Please Be Very Gental (sic) On the Knobs Please

It seems like no good deed goes unpunished.

When I photograph in Manhattan, I park my car in the municipal lot on Essex Street, which happens to have a men's room. Posted above the sink, is the sign shown at left, obviously placed there by an employee who was probably tired of having people damage the faucets.

As you see, the person misspelled the word "gentle," and a number of wags decided to point this out, not necessarily in a very gentle way. (Calling the fellow an "ass wipe," a "dip shit," and a "genius" hardly seems fair for a single spelling error.)

Ah, well. Perhaps we can frame this experience as another chapter of life in the Big Apple, where people can be as hard on their fellow man as they seem to be on the faucets.

Happy Mother's Day

My mother is 82 and lives in Florida. She comes to visit us in New York every now and again; this year around Mother's Day.

We typically make a portrait as a remembrance of the yearly visit. Mom is usually disappointed with the result. "My God, I'm an old lady!" was her comment this year. (It's the typical comment for the past several years.)

I remember the late Arnold Newman (considered by many to be the father of environmental portraiture) telling his students in a workshop that when he looked in the mirror, he continued to see a handsome, energetic young man looking back at him, but that when he viewed recent photographs of himself he couldn't quite recognize himself.

It's probably that way for all of us!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

London

We had a great shoot in London; meeting and photographing over 50 people in the street during three days. The surprising feature was that we encountered and made pictures of foreign nationals from Turkey, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Italy, Brazil France and the US. So much for meeting up with typical English people. Here are three of the people we met, William, Cheveryll and Joie. You can view the rest of the London take in the Europe section of the web site www.robertkalmanweb.com

Anonymous Feedback

Some kind soul lifted my spirits a few days ago and contributed a complimentary comment to my first blog entry. It's hard to know what kind of impact one's work has until someone thoughtfully presents some feedback that is specific.

So, to my anonymous respondent, thanks for taking the time to let me know my pictures had some meaning for you.

We're off to London next week in search of more faces to share. In the meantime, here's a Nicaraguan face that I particularly admire:

Face New York

It's time to Face New York in more ways than one.

First, it's the title of my latest book of photographs: a collection of formal street portraits shot on the lower East Side and Washington Square.

At the moment, "facing" New York means marketing and promoting my work. This is not my area of expertise. At this, I'm a novice.

So, yesterday, my wife Linda & I walked around the City placing posters for the book around places where the hip & trendy might hang out. We made the posters like an "apartment for rent" poster: you know, with a tear off listing the web address. We also dropped off copies at the St. Mark's Book Shop and the photography bookstore, Dashwood. In addition, I've been running ads on Facebook and Craig's List.

As I'm waiting to be discovered as the next great photographic artist, perhaps readers can suggest other ways to become "discovered." Making some sales would be nice, too. I know that someone, somewhere, wants to be able to hold this book of pictures in her hands.

http://www.blurb.com/user/store/Larreynaga