I just received a New Years greeting from my dear friend AJ Langer. AJ is an extremely talented actress and beautiful young lady. AJ and her husband Charlie are the parents of two gorgeous children, Jos (almost 3) and Jack (4 months). AJ and I had an opportunity to do several tv shows together in Yellowstone and in Belize. I instructed AJ in the art of still photography. Little did I know, that she knew a whole lot more than she was letting on. When you grow up in front of the camera, you have the opportunity to learn what it’s like to be behind the camera. She taught me a few a things. I will fondly remember during our travels together. She paid me a lovely compliment one time and said “You’re a great teacher, and I’d go anywhere in the world with you.” I’m going to steal a few of AJ’s photos from her email and put them on my blog. Anyone who knows me knows, that I give credit where credit is due. The photograph that AJ did is a world class photograph, not a snapshot. She has become quite, the accomplished photographer.

all photos©AJ Langer

January 1st of any particular year doesn’t really do it for me. I normally celebrate the Chinese New Year. The reason for that is, Chinese New Year was my first date with JoAnne. It is more meaningful to me. When I hear Auld Lang Syne, I well up and think of the past, and then with any luck at all, think of the future. I was moving my office to another building, and I stumbled across this photograph of the Gorilla. It has an interesting little side note to it. It was a photograph originally done for the Image Bank (now called Getty Images.) I received a call from Sally Lloyd, the greatest editor any person could have and one of the founders of the Stock Market that is now Corbis. She told me that the gorilla was sold to Avanti Greeting Cards. No big whoop, until we found out that it out-sold every other greeting card that year! As a matter of fact, they asked permission to run it again for a second and then a third year! Once a year, I’d walk down to the local book store, stand in the corner, and watch people buy cards. I’d watch them pick up the gorilla card. It came in two flavors, one Happy Birthday and one blank version. I just watched their faces and their smiles. One time I walked over to a woman and I asked, “Why did you buy that card?” and she said, “Because I just love it!” You can’t make this stuff up. Hey, here’s some interesting news, that I totally forgot to mention. Chinese New Year, this year, falls on February 14th and that’s Valentines Day too. JoAnne and I will be teaching a workshop for Adorama in Chinatown in NYC on Chinese New Year/Valentine’s Day & celebrating our anniversary. Photos © Joe DiMaggio

I was out fishing one day in the Huntington Triangle and I ran into a wise fisherman. He was quite a character. We talked about lures, trolling, and then we talked about advertising photography. Little did I know, I was in the presence of the president of one of the finest, most avant garde ad agencies in the United States. Here we are 25 years later, and we’re very dear friends. I call him my Rabbi, my brother, my mentor, and my dear friend. Like all relationships it is predicated on the most important thing, respect. His name is Paul Laddin. On top of all of his accomplishments, first accomplishment is, of course, he is married to a beautiful and brilliant woman named Jennie. Second to that, he is quite the accomplished artist. He works in oil and his work is wonderful. If you look closely at the artwork I’ve included, you may recognize a younger photographer, I’m not sure I know his name.

Thank you Paul for being such a great friend. Love you.

Joe D

Painting by Paul Laddin

Photograph©Joe DiMaggio

December 27, 2009

I guess every day you live is a special day, and every day your are productive is even more of a special day. We had great weather for our holiday workshop and I had a wonderful time with you all. For me yesterday was an epiphany. To the best of my knowledge, it’s the first time that a health issue affected my ability, to not only make a photograph, but also more importantly I’m afraid it also disrupted my level of expertise to teach. You all know me pretty well by now, and you know that I take the teaching very seriously. I hope you had a great day and made some wonderful photos.

I’d like to wish you all a Great New Year. Next time I see you, I’m going to be kicking ass and taking names!It was a special day for me, and I will fondly remember it. Please send me any comments and some photographs as I would love to see them.

From Jeff –

Regardless, it was a great day and I will (attempt) to speak for all of us – it was a great day, insightful, educational, challenging and most of all fun. We all knew you were hurting and wished you well. Who knew the crowds would be beyond anyone’s imagination. BTW, on my way back to my car I passed a bomb scare at the Ferrigamo store and the closing of 5th Avenue, and it took me 90 minutes to go from 54th Street to the Lincoln Tunnel. All in all it was a great day, and thanks. Get yourself well (and Dylan too) and see you soon. Have a great New Years. – Jeff

© ’09 Jeff Thomas

A few years back, I remember having an espresso with my dear friend and former CIA agent, Bill DeSmedt, mentioning how I thought it would be great if Joe Lieberman ran for President of the United States. Here it is a few years later, and I was thinking it would be great for Joe Lieberman to run for Dog Catcher somewhere in Tunguska, Siberia.

By the way, Bill denies the fact that he was ever a member of the CIA but I have friends that tell me different. If anybody out there would like to read a great book Bill is the author of Singularity. Pick up a copy; it’s a great read.

Author Bill DeSmedt Photo©Joe DiMaggio
http://www.singularitythebook.com
Listen to the free podcast of Singularity at:
http://www.podiobooks.com/title/singularity

To All the Ships at Sea

After my family and friends I guess the only thing that is truly meaningful to me is my work and I take it very seriously. Yesterday, December 20^th, was going to be the last workshop for 2009 but my team and I had a conference call and we made a decision to postpone the Workshop until next Sunday. It was an extremely difficult decision. I was born and raised in New York City and I know that on a snowy day New York takes on this amazing glow. It’s like a white frame and if you know how to photograph in the snow your photos can be truly stunning. However, in the interest of safety, there was a level of danger for everyone to physically get to Central Park as people were coming from all over. When the sun came out at 11 o’clock I started to second-guess my decision but it was reinforced by others. So we’ll kick ass and take names next Sunday. To all our friends Happy Holidays & A Better New Year!

Ace & I decided to go for a walk in the snow & enjoy the day anyway ©’09 Joe DiMaggio

Leave it to me to do the December 6^th blog on December 21. It says an awful lot for my organizational skills. If you can’t critique yourself who the hell can you critique? The last Adorama Holiday Workshop was one of the all time best workshops. I had great students who really put forth a super effort. The end result was some great photos, which is what it’s all about! I did a lot of teaching about portraiture, both candid and otherwise. We got lucky at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and stayed for over an hour. We had a full-blown choir and regardless of your religious beliefs filling that space with great music and beautiful voices is certainly uplifting. I’ll end on a technical note. In the above photograph you’ll see us working with the Lastolite professional model reflectors. There are dozens of reflectors out there but we choose Lastolite because of their size, shape, weight distribution, and ease of use. You can come up with many different photographic results whether you’re photographing a a beautiful model or using it for a gobo to photograph a flower or spectral highlights in a wide shot. I know of three students who went back to Adorama on Monday and purchased the Lastolite reflectors. They tell me they love them.

December 16, 2009

I guess there’s an old adage that the teacher becomes the student. Our son Dylan had a great opportunity two years ago. He worked as an intern for Al Maysels. Al is recognized as the father of modern documentary cinematography. His awards are absolutely amazing. Grey Gardens has just closed on Broadway and the feature film was a Blockbuster. His original film on Grey Gardens and Salesmen are classic studies made in the way documentaries should be made. I had the pleasure to meet Al a few years ago at a cocktail party and reception.

Being in Al’s presence is being in the presence of greatness. He’s soft spoken, has a very small ego, and is a great talent. He was kind enough to invite me to his home along with my partner JoAnne Kalish and son Dylan to do a one-hour interview on his life & career.

I have very few heroes. One was Gene Smith, who I had the pleasure of assisting back in the day. Al is also a hero of mine. He has been kind enough to help me with my film In This Corner… Just came across a few photos of Al and thought all the Ships at Sea would like to take a look at a photograph of a great filmmaker

Photos © Joe DiMaggio