WHO am I and WHY it matters?

“Life really does begin at forty. Up until then you are just doing research.” — Carl Jung

Goldie and I stood up from a delicious lunch at the restaurant overlooking the little fishing harbor. It was our last day in Cape Town, and we were overcome with emotion as we stood there looking at the quaint village, the shimmering ocean, the boats, the bright blue sky.

It was a stunningly beautiful scene, one of many in this gem of a city. This was not the Cape Town of my childhood, and I wondered what had changed, the city or my vision. As a street photographer, all my senses were now on high alert. The world had changed for me.

Growing up, I was the fourth of five sons living in the uninspiring, mostly working class, immigrant neighborhood of Maitland where my parents, shopkeepers, carved out a comfortable, middle-class life for us. Not being athletic and hating school, I developed an insatiable craving for sensory stimulation and novelty. Architecture, art and design fascinated me but instead, I opted for the security of a medical career, graduating at the tender age of twenty-two. Marriage, internship, two children, military service rapidly followed and by the age of twenty-six we were on our way to the USA where for the next twenty-six years I was to practice family medicine. 

The Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times” struck hard. Wanting novelty, 

I ultimately knew no end of it. Death of my father, challenges with my three children, an unwanted divorce, single life, second marriage, sale of my practice, transition out of medicine, move to New York City, September 11th, move to Woodstock NY then Philadelphia…the list goes on and on. It was a stressful, even at times traumatic, period of my life, but it led to another twenty-six-year cycle - one of active self-directed learning. Study involved gestalt therapy, pastoral counseling, major psychological trauma, personality disorders, spirituality, communication, listening, healing, well-being, creative non-fiction writing, storytelling, teaching, mentoring, art, philosophy, poetry and for the past dozen or so years, photography. All this has been rich and transformational to my sense of self and who I am becoming. 

Amongst my other titles, I am a photographer since I use a camera and take pictures. But at heart, I wonder. about that since photo club meetings do not appeal to me nor am I particularly interested in the perfect image. My cameras tend to be basic with an iPhone being my current instrument of choice. What interests me are people, emotions, relationships, life in all its peculiarities including that which is mystical, spiritual, and fun. 

Dorothea Lange once said: “The camera is an instrument that teaches people to see without a camera.” Photography, particularly street photography, combined with life, has changed my way of thinking, listening, seeing. Yes, indeed, the fishing village Kalk Bay has changed. But so have I. 

Thank you, Juliette, my beloved daughter for demanding I create a website. Thank you, Brittany, for your hard and skilled work in making this happen. Thank you, Goldie, my beloved and loyal companion for making me who I am. This website is dedicated to you.

“If I am I because I am I and you are you because you are you, then I am I and you are you.  But if I am I because you are you and if you are you because I am I, then I am not I and you are not you.” —Kotzker Rebbe