Stacey and Robert, Engaged

What does an engagement announcement look like? Usually, it contains a picture of the loving couple and some text about where they went to school, who their fathers and mothers are, and what they do for a living. Sometimes it ends with a statement of where they will live. None of that matters here.

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Robert and Stacey don’t have a place to live. Their family history carries no importance to their impending nuptials. Positive, almost to a fault, about their future, they want enter a formal union which will announce their commitment to the community. Not important enough for the local paper, their engagement and upcoming marriage should receive some note and support. They will be married next week down by the Burlington Waterfront, though they don’t have money for a catered affair on the Ethan Allen, lunch at Splash or a spread in the backyard of a friend. Maybe, only a couple of parents, relatives and friends, none of whom have held office or operate any large corporations. But, you don’t need to know where they came from or what they wll do to survive to understand that they need each other enough get a marriage license and let everyone know they are one.

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Money doesn’t buy happiness.

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Photographers cannot make people look happy. The people have to do it themselves.

Eric’s Coming Out

He looks fines, somedays. Sits or hangs out around the same places. Watches the street, for what we don’t know. Sees somethings we cannot imagine. Not ready yet to be put back together. Decided he needed to take a bath or a swim. Dived into Lake Champlain. Muck and mire on the surface. Left clothes in sumac or poison ivy. Covered with blisters. Chad lent him a razor. Hadn’t seen his face in twelve years.

Kevin and Vermont Special Olympics

So, I go down to the beach or the waterfront or Church Street with my camera and a lighting kit. Need to keep up my skills, looking, seeing, shooting. Oh, how I cannot deal with people telling me they have cameras or relatives with cameras or cell phones. They don’t understand portraits, posing or the importance of having a photograph, taken in ernest.

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These two people walk by where I sit with my friend Jim and we start to talk. Kevin wants to take a walk. They will talk about whether to accept my offer to shoot his photo.

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Kevin returns. Agrees to the shoot. And we talk. Seems he is a world class Bocce player who will be competing in the Special Olympics in Vermont this weekend. So, I sign up, volunteering to photograph whatever they need shot, knowing they have lots of shooters ahead of me, including the press.

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Now, I have to sort through 1,500 images, shots one more beautiful than the next. What a wonderful experience Kevin shared with me and I don’t even know his last name, where he lives or much about him.

Chief Lives in Style

So Chief’s off the street. He has a home, cozy place on a nice street. Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and a room for clothes and his guitar. Now, he just has to learn how to live the way the rest of us do, taking care of business. Success in life starts with a place to live. Then health, wealth and happiness can follow. And wealth, that just means having enough.

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Free Cornbread: Burlington VT’s Political Prisoner or Drug Dealer?

Free Angela was a cry from my day. Hunted because of her connections to the civil rights movement and the Black Panthers, this crusader for the rights of blacks and women has reemerged as the subject of a documentary, “Free Angela and All Political Prisoners.”  Without going into the details, she was charged with the kidnapping and murder/kidnapping of a judge, a prosecutor and a juror. Arrested after appearing on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list, she was put in segregation.Unable to make bail, she sat in jail for 18 months. A nationwide movement to Free Angela saw people wearing buttons and carrying signs, demonstrating to protest her incarceration. She became a symbol for people being held as political prisoners. Acquitted after trial, she taught college, wrote books (Are Prisons Obsolete) and, at present, leads a movement to end the prison industrial complex.

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Not in a position to go one way or the other with Cornbread, because all I know is what I read in the papers. Had a client once who contended he, too, was a political prisoner. Didn’t see the connection between either of them and Angela Davis. Only took $100,00 to free her. He is held on $5,000 which should not be too hard to come up with, if they can make the same case for him they made for her. He was supposedly an outspoken rapper, whose notoriety and presence on the UVM campus could have made him a target. I was just surprised to see this poster on a column near the fishing pier. Not a heavily trafficked place where you’d expect a movement to start or meet. If it is just about being a crack dealer, a charge he denies, then he is a political prisoner for sure.

Bernard Not a Yankee Fan

 

Don’t usually shoot people wearing hats. Got my friend McQuade to hold the reflector. Never shot Bernard. My shoot loosener fell flat. “Not a good day for the Yankees. Old. Injured. And they lost.” “I don’t follow baseball,” he said.


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Tough to work alone. When one of my guys finds the light, it makes them smile. All my photos become a bigger collaboration with the people I shoot.

Chad

 

Chad sporting a Prince Valliant look.

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Scotty has his pouch.

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Amy received a certificate for attending a Peer Emotional Counselling Program.

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New girl in town.

McCaffrey’s Service Center in Burlington VT

 

So, here is a crew that cares for cars. Most of us don’t know squat about our cars anymore. To care for the car, owners need to learn, understand and trust. Then you got to be responsible. Cannot just go from gas station to gas station, forgetting about the pipes, tubes and tires. I lost at least one much loved car to bad service. Never again.

 

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Larry the Bottleman


Redemption. We seek redemption for different reasons. Larry promotes a clean environment, relying on the arrogance of those who cast their containers aside after binging on the beach. He lives to drink another day, clearing the beach and adjoining land of debris. We get to enjoy the view.