INSTRUMENTS

The art of musical instruments. Their lines, their curves, their shape and size always attracts my eye. Think of the evolution of an instruement. The sultry curve in a sax horn, the beautiful circular curves of a French horn, the full silhouette of a base cello, the delicate architecture of a flute - instruments are art on their own and yet what evolutionary path did each one travel to become the look and sound they are today?

We often focus on the artist, the musicians themselves, but there's a reason why musicians have their favorite guitar or violen...there's a reason why they remember their first trumpet or sax or electric guitar...we all remember our first loves; it's the very reason why B.B. King calls his guitar Lucille...it's his one true love through a life of many.

SIGN LETTERING, PHILADELPHIA

Stopped into this fabulous coffee shop, La Colombe, near Rittenhouse Square for a delicious double espresso. It was the very best espresso of my life. 

As I turned from the counter I noticed a sign maker hand lettering their cafe name across the front window.  

I was on my way to a meeting, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to capture this craftsman at work.

WINTER WALK

As night closes in and the snow continues to fall, I head out for an evening walk. The drifts are deep and as the sidewalk is uncleared I am forced to walk in the road, in the uneven tire ruts of salted snow. The path is uneven and challenging, but the exercise is good and needed. The cold bites my face, nips at my ears and I close the front of my coat high around my neck. I pass a beautiful old cemetary that is hidden beneath deep drift and the dark canopy of a beautiful grove of pine trees. The winds rush through their branches and I hear my father's voice reading Robert Frost to me...

"...The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep..."

The memory of my father overtakes me. I find myself wrapped in the comfort and solace of the night, and the realization comes upon me yet again that I truly am my father's son. I recall his own sojourns into similar snowy evenings. The more inclement the weather the more likely he would walk. Somehow we have both found a meditative peace in nature at night. Perhaps it's the fact that the details revealed in daylight are distracting and overpowering to our other senses, but in the darkness of night, especially in the midst of a storm, the more delicate sounds of life are more pronounced; and the "sweep of wind and downy flake..." become the soundtrack to one's thoughts.

And on this night, this storm, during this walk I found a sense of peace, and calm and place. The roads were deserted, the soft golden glow of house lights spilled out across the drifts of snow and as I walked past frozen rivers and fields I could sense the world of my small town was safe and warm and bedding down in their homes.

It was my father that first introduced me to the poetry of Robert Frost, and it was this poet who pulled back the cold curtain of winter to reveal the mystery and beauty of a New England winter.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

"Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep."

Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost. Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Source: Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays (Library of America, 1995)

MUSIC: 5 BANDS, 2 STAGES, 1 NIGHT

PRIME

We are in search of the perfect prime rib meal. We will be roaming North America, the UK, Japan, France, Argentina (and anywhere else our taste buds lead us!) in search of the ultimate experience with this classic cut of beef. We're interviewing chefs, cattlemen, butchers, artisan cheese makers, wine critics, mixologists, organic vegetable farmers...restaurant critics, and all things culinary as we search for the secrets of creating extraordinary prime rib dinners, from starters to deserts, for our forthcoming publication: PRIME: Reinventing The Classic Prime Rib Experience.

This past week we launched our search in New York City.

WINTER SNOW

COMPOSITION AND THE FUGITIVE MOMENT: THE CREATION OF A PHOTOGRAPH

"Composition must be one of our constant preoccupations..."

--Henri Cartier-Bresson

Bresson went onto write, "...but at the moment of shooting it can stem only from our intuition, for we are out to capture the fugitive moment..."

"The fugitive moment"

How brilliant, insightful and true. As photographers, we are in constant search of that special moment where light, subject, and photographer intersect creating an image that's moving and lasting.

Two nights ago I was in Seattle. I walked and searched the streets trying to find the crossroad where my camera and the world would intersect. I was hoping to create an image or two of such "fugitive moments". I'm drawn towards the possibilities that can be found shooting at night, the way light and shadow and darkness spill into one another, mixing together mystery and happenstance and opportunity. I am awakened by the energy of the street, by the unknown that's around the next corner; the shop keeper closing up the store, the kitchenhand taking out empty fruit crates to the dumpster, the band loading their gear into the van at the end of a night's performance... I'm on the hunt for that decisive moment where the image can tell a story or in fact begin one.

Every night shoot leaves indelible experiences on me, especially those that show the solitude that is found on the streets of a large and normally bustling city. Timing is everything, and for me a city offers the most opportunity, comes alive with endless possibilities, when others might see it as asleep.

It had been years since I was last in Seattle, but I had a genuine sense of where I wanted to explore; exactly where I was warned not to be by the bartender who had just served me an amazing dinner of fresh oysters, Dungeness crab cocktail and a lovely black cod entree. In truth, I did start off with the best intentions of avoiding the back streets of the Public Market, I was still dressed in my business attire, I was too noticeable, too much a target, a mark for street predators, but the foot traffic, the sounds of a street musician, the wafting smell of Ganja being smoked by passersby led me to the cobblestone streets of an area that is a tourist spot by day, with a seedy soul by night. It wasn't quite late enough that safety gave way to danger as businesses had just closed, commuters were still vacating the streets, and two lone food trucks were shutting down their kitchens. I either looked like I was a business man at the end of his long day, or one in search of dope. A few hours later I would be a target with my camera as the perfect object to heist.

MAINE WINTER

The heavy snowfalls are still to come, but the powderings to-date have collected and stayed, covering wood and field, fairway and river edge in white.

The artic air has swung low, settling in along the coast of Maine, forcing the Atlantic Ocean to freeze at her tidelines; -11 degrees without a wind chill factored in. A cold that bites bare skin, especially hands at work trying to hold steady the metal bodies of cameras and the steel barrels around glass lenses. I shiver in the early morning air trying to compose and capture my subjects in the clean, stark white light of this season.

"Mercy" is not a word that winter knows...if at all. And least not in January along the coast of Maine.

PORTRAIT OF A CONVERSATION

BARNS

I love barns. It's not simply the architecture, the classic lines, the purposeful design, or even the post and beam construction that lures me in, (though the post and beam construction still leaves me in awe,) there's something more to a barn than the carpenter's line and structure.

Most towns in New England have several historic barns still in use, restored or being lost to time. As I pass them I can't help but think of the hands that came together to build them, "raise them" as often spoken. Perhaps it's this community spirit that still resonates from these structures. And maybe that's one reason why modern post and beam construction, where the workmanship is done in a factory, machine processed and shipped to site, and with the aid of hydraulic machinery assembled much like a child's link and log set. Though lovely, these structures lack the spirit and soul that resonates from even a collapsed 200 or 300-year old barn. One might still sense a special quality to these modern barn-like structures, but I believe that has more to do with the timbers, the wood itself, rather that the combination and spiritual side of man and nature creating something purposeful.

The truth is this: Rarely has one man built a large barn alone: the task is daunting, overwhelming, physically demanding and nearly Herculean in scope. Herein is why barn raisings were as much about a town or community as they were about the farmer or cattleman: centuries ago, it took a village to raise a barn; it took the bonds of family, friendship, neighborliness, and true community to build such a purposeful structure.

Trees and Stone: The Elements of A Barn

And then there is the wood itself.  Thick trunks that are straight and true, hand cut, felled by axe or saw or a combination of the two. And the purposefullness of clearing fields where foundations would be built, often from the very rocks labored out of field and soil, a taxing challenge that required brute strength, blacksmith iron bars to be used for leverage, and ox or horse to pull and move stone earth to the construction site. 

Everything needed for building a barn was often near or about. Only the blacksmith's talents for hinges and latches were needed from away. As the farmer prospered and technology advances, the barn might be embellished with trim work, or a weather vane and lightening rods, but the essentials of the barn itself required little more than wood, rock, and community.

Perhaps my fascination and love of barns started as a boy. Whether it was the tobacco barns of the Connecticut River Valley, or the apple cider presses that were housed in barns along the Farmington River in Connecticut where we would travel each fall to taste fresh made cider. Most memorable and influential were and are the classic New England barns of the Vermont countryside. I discovered these on my own, driving a cousin's dirt bike through the back roads of Barnard and West Woodstock. Each structure, each farmstead, active or abandoned, sang out to me, leaving an indelible impression that has guided me to the farmhouse and barn I live in today dating back from from circa 1755.

There are many fine qualities in the architecture and components required to build a barn. I believe they represent the best of who we were as a people, when we were better neighbors, but more importantly, they represent a time when we were each other's keepers.

A NEW YEAR, A NEW LIGHT

The Lighthouse by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Watching the sunrise welcome the new year over the Portland Head Lighthouse, I thought of Longfellow and his beautiful stanza--

“...And the great ships sail outward and return
Bending and bowing o'er the billowy swells,
And ever joyful, as they see it burn
They wave their silent welcome and farewells...”

It is time to say goodbye to the past and search for that new bright and shining light, one that can be found within the hope a new year brings.

"They wave their silent welcome and farewells..."

Goodbye 2014. I will miss you. 

ARE YOU READY FOR MOON HOOCH?

A three piece band — two dynamic and innovative sax players and a drummer who can run a baseline beat through a crowd and drive a feverous pitch from even the most hardened audience — Moon Hooch. If you haven’t heard them, you haven’t heard a new sound in the music scene that’s still being developed… still being written, still being created… they have not reached their crescendo and yet they launch each performance with a musical climax that sustains itself straight to the end, leaving their audiences spent, exhilarated, exhausted, euphoric like addicts looking for their next high while still tripping off their current experience.

This is a group that made a name for themselves on the subway platforms of New York City and is now touring coast to coast. What I can tell you about their sound is this — Recording technology can’t capture its energy, its vibrancy or even come close to squeezing their distinct sound and dynamic range onto tape or press it into a CD… Hear them live or miss the experience all-together, but know that you’ll have forsaken a new wave in music that will vibrate and rush your soul.

From their website: www.moonhooch.com

"Horn players Mike Wilbur and Wenzl McGowen do this by utilizing unique tonguing methods, or adding objects — cardboard or PVC tubes, traffic cones, whatever’s handy — to the bells of their horns to alter their sound. Not to be outdone, drummer James Muschler gets swelling, shimmering sounds from his cymbals, and covers the head of his snare with a stack of splash cymbals to emulate the sound of a Roland TR-808 drum machine’s clap.

"Wilbur was raised in Massachusetts, and Muschler in Ohio; McGowen grew up in several different European countries. The three met while students at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City, and they found in each other a common work ethic and holistic philosophy.”

As one writer noted on their website, "Listening to this music, it’s easy to become emotionally invested...the emotional impact on both the musicians and their fans is visceral and undeniable.”

All photographs, Copyright 2014 John Whalen

VIVIAN MAIER

Vivian Maier,

February 1, 1926 - April 21, 2009

The posthumous discovery of this remarkable street photographer is a story fit for Hollywood… In fact, the documentary film, “Finding Vivian Maier” has released to wonderful reviews:

“Absorbing, touching and satisfyingly enjoyable.”
New York Times

“A moving tribute to Vivian Maier’s art.”
The New Yorker

“Gripping”
LA Times

From the official website:

http://www.findingvivianmaier.com

"Finding Vivian Maier is the critically acclaimed documentary about a mysterious nanny, who secretly took over 100,000 photographs that were hidden in storage lockers and, discovered decades later, is now among the 20th century’s greatest photographers. Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, Maier’s strange and riveting life and art are revealed through never before seen photographs, films, and interviews with dozens who thought they knew her.

Maier’s massive body of work would come to light when in 2007 her work was discovered at a local thrift auction house on Chicago’s Northwest Side. From there, it would eventually impact the world over and change the life of the man who championed her work and brought it to the public eye, John Maloof.

Currently, Vivian Maier’s body of work is being archived and cataloged for the enjoyment of others and for future generations. John Maloof is at the core of this project after reconstructing most of the archive, having been previously dispersed to the various buyers attending that auction. Now, with roughly 90% of her archive reconstructed, Vivian’s work is part of a renaissance in interest in the art of Street Photography.”

I have been following the release of her archives, purchasing a number of books that have been published since her discovery. It’s a true wonder and sadly disturbing that someone with such talent was not celebrated during her lifetime. She is now being hailed as the greatest street photographer of the 20th century — on par with Henri Cartier-Bresson, and yet even her close friends knew little about her talent.

According to The New York Times, we may not see many more of her images for a number of years:

"Now a court case in Chicago seeking to name a previously unknown heir is threatening to tie her legacy in knots and could prevent her work from being seen again for years.” (September 5, 2014)

“Well, I suppose nothing is meant to last forever. We have to make room for other people. It’s a wheel. You get on, you have to go to the end. And then somebody has the same opportunity to go to the end and so on.” – Vivian Maier

All images are by Vivian Maier.

STEVE McCURRY

Perhaps no other photographer's work has seeped into the collective unconscious as have the images by Steve McCurry. By no means a household name, still, every casual reader of the National Geographic Magazine has been drawn into its pages by the brilliant work of this man's lens.

Phaidon Press has produced a superb volume of his work, STEVE McCURRY UNTOLD: The Stories Behind The Photographs that takes us into his past so we may explore the experience which it took to create these master images.

Years ago I read that Native Americans believed that a photograph stole the soul of a person. But McCurry's camera has allowed us to see into the corners of the world with names that were as foreign as they were distant. He allowed us to see the lives of people we would never meet, but who's existence have touched us and become a part of our own.

Had he not ventured off to some of the most remote regions of the world -- Tibet, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India -- the light from these lives would have come and gone with little impact on us all and our world would be a little darker because of such unshared humanity.

All photographs copyright Steve McCurry. The book, copyright 2013 Phaidon Press Limited

ISBN: 9780714864624

ON POETRY & SOUL

"...I feel that everything I know about being human has been deepened by the poems I've read." -- Jane Hirshfield, poet, as quoted in, ten poems to change your life again & again by Roger Housden.

He writes further, "John Keats spoke of this humanizing power too when he said, 'Poetry should...appear almost as a Rememberance.'" 

Truth be told, some memories are better than others, and poetry has the ability to still the mind, calm the heart, and soothe the soul.

Housden writers on the importance of poetry, 

"There's a headstone in a Long Island graveyard--the one where Jackson Pollock is buried--that I think encapsulates the value and life-giving qualities of poetry in a world in which there are so many sorrows. It says,

'ARTISTS AND POETS ARE THE RAW

NERVE ENDS OF HUMANITY. 

BY THEMSELVES THEY CAN DO

LITTLE TO SAVE HUMANITY. 

WITHOUT THEM THERE WOULD BE

LITTLE WORTH SAVING.'" 

Portrait By Ryan

Holidays were made for photographers, and I have a burgeoning one in the ranks. Ryan turned the camera on me, learning about aperture settings and exposure.

CHRISTMAS EVE

Just shy of seven years ago I met with master illustrator, Charles Santore with a proposal for a new book project. Over lunch we discussed publishing a fresh and beautiful, new edition of The Night Before Christmas. The goal was to create an image of Santa Claus like no one else before. Charlie researched and worked on the illustrations for nearly two years and in the fall of 2011 we published our classic edition using five color printing, included a four panel gatefold and embellished the dust jacket with two different colored foil stampings, embossing, matt lamination and spot uv treatments. 

Charlie's cover illustration of Santa Clause is illuminating and iconic: In fact, it is my belief that he has painted the most beautiful rendition of Santa Claus - ever. I say this with great care as Christmas has and always will be a very important holiday for me. As a child, it was the one holiday where only love and joy filled our home.

This Christmas season, we hope our edition has helped to create similar memories for children and their families everywhere. And we hope that it will continue to do so for generations to come.

INNOCENCE

He's now 17, and though he's not quite as innocent as he was then, tooling around the house wearing his slipper pajamas and a toy airplane, he's still not as worldly as he would like to believe. Interesting too how the young race to age, and the aging try to slow the passing off time.

The innocence of life.