Creative: Those Quiet Moments

“I have some sad news,” she said.

“Give me a hint,” I responded.

“Palm Springs,” she said.

I began to name names, each one sparking a distinct memory, and a tinge of potential pain.

“No, no, no, yes,” she said.

The name brought back a flood of distant yet poignant moments, life-changing moments. The photo used to announce the passing is more than familiar. I was there, assisting. The day I met him. A seemingly cush assignment about inns of the American West. I remember the heat, the birdcage, the feel of the place, and the feel of the person who felt unlike anyone I’d met before. A crazy in the eyes, a good crazy, one of bubbling energy and a creativity stretching beyond the norm.

I remember no air conditioning. Construction. The blueprint in place, but a mountain of build required to transform a place from one thing to another. I remember the historical photograph on the wall. One of the first buildings in the desert now home to millions. I remember his plan, his dream, and I remember following until he had reached what he set out to do. But there’s more.

I remember him seeing something in me. Without my asking. He just knew. Knew me and saw through me. I was too stunted to see it at the time, but to him, I was without direction. He saw the photography, and my love for it, but he saw far beyond the images. He saw what I see now. Sure, the camera can be a foundational piece, but don’t allow it to be the only one. He saw the full Technicolor canvas of a creative life.

A former bar owner. THE hot bar in THE hot place. And then a hotelier. A one-off. Driven and curious. There were properties beyond the desert. The bayou, the hills of Southern Europe, and beyond. We hadn’t spoken in years, or seen each other for that matter, but his impact is like a second skin. Our first meeting ended, but not before he pulled me aside. “Hey,” he said. “Let me have a word.” My photographs spread out on a partially made bed. His hand on his chin studying. What I know now is that the pictures were unimportant in the way that oxygen is. There, expected, of course, for sure, but not requiring further context. He was studying me.

“You need to live in two places,” he said. “You need two lives.”

I remember dinner that night. I was there but not there. My body was there at the long wooden table shared by all of the guests, but my mind was traveling the back streets of Guadalajara, Marrakesh, and Hanoi. He had ruined me, planted a seed. The vines already creeping up my neck. The words of my mother, “We knew you would leave home as soon as you could.” “Some of us have wheels for feet.”

I remember him reaching out to me. “Come out to the hotel this weekend, I think you will like who is staying here,” I remember sitting at the same wooden table with famous people. I remember him treating us all the same. There was no hierarchy and no advertising. I remember him saying, “Tell the right people about this place,” without him ever having to say it. I remember him emerging with a box of 20×24 silver prints in a battered Kodak box. “Tell me what you think of these,” he said. A close-up of a hand on a chin with a smoldering cigar. Castro. A B-52 being shot down over Hanoi. Deep blacks and heavy silver. Beautiful. “I was approached along the seawall in Havana,” he said. “A photographer losing his negatives to age and decay.” “He asked for paper and chemistry,” I remember the show of these same prints. In a fancy gallery in Los Angeles with the crowd spilling out so hot and heavy, La Brea blocked off and shut down. I remember the flickering eye contact and sultry nights. Locals pounding cheap red at the table in the back. Faces turned inward and away from the work as unspoken suggestions are made. Cities build on fame, where a glance held a bit too long can mean a notch up toward that glorious grail of becoming known.

I remember falling out of contact. I remember brief encounters where the shell had grown thicker with a slight sense of unease. I remember feeling sad. But I also remember the stories and the questions, always the questions. “So, what now?” “Why are you really doing this?” “What’s the end game?” “Are you still clutching something that doesn’s exist?” I remember not having any answers, and I remember the sting of knowing that he knew.

I remember a hilarious story about Mexico. I remember the faces he connected me to. I remember his gift to the industry. A homebase for the best thing to happen to photography in ages. I remember what his style and taste did to all of us. A snapshot of what’s possible. Don’t settle. Ever. Don’t compromise. I remember more famous people and houses changing hands. I remember the early years in the pool as the sun rose. Me and the legends with wrinkled fingers and bloodshot eyes. For a moment, one and the same.

I raise a silent toast. You will be missed, my friend. An obtuse shape on a board of standard cuts and sizes. Not quite fitting for any one place or time. I like that. The residue of your words still with me every day, and now I understand. I have two places and two lives. You knew there was more to the story, and you left enough clues for me to stumble my way to the path. Keep searching.

Last night, walking home in the Maine darkness, a meteor streaked north to south in the sky above me. Massive with a trailing tail of colored dust. Just before it vanished the head broke in two and split off in opposite directions. Maybe, just maybe. A reminder from the other side. His style, quiet but unmistakably powerful.