RAY CHARLES AT GEORGIA STATE COLLEGE LATE 60'S

One great benefit of being a student at Georgia State College was the fabulous entertainers the school brought for it's students. Whether it was BB King, Santana, Otis Redding, Herbie Mann, Peter, Paul, and Mary, or Ray Charles, the shows were top notch.

I had been using a Minolta Twin Lens Reflex, and made multiple exposures with the B setting on the shutter. I really did not take a lot of pictures that night, simply because the show was too good, and Ray gave a wonderful performance.

COLLEGE PARTY , ATLANTA 1967

I recall we went to Gigi's Pizza after a party during the late 60's . This was from Georgia State College. There's not too much I can really say about this picture, other than it has a nice feeling, if you double click it and take some time to take it in.

Probably in their late teens or early 20's these kids had warm and caring feelings towards each other. A nice period in our lives to remember.

ART MAJORS, SUE AND JANIE, GEORGIA STATE COLLEGE LATE 60'S

Sue was a delightful friend that dated one of my fraternity brothers. I always found Art and Drama majors to be interesting subjects and free spirits along with Psychology majors. Maybe it was my being a Psychology major, and my love of photography. What I noticed about her she was good company, and an excellent conversationalist where time would just pass and one would never know it.


Janie was another Art major and this picture as I recall took a full page in the yearbook at Georgia State. She was from up North and her dad was a judge. She was close to graduation, and told me she planned to tour Morocco and Europe. I was always fond of the timeless beauty of youth.

Over 37 years have passed and I never saw either Sue or Janie again.

However a couple of years later around 1971, I met a clothing manufacturer in NYC, who told me he went to Emory University. I asked him if he knew anyone from Georgia State ? He replied, "No, not really except for a lovely coed he traveled with around Europe and N. Africa". He also remembered the yearbook picture because Janie had showed it to him. He was slightly amazed as well that he met the photographer.

Tactile Beauty & Poison Dehydrating by the Ocean

We often would walk along Hollywood Beach in the early mornings. Jelly fish appear usually in late April or May. I found them to be a fascinating subject.

You almost want to touch them, but you can do this safely with your eyes. In Chinese cuisine , specially prepared jellyfish are a luxury. Consider this photo a colorful visual Rorshach test.

Take a minute to contemplate it, and note the associations that come to your mind.

The colors and resonant blue glow are an unnatural enhancement from photo editing.

One's Muse can jump from poetry, to translation, to music to photography. When one writes a blog , consistency is often called for every time one's fingers touch the keyboard or press the shutter. It's somewhere between caressing one's muse or titillating it's "B- Spot". (Blog Spot)
For candid work, you do need a little chutzpah anyway.

Meditation is good for photography and the arts, because it helps one clear the mind, relax, understand and focus, but there is also a chaotic serendipity, that ties in with pressing the shutter button, tied in with fortuitous serendipity and instinct.

Whether one is taking a video or a photo, you want to capture what you see uniquely, rather than what the camera sees. You hope to learn how to look at a subject either directly or through the viewfinder or these days, the LED screen. There's a process of vibrational communion, between photographer and subject.

When I started photographing in 1960, I suppose a bit more seriously when I acquired my first Konica 35mm rangefinder camera, I would take a roll of film to the drug store and get it processed. During the mid 60's I acquired a Meopta enlarger from the Camera Barn in Manhattan. After my first year at Queens College, where I was on the collge newspaper staff.

I moved to Altanta, and finished my psychology degree at Georgia State College. I worked part time at Wing's Photo and acquired a Hasselbad 500C and Superwide C. I would attend the major fraternity parties every weekend, and have pictures ready for everyone Monday morning. The best feedback ever, "Did I do that ? ", "Is that me ? ".

These were fine cameras, but a little too heavy to schlep around in a camera bag. I became enamored of Leica rangefinder cameras, although I also had a Cannon Pellix and a Nikon F2.
Leicas were quiet and after shooting a few hundred rolls , one acquires a sense of exposure, and using the right f-stop for depth of field.

One's photo collection is part of one's life. When I often went to the library to browse through photo books, the photographer was rarely there to tell me about his or her thoughts on the pictures.

I want to mention Henry Vasquez, who was the operations VP at Hollywood Federal Savings and Loan. Henry's major achievement was to put together the art collection for the new EF Hutton building in New York City, shortly before the junk bond fiasco. Henry had a taste that was spectacular. He caught a fatal illness went to Brazil for a heroic cure and his incarnation came to an end in 1991. I still have the catalog from EF Hutton.

Hollywood Federal was one of our clients, and I met Henry, and he offered to give me a tour of the art collection he assembled for the Bank. During the time of the Resolution Trust Corp, the S&L became an acquisition, along with the art collection. Where the collection ended up along with the collection at EF Hutton, remains a mystery.