, it seems so unfair. The male of this "couple" does nothing with the woman to whom they are married: not cooking, no traveling together, no nothing. It has caused me to lok at couples I see on the street, wondering if they just met, or even if they know each other. Too often I see a "couple" together but walking so apart from each other... one wouldn't even be able to tell they were together but for the constant distance from each other.... and when one stops, the other might stop too but at a distance. I used to know a couple and when one would stop to talk to a friend met on the street, the other would continue walking. How rude! I asked why is this and she told me "Oh, he doesn't like my friends so he moves on and stays busy till I'm finished". If one is a couple, they should together join in presenting and communicating with this friend.... I think it is rude and inconsiderate to act in such behavior. I would like to see if there is an increasing rate of this happening in couples....

My opinion is that if a couple cannot stay together, they should separate. Why not" it's just a charade that isn't being kept very well. To stay together is an insult to both individuals and to those who know them. If the woman isn't sleeping with her mate, isn't eating with him either, and doing much much less, one should leave. Unfortunately in this day and age, I suspect this happens more than previously thought.

If someone really loves a person but cannot live as a true couple bound in love, then that love is gone. Let that individual go to fly again.

A dear friend of mine lost her mother, a fine lovely lady whom I had the pleasure of meeting, though not under the best of conditions. My friend cared for hermother alone, holding down a fulltime job and still trying to prvide the best care possible to her mother. I wonder how many people are doing this all over the world? It's something that will increase in time as the current population grows older and longer with us.... but the longevity of Life presents another problem to those who are our children: Where is the fine line that defines "Quality of Life" if the person does nothing but rusts away as does a nail with water, a once-loved car that now sits quietly in the corner, or a friend who is forgotten with time?

I am not saying my friend forgot her mother.... oh no! She did quite well, alone and working, still caring for her mother. But Quality of Life to you or me may not be the same for others. Is Life considered that when a person cannot eat or even walk alone? Is Life something that comes or goes when memory fails and not even the person caring for you cannot be remembered by name?

When it is my time to leave this world, I will go running. I will go with a loud noise, I won't be quiet. I want people to SEE me running and active, and with the noise I make, that I am not going of my own accord. I want to see places and people. I want friends, the very few I have... to talk to me and I will remember their names. I want to keep on exercising with that weight I call a camera, to record places and things I've seen and want to remember and share with others. When I sit down and cannot get up, cannot eat without assistance, when someone must bath me everyday.... when I sit forgotten because the world is passing me by.......

then I am ready long ago. Take me because then I am not alive, and Life is no longer in me.

the golden gate.....

I am always miserable when I see a sunset that is so beautiful that my bones hurt. It happened again when few days ago when I saw from my bedroom window the clouds start to turn pink...... .....sometimes I think I am back inside my apartment in southern Spain since from my balcony windows I can see the beginnings of the sunsets, and have just ten minutes to walk quickly to the beach with camera in hand....

I love watching the sunrises and sunsets... if you know me on Facebook you'll know I try to describe the sunrises I briefly see and often cannot record. I can see a bit of both from the windows of my cell. I can see just a bit of the East Bay and just a bit more of the North Bay and Richmond across the bay.... as I type this I can see the calm light blue waters of the San Francisco Bay and it looks so peaceful and lovely... sighSo, the other day I missed a gorgeous sunset.... I hate it when I am inside organizing my files. I spend so many hours doing this... it seems all of my work to be done involves a keyboard and a monitor.... it seems to me it's inhuman to be indoors when the sun sets when I should be outside enjoying that final splash of color upon the hills, seeing all the windows brighten as they reflect the lowering sun... last night's set was no less than a flaming glow that burned the clouds, put the bay afire, and had everyone out to watch this glorious colorful day's finale.Why would anyone, me included, sit in front of a computer or even worse: a television set when the real drama that is Life sits beyond our imprisonment of confining walls. I wonder if this generation will remember where the air is free and filled with laughter and sadness, hearing the noisy sounds of the day and muted sounds of each night... and recall easily a time and place when kids and adults mingle in that non-virtual reality show that does not come to us through emissions or cables.... sigh

On the other hand, I have been shooting black and white more... I love BLACK AND WHITE!! I love the softness of the grays upon skin, and the shadow details when there is texture... and there is LOTs of texture in this world we call Life!I remember a time past when, for over 30 years I loaded film for my hungry camera into those tiny black film cassettes, and processed film within a small dark room. After I started living in Spain, I built my own dedicated darkroom, then would shoot during the day, then process and print during the night..... and I intend to return to that life within a few more years.... :-) I don't want to live in front of a monitor, looking at digital images, wondering how long my virtual negatives will exist on CDs, DVDs or on some hard drive.

I want to touch my negatives..... want to see the magic of photography as the images appear before my eyes in the dark....

From last night, I share with you these images from my mind and my eyes.... if you see beauty, then thank Nature and Life. I am just a traveler in this world, passing through ever so slightly and softly... never to return nor to look back.... eyes always ahead to the future.... that isn't virtual but a Life of real dreams, real people, with its disadvantages of fears, its cries of pain and tears, but also of happy moments and love, laughter and words....