X is for xenophobia

Xenophobia is a fear of strangers or of persons different from oneself.  If you are a street photographer you can’t have this fear!  Taking a photo of a stranger and walking away can be a very scary endeavor, especially when you are looking for that one special shot!  Sometimes you are trying to capture a feeling or look on a stranger’s face.  I love this genre of photography the most!

The letter “Z” is for zaftig.

Yiddish is a combination of the local languages of Germany, Poland, Russia, and other Eastern European nations where Jews settled from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century. These words and expressions are still uttered daily by my parents, friends, and by me. You’ll find that many of these words are very fun to say!

Some of my favorite words are, tchotchke, bubelah, mitzvah, shmuck, macher, meshuggeneh, chutzpa, and the ever popular mensch.

The most common phrase has to be “Oy vey!” But the one that I love is “zaftig”.  Can you guess the meaning?

Self Portrait

Most photographers don’t enjoy having their pictures taken.  I am no exception!  Once I got behind the lens I never wanted to go back to being on the other side.  This photo was snapped while on a cruise.  Wish I could escape back to that balcony right now and enjoy that cup of coffee again!

The weather here in Houston has been so hot and humid.  I can't wait another six weeks for a break.  I normally don't wish for time to fly but PLEASE hurry up!  I am so tired of sweating all of the time!

Someone that inspires me...

Someone that inspires me is a woman named Vivian Maier.  Maier’s recent, sudden ascent from reclusive eccentric to esteemed photographer is one of the more remarkable stories in American photography.  Maier had been born in New York City in 1926, to a French mother and Austrian father; she had spent part of her youth in France, but she worked as a nanny in the United States for half a century, winding down her career in the 1990s.   Though some of the children she helped raise supported Maier after they came of age, she couldn’t make the payments on a storage locker she rented.

In 2007, the locker’s contents ended up at a Chicago auction house, where a young real estate agent named John Maloof came upon her negatives. Maloof, an amateur historian, spotted a few shots of Chicago he liked. He bought a box of 30,000 negatives for $400.  Maloof soon realized what he had discovered and started a blog about her photographs.

What inspires me most is the idea of a woman who as a street photographer was completely in self-imposed exile from the photography world.  Yet she made thousands and thousands of photographs obsessively, and created a very interesting body of work.”

In late 2008, she slipped on a patch of ice, sustaining a head injury that spiraled into other health problems. She died April 20, 2009, age 83.  You can read more about her by clicking the link below.

http://vivianmaier.blogspot.com/