on the way home from shooting furniture

Bob Greenspan is a commercial photographer based in KC. He did a photojournalistic stint at the Kansas City Star years ago, but now he shoots products and buildings. He was on his way home from his midtown studio last night (having just shot some furniture for a client) when the explosion at JJ's Restaurant took place. Apparently, his car windows were rolled up, and he had music playing, so he didn't hear the blast. He just saw the sudden massive plume of smoke and then the flames. Bob pulled over, got out of his car and grabbed the Canon he had in his trunk. His photojournalistic instincts kicked in, and he started shooting even before any sirens sounded. Of all the pictures I've seen of the horrific scenes from last night, Greenspan's are among the most powerful.


On his Facebook page, he wrote: “It was a very surreal scene, with victims wandering out like zombies — obviously in shock.”

Still hard for me to believe this took place just a few blocks from my home.

explosion

Last night there was a natural gas leak, explosion and fire at JJ's, a beloved restaurant here in Kansas City. It was a cool place - locally owned and operated by Jimmy and his brother David for 27 years.

JJ's is completely gone now. Neighboring businesses, offices and homes were affected, as well. One body was found in the charred remains this morning, and three people are still in critical condition at nearby hospitals.

It's a sad, gloomy day in Kansas City.

After meeting a friend for coffee this morning, I drove as close as I could to the block where JJ's had stood. I guess I wanted to physically be part of the community that is dealing with this tragedy hands-on. I also wanted to get a picture or two to post here on the blog. Of course, the police have the whole area marked off, and there's no way to get too close right now.

As I pulled up to our condo, I saw this one lonely helicopter hovering in the sky. I had fallen asleep to its drone last night, and I can hear it even now as it circles high above the Plaza, the area where JJ's was and which is only a few blocks away.

It struck me as sad. Which is the way everyone in KC is feeling today.

change the case

Change the Truth's own Dawn Taylor (Team 5) and her good friend Christina Eldridge have started an entrepreneurial venture, Red Dirt Shop, a socially responsible business selling cell phone covers with original designs by artists. A portion of each sale will go to Water.org, providing access to clean water for people all over the world.

Several artists' works have already been chosen to grace the cell phone cases when Red Dirt makes its launch in March.

Dawn felt strongly - from the very beginning - about including the artwork made by some special young friends who live in Uganda. She pored over the drawings and paintings that the children at the orphanage have made during the past few years and selected two: one by Brian and one by Nicky.

The young artists will be paid for the use of their artwork; the money will go toward their education. As you can well imagine, the boys were thrilled to hear all about this! (Melissa reported that Brian flashed his huge grin, then simply shook his head in disbelief.)

Maybe one of these days, when Brian and Nicky are walking down the street in Kampala, they'll turn to see someone chatting on his/her cell phone and catch a glimpse of their own colorful artwork - loud and proud on a Red Dirt case. Wouldn't that be something?

And in the meantime time, Water.org and both the boys will benefit from the venture.

Red Dirt's motto is "Change the Case" because they want to encourage their clientele to think about having more than one case, kind of like more than one scarf or more than one purse. So, if it catches on, I bet we'll have more drawings from our kids purchased and featured!

Check out Red Dirt's page on Facebook and stay tuned for their big launch next month! We wish Dawn and Christina much luck. Personally, I'd like to thank them for diving into the world of social entrepreneurship and for including Nicky and Brian in the first round of cases.

can you see me now?

That's the title of my solo show that's coming up in May.

It's turned into kind of a retrospective, which means I have been sifting through lots of old work, some of which I've never even printed before.

I'm hoping for a few surprises for the viewers, a few new twists on some old work, some thought-provoking pairings of seemingly disparate images and an opportunity for us all to have some fun (and maybe even gain some new perspectives) with the pictures I've been making for the past 56 years.

(Yikes.)

I'm also hoping to publish a catalogue to accompany the show.

And I'm very much hoping you will come to the opening.

SAVE THE DATE: MAY 11th!!
The Bohemian Gallery
Overland Park, Kansas

portrait

Here is a new picture I made this week at Operation Breakthrough. This boy has seen and been through a lot in his few short years.

can't get enough of vivian maier

“The Greatest Photo Collection Never Seen

Since Vivian Maier’s photographs were unearthed at an auction several years back, her work and her story have captivated people across the world. The idea that a lifelong nanny was secretly an astoundingly good street photographer—that the greatest collection of photos of Chicago from the 1950s through the 1970s had been sitting undiscovered in storage unit on the South Side—prompted blog post after blog post, story after story, exhibit after exhibit. Most of these offered very little in terms of biographical information about the highly private Maier, who didn’t seem to have any family or close friends.

But surely there had been someone. A secret lover? A neighbor turned confidant, who would turn up and explain what drove Maier to carry a camera around her neck every day of her life, to capture beautiful, moving, and humorous portraits and scenes and share them with no one? Co-authors Richard Cahan and Michael Williams spent the last year attempting to fill the gaps in the story of Vivian Maier. They contacted just about every home she’d worked in, interviewed the children she cared for, the neighbors who watched her with skepticism as she pointed her camera into garbage cans. They found the people who repaired her cameras and those who sold her film. And the answer, sadly, for those of us hoping to get even further into Vivian Maier’s brain, is no. There was no one. Maier’s only partner in life, her only confidant, was her camera.

The images below, along with the majority of the other images in Cahan and Williams’ book Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows have never before been seen. She kept them locked away from the families she worked for, never sharing them with anyone—even herself. The images come from 20,000 scanned negatives that don’t appear ever to have been printed during her lifetime.

This is the second book of Maier’s work to emerge since the reports about the cache of images went viral in early 2011. The first, Vivian Maier: Street Photographer, was a selection of the images won at auction by collector and Chicago historian John Maloof. This new book features those in the possession of another collector, Jeff Goldstein. Cahan and Williams, who specialize in sifting through old photos,  reached out to Goldstein soon after they learned about the discovery. 

The moment before Williams delved into the archive, he felt exhilaration and anxiety. The whole photography world was talking about incredibly talented ‘nanny street photographer’ and he was going to see a big chunk of her collection before anyone else. But what if they weren’t any good? What if the quality of the 80 or so that had inspired the initial praise, was just a fluke.

Quickly his fear disappeared. ‘From the moment I started going through I saw this was a really serious collection and she is serious photographer,’ Williams recalls. These new images span four decades and her travels across America and Europe. Because Maier’s camera was constantly with her, the act of going through the scanned negatives was like entering this mysterious woman’s head and reliving day after day, week after week.

‘The process of going through them for me was hypnotizing,’ he says. Initially he was looking for one theme to emerge, but then he realized that the dominant subject was obvious: Maier's life. 

As Wiliams made his final edit he did not attempt to highlight the most impressive photos in the collection, rather he attempted to build a sequence that would tell Maier’s story. Paging through the book, we watch Maier developing her photographic eye in postwar France, charming strangers on the beach of Lake Michigan, wandering through the roughest parts of Chicago, and expressing a photojournalistic sensibility at the Democratic National Convention of 1968. We are with her as her eyes move from a dog looking at the sky to the sky itself and as her interests transition from sweet babies on the beach to political pamphlets decrying abortion.

It’s unclear why Vivian Maier did not appear to have these rolls printed. Perhaps she ran out of money or could not keep up with sheer volume of photos she’d taken. Or perhaps she simply didn’t need to. In a time when photography has become so intertwined with instant gratification (Instagram likes, Facebook shares, Tumblr notes) it’s easy to forget that for some the act of photography is entirely about process. Vivian Maier carefully documented every day of her life. The motivation, this latest book suggests, wasn’t to see the results on shiny paper or to impress others, but to process them in her mind.”

This article was written by Heather Murphy for Slate

suzanne and some bags

photo by John Ehlers

Please take a few minutes to read this article about our fabulous Suzanne Garr!  She never ceases to amaze me, as she is always thinking of new ways to benefit the kids at SMK through wonderful new connections.... and helping others at the same time.

back to work

The Operation Breakthrough video work must go on!

clara

hangin' with henry

Hangin' out with grandson Henry has meant entering a world of make-believe, curiosity and adventure. This boy has an imagination that never quits and an unquenchable thirst for new information. Seeing the world through his eyes has been a wonderful experience. So many new things to discover and discuss!

big brother

Today Eddie and I walked with chased Henry as he rode his bike around the block a few times. We saw Mr. Joe, the letter carrier who inspired Henry's Halloween costume and with whom Henry has a sweet little friendship. When Mr. Joe greeted him with "Hi Henry" the response was:

"Actually, I am Clara's big brother."

my granddaughter is born!

Clara Mae was born in the water yesterday morning at 8 on the dot. She was a couple weeks early, but weighed in at 7 lbs. 15 ounces and is 20 1/2 inches tall. She's very sweet and mellow.

She is named for Eddie's mom, Clara and my mom, Anita Mae. Isn't that lovely?

Clara got to come home from the hospital today. She's been very busy doing her baby jobs: nursing, sleeping and being adorable. She's good at all three and even seems to be able to multi-task!

Her big brother Henry made a drawing to hang up on the front stoop.

It's a lovely day in New Orleans!!

in the studio

Look at these cuties who came by my studio over the weekend.  Don't I have the best job?

twins revisited

In 2004 and 2005 I photographed identical twins for a series I called "The Space Between."

Aren't we all fascinated with the way people change over the years? "The Brown Sisters" by Nicholas Nixon has always been one of my favorite photographic series. Once a year, for more than twenty-five years now, he has photographed his wife and her three sisters grouped together in the same order, with a similar background; it gives the viewer the opportunity to marvel at how time has changed the women - and ultimately, of course, how time changes each one of us.

I've decided to revisit some of the twins I photographed eight years ago and make updated portraits. I hope to complete at least eight or ten diptychs for my show in May. I don't want to share all of them here (I'd like to have a few surprises at the exhibition!) but can't resist sharing the first two I've done.

Here are "Brian and Andrew" and "Martha and Mary." Incredibly, I was able to photograph them in the exact same locations as before.

brian!

Many of you regular blog readers often ask me about Brian, the young man who suffered a head injury in an accident when Team 5 was at St. Mary Kevin Orphanage (December, 2011). I'm happy to report that Brian is doing very well in school and is creating wondrous works of art in his spare time. He is still a CTT sponsored student, preparing to begin Senior 3 next month.

It's one thing to see photographs of the children; it's, of course, an entirely different experience to watch videos of them. I have recently learned that Team 6 member, Josh, conducted some short video interviews with kids at the orphanage.

I'd like to share Brian's. Just look at and listen to this special guy!! What a sweetheart he is, and how happy we all are that he seems to have made a full recovery from the accident.

Thanks for this wonderful 47 second gem, Josh.

gospel of intolerance

http://nyti.ms/WIfBkd

Please watch this op.doc from today's New York Times. It is called "Gospel of Intolerance." It was made by Roger Ross Williams, the Academy Award winning filmmaker whose most recent work "God Loves Uganda" is currently being premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Lynne had a small role as an associate producer of "God Loves Uganda" because some of it was shot in Kansas City at the International House of Prayer.  This op.doc considers certain factions of American evangelicals who have taken it upon themselves to stir up hatred toward gays in Uganda. It's powerful and insightful and downright scary. A must-see for all of us who care about the children who live there.

In William's own words:

"Raised in Pennsylvania, I grew up in the black church. My father was a religious leader in the community, and my sister is a pastor. I went to church every Sunday and sang in the choir. But for all that the church gave me - for all that it represented belonging, love and community - it also shut its doors to me as a gay person. That experience left me with the lifelong desire to explore the power of religion to transform lives or destroy them. I became interested in Uganda, an intensely religious country that attracts many American missionaries and much funding from United States faith-based organizations. The American evangelical movement in Africa does valuable work in helping the poor. But as you'll see in this Op-Doc video, some of their efforts and money feed a dangerous ideology that seeks to demonize L.G.B.T. people and intensifies religious rhetoric until it results in violence. It is important for American congregations to hold their churches accountable for what their money does in Africa."

operation breakthrough

Lynne and I are in the process of working on the annual fundraising video for Operation Breakthrough here in Kansas City. We're featuring three OB families - kind of a "day in the life" approach. Last week we filmed and photographed our first family. Here are a few shots from that day, which started at 5:45 AM and wrapped up at 7 PM!

This little sweetie pie is our featured family member. He's smart as a whip and as sweet as they come.

This sign is outside the bedroom shared by Mom and her two young sons. She doesn't want anyone sleeping in the other bedroom, because it has a window on a busy street. She's already experienced a bullet coming through one of those windows during a random drive-by shooting.

She saved that bullet. 

photo revisited

I made one version of this image soon after I returned home from my September trip to Uganda. There was something about it that I didn't like. Now that I am working on a show, I decided to revisit the pictures I made of these sisters on their way to school.

This one is slightly different from the first, and I like it better.

It can be helpful/interesting to put some space between the time you make images and the time you finally select and print them. One's perspective can shift, leading to a different appreciation/better understanding of certain images.

team 6 post: reflections by leah

"If someone had told me a year ago that I would consider an orphanage in Kajjansi, Uganda a home to me, I wouldn’t have believed them. Home is a place where you feel loved and welcomed and yourself. The people of Uganda, every member of Team 6, and of course the kids at SMK made the trip to Uganda the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. There are so many people I would like to thank, and my gratitude extends far beyond these words. I want to thank Melissa and all of Team 6. Without any of you, I would have been lost. Everything we experienced together whether it was sitting on Natalie’s lap in the crowded car in the insane streets of Kampala, or conversations at the lunch table, makes me think of you as family. I want my Dad to know how much I appreciate him, and many of the kids reminded me how great it is that I have a father who cares about so much. An excerpt from a love letter: 'You are so strong, blessed and I admire the way that your father loves you. In my life, I have never experienced such a love from my father. Always you have to thank God for your life and your parents lives too because it is incredible how they have taken care of you.' I would also like to thank Gloria. Even though she could not be on the trip with us this year, I know that she kept us in her heart. She has been such a good friend and neighbor to me ever since I was little.

A good friend I made at SMK named Joan asked me what message I would take away from this trip. I have spent a long time thinking about an answer for her, and I finally have one. I learned to be thankful for what I have. It is so easy to take the little things for granted, and that is something that I admire in all of these kids. They appreciate everything that they have, and I look up to them for that. It is easy for me to forget how lucky I am to not have to worry about who will pay for my education. I try to look forward to school now (even though it can be difficult sometimes) because I am so fortunate to be able to go to school every day, have my own textbooks, and simply learn. Education should not be something taken for granted, and that is the message I have taken from this life changing experience."

- Leah