Let it go, let it go...

How does that old saying go? Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice...well, you know. Tonight I got stood up for an appointment at the studio for the second time. Now, I'm a pretty easy going person: I meet people every night of the week, at 7:30, at 8:30, even at 9:30 at night. And over the years I've been stood up occasionally. It happens, things come up. But this is the first, at least that I can remember, that I've been stood up by the same person twice in a row.

As much as I love driving 30 minutes to the studio in Old Town, if I don't have to be there, I'd much rather be reading "How the Camel Got its Hump" to my daughter Alexandra. As I drove back home tonight I was a little peeved (okay, a lot) but then I decided that my inner Zen master was telling me to think about happy things instead of annoying ones. And here's what I came up with:

Reason #1: Yesterday, September 20th, was the third anniversary of one of my favorite couples, Laura and Tony Gonzalez. It's impossible to forget their wedding. The Washington area had just suffered through Isabel, one of the worst hurricanes in memory. Isabel wasn't Katrina, obviously, but it left major portions of the Potomac basin under water, including the area around Bellvue Country Club in Alexandria, where Laura and Tony had their reception.

Water aside, Laura and Tony's wedding gave me one of my favorite images of all time, a shot of the two of them dancing in total exuberance. Along with a handful of others, this photograph has become an archetype of sorts to me--an image that captures absolute and total joy. If I could come up with a similar image from each wedding I photograph I'd be a happy man.

One more thing: as much as I love this photograph, there's an even more important thing that came out of Laura and Tony's wedding, and that's a good friend. For the last couple of years we've done a charity event at my Old Town studio. Thanks to many former wedding and portrait clients, we've raised $14,000 for the sons of a journalist killed in Iraq, $7,000 for multiple sclerosis, and $19,000 for tsunami relief. (We took a break this year since so may people had given to Katrina relief.)

I never asked for help but Laura volunteered anyway. During Photo Marathon 2, Laura spent her entire Sunday (a beautiful day she could have spent at home with Tony and the dogs) signing people in. As the hours passed I kept telling her to go home and she kept telling me to shut up. I'll always be grateful for her enthusiastic help that day.

Reason #2: We learned last week that the families of two of the survivors who play a major part in Daniel's book, "The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million" will be coming to New York for the book party and reading at Barnes and Noble. And they're coming quite a distance at that. Jack Greene, (below, black sweater, with his brother, Bob, at Bondi Beach) is coming with his family all the way from Sydney, Australia. As a teenager in Bolechow, Poland in the 1930's--in another life, it seems--Jack dated my cousin Ruchele. He remembers the night she was murdered. His middle-of-the-night phone call to my brother a few years back--"I hear through the grapevine that you should talk to me"--led us to fly to Australia, and proved to be the catalyst for four more years of travel and interviews. Without speaking for Daniel, it's a safe bet that The Lost would never have been written had it not been for Jack. Flying for 23 hours, at his age, just to attend this book party is an act of incredible generosity and love, and we're truly grateful to Jack and his family.

Reason #3: My daughter Alexandra, for being the funniest, most beautiful kid I could have ever wished for. There isn't a second that Maya and I aren't laughing--whether she's hiding in the carry on suitcase that's perpetually being unpacked in the bedroom, or telling me about the five Beatles (George, Ringo, Paul, John and Ringo), or her constant worrying about how Veruca Salt got turned into a blueberry. Unlike the cobbler's children and their lack of shoes, there will be no lack of photographs of Alexandra when she gets older. Video, perhaps. But photographs? Not a chance.

See that? I feel much better now.


Matt