Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Cherry Blossom Redux

A lot of couples and families ask me to shoot portraits during the springtime Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington. Having done this for years and years, I can tell you that it's one of the few overly-hyped tourist attractions to actually exceed expectations. The trees are so heavy with their delicate pink and white blossoms that one simply feels overwhelmed by the beauty of it all.

The logistics of getting to and from the Tidal Basin are another story. After 20 years I've learned that the only time one can successfully navigate the throngs of people--and dirth of parking spaces--is to be there at sunrise and out not much later.

This past spring I shot several couples down among the cherry trees whose weddings were in the distant future. And because of early blooming this year, I had to stack several appointments virtually on top of each other. The blossoms don't exactly wait for your schedule to mesh, and so it's important for all involved to very flexible.

As it happened, I ended up shooting two couples side by side one very early morning. Literally. Not wanting to wasted the golden sunrise, I would shoot one couple for a few minutes and then quickly "swap in" the other couple. It seemed crazy but we all laughed and the pictures were beautiful.

Part of the fun of that morning was that both couples had time to chat about their respective weddings, in between spurts of Matt yelling "Quick, quick! The light is Amazing!" and it quickly dawned on all of us that their dates were actually a day apart. Paul and Deena were getting married at the Museum of Women in the Arts on Sunday, July 15 and Julie and Chris a day earlier at Woodend.

I thought about that fun cherry blossom morning last week as I photographed Deena and Paul and Julie and Chris's wedding, back to back. Though completely different--Deena and Paul's affair was decidely Egyptian in flavor, with a belly dancer leading a procession of guests and fezzes for the men, while Julie and Chris had a gorgeous day to stroll around the grounds of the Audobon Society and eat crabcakes--both weddings, as I've now come to expect, were ultimatley shaped by high levels of romance and low levels of stress.

It seems so simple, doesn't it? High levels of romance and low levels of stress. Needless to say, of course, it's not a recipe that is always followed at weddings. At their core weddings are a celebration of the love that two people share. Why anyone would want to clutter that up with overly-ambitious timetables, family in-fighting and other miscellaneous tension ("I can't believe so-and-so was ten minutes late to the hair appointment!"), I don't know.

Julie and Chris and Deena and Paul got it, that's for sure. Their weddings were perfect celebrations, each one a reflection of their own families and values. We all laughed as one of Paul's colleagues at the IMF talked about his obsessive love of Wagner. (I'm a huge opera lover, though Wagner has admittedly been a struggle for me. I'll stick with Vissi d'arte from Tosca.) Apparently Paul will travel anywhere in the world for a good Ring cycle, and everyone wished Deena good luck trying to keep up. At Chris and Julie's wedding at Woodend, little flower girls giggled as they played hide and seek among the huge and ancient trees. Julie was so calm the morning of her wedding that she was eager to listen to my advice about the south of France, where she's now honeymooning. Other brides might have been too stressed out to be able to focus on the splendor of Aix en Provence.

Anyway, I have to go pack my gear for a quick trip to New Orleans tomorrow for a corporate shoot about smoke-free restaurants. New Orleans is a great city, but it's no fun by yourself for one day. I'd much rather be with Julie and Chris, as they explore Les Baux de Provence or sit at one of the trillion cafes in Aix, or with Deena and Paul, as they go from Tokyo to Bali and more.

Not sure if you can get good Wagner in Bali.

Cheers,

Matt

p.s. Don't forget: for a good laugh, click on the sound file in the post below for a Grammy winning Springsteen duet. It might take ten seconds to laod, as it's a big file. An as always, double-click photos for better viewing.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Alexandra Springsteen

thunderroadfinal.mp3


I'm going to try and write something later tonight about the two great weddings I shot last week. But in the meantime, I finally opened Apple's GarageBand tonight, software that's been wasting away on my computer for years and years. So with a brand new microphone I bought at the Apple Store, I give you Alexandra Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Be back shortly.

Matt

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Remembering Tammy Faye

I was working at my computer tonight when I looked up at the TV and saw Larry King begin his show on CNN with this portrait I made of Tammy Faye Messner ten years ago.

Tammy Faye died today after a long bout with cancer. And as Larry King showed an interview he taped with her just a few days ago, weighing only 65 pounds and looking devastatingly frail, I could only think back to the shoot we did in the lobby of the Jefferson Hotel in downtown Washington. If I remember correctly she was promoting her tell-all book that had just come out. I'm not normally a fan of televangelists, especially televangelists who swindle thousands of people out of their money, as Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker did with their infamous PTL Club. But during our hour together she was so, well, Tammy Faye-ish, with her dog snug in her purse, that one couldn't help but giggle with her.

When I lived in Binghamton, New York during the mid-1980's I was close with a family who, like me, couldn't turn off that damn PTL club. We would call each other on the phone and laugh and laugh, dissecting that day's show and wondering who on earth would follow these people. So if you're reading this, Judy and Laura Fish, I'm thinking of you guys tonight. I hope you still have the book Tammy signed for you!

Larry King described Tammy Faye tonight as "the one and only" and I thought, you ain't kidding. Has there ever been anyone like her--those eyelashes, that voice, that makeup? Oy vey. Rest in peace.

Matt

Friday, July 13, 2007

Le Maille Jaune

Okay, so the title of this entry is a terrible play on words, but I couldn't resist. You see, usually at this time I would be going on and on about the maillot jaune, the yellow jersey worn by the leader of the Tour de France. We get a little nutsy around here when the Tour begins, in past years watching live and subsequent re-broadcasts of each day's stage as many as four times a day. But after so many doping scandals the past few years, and so many hours spent defending riders who I'm now not even certain deserved defending, I just can't seem to get as excited as usual about this year's race. As Dave Stoller says in the 1979 classic "Breaking Away," one of my all-time favorite movies and certainly the greatest film about cycling ever made, "Everybody cheats, papa. I just didn't know it."

So allow me to talk about mustard instead, as in Maille, the French maker of moutarde since the mid-eighteenth century. This way, at least the yellow part stays the same.

I've never heard of mustard being used as a bellwether for a great civilization, but after a week in Paris, I now firmly believe it should rank right up there with democracy and literature and art. No offense to Voltaire and Moliere, or even Edith Piaf, but I really had an epiphany about this as we strolled around Place de la Madeleine. I'll explain.

After attending the wedding in Athens last Saturday, we flew to Paris (via Easy Jet, where, in exchange for cheap fares, passengers must rush the gate for a seat as if one were storming the Bastille) for a few days of non-hundred degree temperatures. We got them. Not only was Paris much cooler than sizzling Athens, it was downright cold. It felt like November. According to Parisians we spoke with this has been a really unseasonably cool summer.

So as we huddled for warmth inside Sacre Coeur, with 7,000 of our closest tourist friends, we decided that we should abandon any hopes of walking around Montmartre, which is really a lot like Plaka in Athens anyway--too many trinket shops and too many bad paintings for sale, and instead find a good steak frites place for lunch. In Paris, this is not very difficult. In fact, one could probably close one's eyes, spin three times in a circle, walk a thousand feet in any direction, and still walk right into a good steak frites place. (Don't even get me started about moule frites places in France. While most four-year-olds are content with pizza, Alexandra loves, more than anything, a good pot of mussels and fries.)

So after lunch we strolled around the neighborhood, mostly trying to avoid being outside. And after paying 90 euros for a sweater, something I didn't dream on packing in July, we came upon the mustard shop.

Maille. This company has been making mustard since before Marie Antoinette lost her head. They were making mustard before Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and before Mozart ever thought of writing a requiem. In their little shops around Paris all they sell is the yellow stuff. Mustard, mustard, and more mustard. It would be something out of a John Cleese Monty Python sketch if it weren't the real deal.

For me, the irony is that I've never actually been a great lover of mustard. I grew up on Long Island, where no self-respecting McDonalds would ever dream of putting mustard on a hamburger. Imagine the shock when I went off to college and realized that, in fact, most McDonalds put both ketchup and mustard on their burgers. The horror, the horror! But as I've gotten older, I've warmed a bit. I know it's a more refined and acquired taste to the red stuff. I get it now.

Now in America, we have specialty shops. Cheese shops only sell cheese, right? But I'm talking mustard, folks. A shop that only sells one tiny little product. And I haven't even gotten to the best part yet.

So we're looking around this cute little mustard shop, trying to find a size and package that could be carried onto an airplane in this post-9/11 world, when a French woman walks in. She takes out what looks like a worn little honey jug from her bag and hands it to the clerk. The clerk then reaches for the middle handle of what looks like three beer taps and pulls the lever...and out pours fresh mustard.

Mustard on tap. Think about it for a little bit. Ponder the ramifications, especially in a world increasingly out of touch with culture and beauty and simplicity. We make fun of the French for so many things, and rarely credit them for all that is so right. Paris is the most beautiful city on earth (with apologies to a friend of ours who once argued that Washington was "probably close"), and there's nothing like taking a stroll around the Palais Royal, with its incredible allée of trees, or watching impeccably dressed children float sailboats at the Jardin du Luxembourg, or eating mussels in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. (And whether it's winter or summer, drinking the richest hot chocolate in the world at Angelina, on the rue de Rivoli is absolutely de rigueur.)

Don't get me wrong: most tourists will still flock to see the I.M. Pei pyramid at the Louvre first, as we always do ourselves. But from now on, I'll always have Maille.

Happy Bastille day!



Matt

Friday, July 06, 2007

Last Tango in Athens

So there we were tonight, sitting outside a cute little taverna in Athens, Greece, listening to an incredible quintet, led by a Hungarian violinist, play dance music most usually associated with dance halls in Buenos Aires. And I didn't even mention that we had only just arrived from Paris, where last tangos are supposed to be heard. Small world.

I guess I should back up a bit. I'm posting tonight from Athens, my first international blog entry, and I was originally planning on just throwing up some cute pictures of Alexandra playing at the Parthenon this morning. But that was before we fell into this magical night of tango music, which became more and more irresistable as we ate our lamb at a favorite outdoor restaurant in Plaka, Platanos.

Every time we come to Greece, which is now becoming every other year, we make a beeline to Platanos, a classic Greek taverna. There's no shortage of cute tavernas in Plaka, but Platanos has always been special. It sits by itself on a secluded Plaka street, with tables covered by a natural canopy of vines and flowers. It's quite picturesque and the food is simple and good, and that's probably why we always keep coming back.

Tonight, we were there at 7:30, which is pretty much breaksfast time for most Greeks. Greeks, you see, don't believe in eating dinner until at least 10:30, something that tends to drive most American tourists a bit nuts. You show up at a restaurant at 7:30 and you watch the band set up.

Which is precisely what happened tonight. As we sat there eating we began to hear the most gorgeous strains form a violin I've even heard in person. Now I've had many a subscription to the NSO in Washington but this was something other-worldly. As more of the musicians began to go through their sound checks--the accordian, the piano, the bass--we realized that they were preparing for a concert in the adjacent property, a courtyard belonging to the Greek Ministry of Culture. The Athens Festival is going on and slowly it all started to make sense: there would be a recital this evening, but a recital of what? We checked the doorway and sure enough--and bizarrely enough--it would be a concert of tango music. In Greece. Go figure.

So we stalled and stalled through our diner, trying to drag things out so that we could still be there by the 9:30 concert time. We had Alexandra with us and she was already dozing off in her stroller. Could we take a sleeping child in a stroller to a concert? Would she wake up?

The more we heard the musicians rehearse the more we realized we had no choice. We had to go. So, with Alexandra fast asleep, we slid into the last two chairs and were treated to a group of world-class musicians playing these elctrifying tangos, one after the other. I have not the slightest reference point for tango music, so I was really surprised at how avaante-garde and modern it was. It sounded like something Stavinsky would have felt comfortable writing. Just incredible.

Anyway, Greece is beautiful. It's hot as Hades, though not as bad as we were expecting. I took Alexandra up to the Acropolis this morning--she pretty much didn't notice the large temple with columns behind her and was content to pick wildflowers growing out of the rocks. But that was fine, she's only four. At this point it was just a photo op for dad.

Last night Maya's family took us out for a great dinner, right at the base of the Acropolis. As you can see from the first image, there aren't a lot of restaurant settings in the world more spectacular than this one. All through the meal we could hear the strains of music (do you detect a common refrain forming?) wafting out of the nearby Odeion of Herodes Atticus, the Roman theater that sits at the base of the Acropolis.

And as long as we're on this whole music thing tonight, I can't avoid my favorite musician in all of Athens. Well, he's not really a musician. He's an organ grinder, actually, a particular type of street performer that disappeared from American streets decades upon decades ago. There aren't too many in Athens either. This particular man is well into his eighties and his voice makes a sound not unlike a rusty door being pried open with a crowbar. He pushes a very heavy cart up Ermou Street, Athens' big commercial avenue, all the while cranking this ancient organ. It's a sight one just doesn't see in a modern world. Every time we come to Athens we look for him, if only to give him some change and feel luck to have seen him.

Well, I probably should quit while I'm ahead here. It's quite late in Athens and we have to drive to Vouliagmeni tomorrow for the wedding. Though I'm quite at home in this digital world we live in, I still find it remarkable that I can do things like blog from my hotel room in Plaka. Way cool.

Yiasas!





Matt

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Gone Fishin'

Just a two-second post here to let everyone know that I'll be out of the country from 7/2 through 7/12. I'll be able to check my email a bit, but I'm not sure I really want to! We're off to Paris and then to Greece, to attend the wedding of Maya's cousin. See? Even when I'm not shooting weddings I'm still attending them.

I've had three great weddings the past couple of weekends, including a fantastic wedding at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, a gorgeous wedding in the Chicago area, complete with a walk on the sandy beaches of Lake Michigan, and the wedding of a woman I first met when she was in her stroller in Binghamton, New York.

Hopefully I'll be able to go into more detail about all of these weddings when I return.

So here's to Sarah Tierney and George Wisnieski, who had one of the most beautiful days of the year--and venues--for their wedding. The Naval Acadameny Chapel, with its maritime-themed stained glass, was truly breathtaking.

And here's to Adrienne Valassis and Todd Stratman, who, to their credit, made sure they had a few minutes to hit some golf balls at the country club after their Lake Bluff, Illinois wedding. I photographed Adrienne's sister's wedding at the same club a few years ago. Shawn, Adrienne's sister, is about to give birth and it was neat to see how life moves on and on.

And here's to Caroline Mahoney, who I first met when she was just a toddler, playing along the sidelines of high school soccer games near my house in Binghamton, New York. Caroline married Daniel Seymour, a firefighter, this past weekend. Twenty-some years ago, when I was working at my first job at the Binghamton Press, in upstate New York, the Mahoneys took me in and treated me like I was one of their own. Their generosity has always been vast. I'm a Jewish kid from Long Island, but after 20 years of friendship I feel like I'm part of a huge Irish family as well.










Gotta go pack now! Taxi's coming in 30 minutes.

See ya,


Matt