Baring All and Our National Pastime

© David Greenfield

We were stark naked, lathered up, and clutching hand held shower heads, all while crouched on postage stamp sized foot stools. Awkward?… perhaps, but our condition was standard operating procedure in preparation for a healing soak in the ryokan’s (inn’s) hot mineral infused pool just outside. The other guys in the slippery line-up were Japanese; no surprise, we were in Japan. I sported the only Caucasian face. Aside from anatomical traits all men share, we had almost nothing in common, certainly not a common tongue. Well maybe not. With the pre-soak regimen completed and only our heads bobbing above steamy waters, a magical connection soon unfolded.

It started with a few back and forth darting glances …. then an audible from Otaro, the good friend I was about to make. Without minimizing his observational skills, it wasn’t a reach for Otaro to surmise I might be an Anglo. He broke the ice, figuratively, by offering up a greeting with his best but broken English. Since his ‘best’, while admirable, was on par with my meager Japanese, I promptly reciprocated with my ‘best’. And so a cross-cultural conversation was born. It quickly passed through infancy and adolescence reaching adulthood when I uttered the two words which in the year 2013 instantly transcended respective native languages and bound us together – RED SOX.

Boston’s nine was not only baseball’s reigning champs, but over the course of the past season the Sox accomplished nothing short of a miracle; they went from their league’s last place to first. But the boys weren’t done until completing another improbable feat, clinching a coveted World Series victory! And what was the Sox’ secret sauce …. UEHARA and TAZAWA, the two formidable Japanese pitchers on staff. Mere mention of their names, national heroes to my companions, and our hot tub crew seamlessly became family, and a tight knit one at that. But the best was yet to come.

It started with a mysterious knock at my door later that night when a veil of quiet and dimmed lights had already descended on the ryokan. Who could it be, and why was someone there in the shadows? ….. To find out, watch for my next post, Ryokan Revelry. Until then, why not use the sign up (upper right corner of this page) to automatically receive these periodic posts. Visit my web site anytime to view the Galleries, Photo-essays, and read previous blog posts. For now, sayonara.

Mother and Child Disunion

© David Greenfield 2015

On a side street in Old Havana our eyes locked. He was a boy in wondrous gaze clutching his mother’s hem. I was strolling with a few Americans. Unlike the boy’s awe, even a glimpse of mami’s face reflected something very different … deep concern. Their yin-yang of expressions formed a perfect photographic decisive moment. Click. For me the moment also recalled  memory of a mystery, a musical mystery.

Consider these lyrics from Paul Simon’s Mother and Child Reunion (1972).

I would not give you false hope

On this strange and mournful day

But the mother and child reunion

Is only a motion away, oh, little darling of mine

As soon as the song hit the charts fans searched for hidden meanings and pondered Paul’s inspiration for writing.

Did the reunion take place in the afterlife or was it a down on earth meeting of biological parent with a child previously put up for adoption; why a false hope; why sad and mournful, and what action could trigger a reunion that was only a motion away?

Back on the street, rather than union, I sensed a certain disunion. The boy appeared awestruck, perhaps imaging what magic the Americanos possess. The mother's demeanor suggested a discomforting uncertainty. Was it not knowing how Cuban life might change if the sought after rapprochement with the US ever occurs? Would outcomes be for the better, or not? 

Two weeks after I captured the image, Breaking News stunned us all with broadcast of renewed diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba. It came decades after La Revolución, Castro’s embrace of Communism, the Embargo, and severed ties. A reunion of sorts was now in the making. Would it be a false hope?

Spoiler alert: When Paul Simon was pressed to offer the ‘true’ inspiration for the song title, he admitted his creativity was drawn directly from a chicken and egg menu item on the NYC Chinese restaurant he frequented.

Go figure!

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One-A-Day: not your morning vitamin

© David Greenfield 2015

“When your mouth drops open, click the shutter” advised Harold Feinstein (1931-2015), Coney Island’s native son and esteemed photographer/teacher/mentor. Overlay his principle on an axis composed of your head, eye & heart, and quality images are sure to flow from the camera. But to ‘click’ anytime anywhere at the drop of your jaw, you must have a camera at the ready.

Question: what’s the best camera for that?

Answer: the one you have with you!

Pulitzer Prize-winning former White House photographer David Hume Kennerly has taken note. After decades as an accomplished photojournalist, he recently stepped away from the regular grind of lugging a cache of heavy, bulky camera equipment and set aside a year of image making using only an iPhone, the camera he always had with him. The output, elegantly presented in his book ‘On the iPhone – secrets and tips’, was inspirational for me. The result: ‘One-A-Day: not your morning vitamin’, the newest Gallery to my web site.

Starting mid-August 2015 and through November I’ve composed, posted, dated, and titled one, sometimes two, image(s) a day. Almost all were made with an iPhone. I say ‘almost’ rather than ‘all’, because I still carry ‘my other camera’ around much of the time!

The photo above was recorded on September 3^rd.  Click to open the full One-A-Day gallery and bookmark the site to come back regularly for a daily dose.

Return to the web site for viewing David's portfolio of Photo Galleries and Essays

Real Possibilities

    © David Greenfield 2015

Baby Boomers strive for youthful aging with a focus on image, fitness, performance (of all sorts), and new experiences. It’s no surprise that ‘Sixty is the new forty’ is now part of our vernacular.

Sexagenarians, septuagenarians, octogenarians, and beyond, find new ways to ‘push the envelope’. The attempts are celebrated, certainly no longer raising eyebrows and, for the most part, feats are accomplished. When former Olympic decathlete, sixty-something Bruce Jenner, re-emerged as Caitlyn on the cover of Vanity Fair, the public paid scant attention to her coming-out image as a bathing suit clad twenty-something.

In another magazine, AARP, the traditionally stodgy organization, now seems to employ only youthful and fit models. The organization wants to keep its raison d’être relevant. That being the case, will it be long before ‘Five is the new fifty’? Is it a Real Possibility?

Return to the web site for viewing David's portfolio of Photo Galleries and Essays

Che

Dr. Ernesto 'Che' Guevera

La Rambla in Barcelona, Le Champs-Élysées in Paris, Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, Fifth Avenue in New York, and closer to home, Newbury Street in Boston - a walk down any of these alluring promenades offers a captivating potpourri for people watching. But while strolling down the narrow and lesser known Calle Obispo in Cuba’s Habana Viejo, someone I spotted partially crouched in the shadows brought me to a standstill. I had to turn for a second look.

At best, you might say he was lean. At worst, just a notch above ‘skin and bones’. Although one should not judge a book by its cover, it wasn’t a stretch to believe this guy had limited means and few resources for the comforts of daily living. He was actually among the majority of Cubans on this island vestige of the Communist empire. The minority are those who’ve eked out a better position, having parlayed reforms Fidel Castro implemented following dissolution of the USSR and Cuba’s ensuing Special Period economic crisis. Without big time subsidies from its sugarcane daddy in Moscow, Cuba’s viability was doomed unless a spigot of rejuvenating free enterprise could be turned on. Fidel did just that, but it was clear, however, the guy huddled at the Obispo curb had not yet taken a sip.

This brings me to his attire, specifically the T-shirt strategically torn to expose a pectoral tattoo of Cuba's legendary revolutionary and Fidel’s right-hand comrade-in-arms Ernesto Guevara, better known simply as ‘Che’.  The T's ragged hole flaunted Che’s image suggesting the wardrobe malfunction could not have been random. The tattoo is but another rendition of the most widely reproduced photo of all time, and not just in Cuba. Alberto Korda, Fidel’s personal photographer, captured it on assignment. Che’s mystique resonates with all would be revolutionaries, as well as Cubans of every social stratum. My fascination was a puzzling disconnect between the continued desire to demonstrate such devotion to the Revolution despite what it delivered for this guy fifty years after former dictator Gulgencio Batista was ousted.

Back to Calle Obispo for a moment … Before continuing to meander and see what else my eyes could savor, I gave the guy a few CUCs, each roughly equivalent to a dollar and about twenty-five times more valuable than each peso of subsidy allocated to Cubans for basic commodities. Then I focused to create this Obispo image. It seems to prop up the enigma of Fidel, Che, and the Revolution’s enduring popularity set against a backdrop of rough daily life for most Cubans. But decades after Fidel’s band of guerrillas prevailed, it offers little in the way of answers.

Return to the web site for viewing David's portfolio of Photo Galleries and Essays