Sandy Saunders farms 150 acres of pasture in Garrison NY. His parents converted their herd of milk cattle to beef in 1942 when his father left to fight in World War II. His mother could not manage the milking alone. This is a segment from my proposed documentary about life on the farm.

He manages the farm almost single handed. He has help from a 26 year-old nurse, Shelley Scott, during the haymaking season, and she also feeds the four horses that have been taken in as guests and borders. She has worked on the farm since she was 14.

Sandy is also an engineer and aviator. He has a 1986 Maule M5 180C light aircraft, known for its short take-off and landing capabilities. "When I first had the airplane I kept it at Stewart with its gigantic heavy jet runways. I used to amuse the controllers by landing on the numbers at the threshold of the runway and stopping on the numbers." 

In the engineering field, when Sandy heard that the Tapan Zee Bridge was going to be rebuilt, he designed a tunnel as an alternative to the new bridge. The tunnel, he says, is cheaper by a billion dollars, quicker to construct, would include mass transit and heavy rail, and meet environmental standards.

"The Governor is hell bent on building these bridges which are going to be very useless and very intrusive, and he absolutely refuses to follow the more modern world and doing it as a tunnel."

Exhibition in Spain of artists and writers

This is the poster for an exhibition in Valladolid, Spain of some of my portraits of artists, writers and performers taken between 1963 and 1988 in Europe and the United States. 

A little research revealed that the city of Valladolid, in the region of Castile and León, the largest autonomous region in Europe, was founded in the 11th century. Christopher Columbus died there. Phillip II was born there and Isabella and Ferdinand were married there. 

The show is being curated by Dª Cristina Albornoz who reviewed my exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2011 for the Spanish magazine XL SEMANAL. At the time she said she would like to do a show for me in Spain and she has.

I took the picture of David Hockney in the mid 1970s when he was living in Paris. This is the courtyard of his studio. I remember running through London Airport to catch the plane, slipped and skidded along the floor. I was helped to my feet by fellow travelers, uninjured, and made the flight. Today it would be safer to miss your plane than run through an airport swinging camera bags.

The show runs from March 14 to May 5 2013.

Stanley Kubrick

I took this picture of Stanley Kubrick under a camera platform built on the set of
A Clockwork Orange near Kingston-upon-Thames, England in 1970. The publishers Fotofolio have recently made it into a postcard. 

Stanley and I were sheltering from the rain underneath the camera platform and shortly after I took the picture the platform began creaking and groaning and then wobbled and collapsed. As the creaking and groaning began, both of us leaped out from under it like rabbits bolting.

Dana and Ava

Dana and Ava are childhood friends who grew up in Garrison, NY and are both now active in environmental matters. We in Garrison are in the throws of an almighty quarrel with the Town Board  who intend to pave a much loved piece of Old Albany Post Road that runs through farmland. 

The Highway Department are unable to solve the engineering problems associated with dirt road maintenance in spite of the fact that dirt roads are maintained all over the country at a reasonable cost. Books and articles have been written. Recommendations from engineers and highway superintendents have been tried and proven in this and other states. The protest is enormous and there will be a fight to the last man or woman standing. 

The opposing sides are not divided between generations or between political parties. All the young people we have spoken to love the dirt roads, but are the first to admit that if they are paved, they will be driving down them in their cars and on their motorbikes at at high speeds. Danger to animals and pedestrians is a constant cry.

I am making a short film about some of the questions that have arisen in this battle, interviewing families who walk the paved roads, and others who are qualified to talk about the engineering and financial side of it.  I am on the side of the anti paving so this will not be a balanced film.

Molly and Martin

She was eight-years-old when I first photographed her -– cross and beautiful. We met again 20 years later on the road not far from her house where she used to ride her pony. She had not wanted to be photographed the first time, she told Caroline, but her mother had persuaded her. Now she has a horse but if the Philipstown Town Board have their way and pave this road she may never be able to ride down it again. Molly and her friend Martin both have jobs in the environmental protection world in the Catskills. Martin has a rein attached from round his waist to the two dogs on the right, so that the dogs can pull him on his cross-country skis. 

Silent Night

Saunders Farm Nativity from Dmitri Kasterine on Vimeo.

Horses and unaccompanied singing are two loves of mine.  I grew up with horses, but as a child I was not as keen as my mother and sister were. It was not until Gay Kindersley put me on one of his steeple chasers (admittedly an retired one) that I began to understand the thrill and intelligence of the beasts, and will now go out of my way to watch or ride a horse.

At school I was head of the choir, therefore I heard a great deal of unaccompanied music. Recently a highlight of my wanderings through YouTube is the discovery of a recording of Schubert's Mass in G Major by the National Chamber Choir of Armenia, an ensemble that no one has probably ever heard of. But listen to them, particularly the Benedictus. This, as musicians will know, is not actually an unaccompanied piece, but so powerful and pure is the soprano's voice, she could well manage without the orchestra. Then, of course, Keith Richards has recently revealed that he was a boy soprano of great accomplishment, singing many times at the Albert Hall, and winning all the important school competitions in the 1950s. Then he had his first set-back in life... his voice broke. I wish I had heard him.

Strolling about Sandy's barn and field last week I saw the young children lost in their love of both activities.

Garrison Golf Club

Unforgettable mild winter days.

Preview pages of Newburgh: Portrait of a City

I am giving a talk and signing of my book 
Newburgh: Portrait of a City at Mill Street Loft, 45 Pershing Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY. on Friday, December 7, 2012 from 5.00 pm - 7.00 pm. It is being held in conjunction with Three Arts Bookstore.

The book is published by The Quantuck Lane Press with a foreword by David Dasch. 
It is designed by Laura Lindgren.
Details: http://millstreetloft.org/newburgh-portrait-of-a-city

Lady with cat

I took this photograph in 1978 in the Upper Richmond Road in the district of Putney, London, England. It was recently selected by Rod Fry ARPS who wrote about it in The Royal Photographic Society magazine Contemporary Group Journal. Rod first noticed the picture in a book of mine called England and the English, published in 1982. He was reminded of it when he saw that I had an exhibition of my pictures of writers and artists at The National Portrait Gallery in London, in 2011.

Barn doors on Sandy's farm

Thanksgiving 2012. No Brussels sprouts, no pumpkin pie and no guests ― just us and the dogs. Practiced the piano, edited a video of Sandy Saunders making the last mowing of the season at Wing and Wing, the field below Castle Rock, the not very medieval, but never-the-less impressive wreck of a castle on the hilltop overlooking Garrison, NY. It can been seen from almost everywhere.

We walked in the sunshine on a windless day. Probably the happiest late November day I have ever spent. Cooked Pommes gaufrettes au beurre from the incomparable Jean and Pierre Troisgros cookbook, with fried turkey breasts in a sauce made from the last of a bottle of Cockburn 20 year-old Tawney port, white wine, chicken stock, lemon juice and a knob of butter. It was planned to be Madeira sauce, but Yannitelli, our local wine merchant, had run out. Glad to be a victim of the increasing popularity of this wonderful beverage, without which Washington and his generals would never have won the war.

The photograph is of the barn at Sandy Saunders' house. Pray for the mild winter to continue.

Grey's last dinner

Grey Zein was overheard on his telephone in Foodtown, Garrison, NY on Saturday before Hurricane Sandy was due, saying, "What do you want for dinner this evening, before the world comes to an end?"

Train spotters

These are train spotters on a platform at Clapham Junction station in South London, England taken in 1979. You bought a platform ticket for almost nothing so that you could see your sweetheart off to visit her aunt in Brighton and if you were a photographer or a train spotter armed with a platform ticket you could go about your work without question. Now it is quite different. This picture was published recently in the photography blog London Column where the writer describes what happens if you want to go on to a platform and you are not a traveler.

James Baldwin

I was still living in London in the late 1970s when Robert Priest rang me from Esquire in New York to ask if I would photograph James Baldwin. I knew that he lived in France and it is always a thrill to be asked to go somewhere else to photograph a writer besides a cold house in Hampstead or a cluttered flat in Earl's Court. This was particularly nice because Baldwin lived in Saint-Paul-de-Vence where I had  been once before and dined at La Colombe D'Or, one of the most attractive restaurants anywhere. 

I drove into the main square of Saint-Paul-de-Vence the evening before I was due to take his picture. As I past a café I noticed sitting at a table facing the street a black man. He was surrounded by five white young ladies all leaning forward towards him wide eyed as he spoke. I recognized the man almost at once as James Baldwin. The girls were young enough to be college students. When I saw him the next day I asked him about it and he said that yes indeed they were American college students. He said he liked that particular café and went there often. The group spotted him and he invited them to sit with him.

We spoke little during my time with him as is often the case when I photograph people. I concentrate on how to arrange the scene beside and behind my subject and where to place the camera. Mostly I allow people to compose themselves, with an occasional, "Just a little to your left...yes, that's it, there." And if the sitter looks too fixed I move away from the camera or ask a question which usually causes people to re-arrange themselves.

I remember James Baldwin saying that when the revolution came he would be out there in the streets with his carving knife. When Occupy Wall Street takes hold I wonder if it will be like that.

Interview

In 1988 I took this photograph of Jackie Mason for Andy Warhol's "Interview." He arrived at my studio with at least one other person followed shortly by the assigned writer accompanied by a friend. I was not told about these people coming to the shoot. Even after I asked if they would very kindly not talk and move away from the area of the studio where I was working they continued to chatter. 

I needed to be alone with my subject so I asked the spectators to  go downstairs please and wait in the very nice coffee shop below. They agreed but my request was reported to the editors who took a dim view of my actions and I was struck from the list of photographers the magazine used. "Just try and write an article with three or four people nattering at your side clanking cups and saucers of coffee," I told the art editor. 

I am telling this tale because I did not hear from "Interview" again until last week when they e-mailed me to ask if they could publish two of my pictures of Stanley Kubrick. The enraged editors, writers and their friends had, of course, long since departed from the magazine. Fabien Baron is now the editorial director. We agreed a price, I wrote some captions and the whole thing was done with much courtesy and ease.
   

Newburgh: Portrait of a City on NPR

 

 A young person for Volume II.

Quote from THE picture SHOW, the NPR news blog featuring my book and exhibition:

"But even after 16 years," he says, "the work isn't done." He still goes to Newburgh every week, and requests from young residents (who want to know why he hasn't taken their photos yet) keep his mind on the project.

"I'm thinking of volume two already," he says.

To view THE picture SHOW click here

California

Sometimes I mind the tame way people hold each other. Here it seems to me that the man is merely lolling around the girl and the girl only has the barest grasp of him, almost as though she's holding just his t-shirt. You can't feel someone the way she is holding him, with her half clenched fist. There is not much lust here. Well, of course there may not have been. I think I will ask them when I see them again. "Are you just friends?" 

Anyway, I have promoted this photograph into my favorites list because of her dress, their matching slimness and his pride (or is it challenge?) — the slightly raised chin.

Newburgh: Portrait of a City, book signing.

Hello and welcome,

I am holding a BOOK SIGNING on Saturday, September 8th at The Ann Street Gallery,

104 Ann Street, Newburgh NY 12550. http://www.annstreetgallery.org/contact/directions
Click here to see a selection of photographs from the book,

NEWBURGH: PORTRAIT OF A CITY

Best wishes,

Dmitri

dmitri@kasterine.com

The Twist

I received this letter not long ago.

"I am a psychologist working at the Coltman Street Day Hospital in Hull❲England❳. Our primary work here is to help older people with a diagnosis of memory loss or dementia. We have excellent facilities here including a large flat screen television we use to flash up various historic photographs of Hull for our clients.

I want to update the images on our running PowerPoint display that we have in the main wait area and saw your website. I wondered if there was a possibility of copying your photograph The Twist on your site so that clients can be stimulated in memory back to their childhoods and persevere their precious memories. Is this something you would consider?"

I wrote back agreeing to his using it. I took the picture in the early 1960s in London at The Lyceum Ballroom for The Weekend Telelgraph.

Newburgh: Portrait of a City arriving in September

Hello and welcome,

This is the cover of my book. It will be published in early September and I am busy looking for newspapers, magazines, TV stations, web sites and radio stations in the New York area who might be interested in reviewing it. I have probably overlooked some, so please, if you have any thoughts, e-mail me. I will then send a copy of the book together with the press release to the recommended organization. I should be more than grateful for your help.

Click here to see a selection of photographs from the book.

Robert Hughes

I worked with Robert Hughes in the mid 1960s on several stories for The Telegraph Magazine in London. We became friends. He used to come to dinner, or in the summer, lunch in the garden, always carrying an armful of good Italian wine. He dressed at that time in Cossack style silk shirts from Turnbull and Asser, either in white or purple. 

He had not begun to write about art then, but accepted assignments of general interest from The Telegraph and other publications. We went together to Guernsey in The Channel Isles to feature a couple recently retired from British colonial life, and rather than coming home they had plumped for a tax haven. Bob took up the opening paragraph in the piece describing how we had been shown into the boot room and been kept waiting there for 20 minutes. 

Later, when he was snapped up by Time Magazine to be their art critic, the world became riveted by his prose. And his guts. Who dared to say what they felt about Andy Warhol, Julian Schnabel and Jean-Michel Basquiat, unless it was praise? Only Bob Hughes.

I saw him once again in London, by chance, at Langan's, the brasserie owned by Michael Langan and Michael Caine. Bob was eating alone and I wondered why. He probably chose to, I thought, as he had recently arrived from New York to fulfill some obligation for the BBC the next day and then return to New York.

Then in the late 1970s I went to New York for a job and rang Bob. "Take the N and the R train to Prince and walk four blocks west to West Broadway. My loft is on the north east corner of Prince and West Broadway, top floor." I got out at Prince and climbed the stairs to the street and saw that I was on Broadway and got in a muddle, both with the name Broadway and not being sure which was east and west. I called Bob from the pay phone. He told me to face the setting sun. "Give me two minutes and you will see me standing, waving on my street corner." I waited and there his was, waving, almost the only person on the street. Can you imagine today, thirty five years later, being able to single out a person waving at you from five blocks away, as you stood on Broadway and Prince at seven in the evening?

The south window of his loft looked slap at the Twin Towers. Bob had done most of the work himself including the plumbing. The claw feet bathtub stood alone at the end of the main room. "I may keep it like that."

We walked to Mulberry Street in Little Italy to a slit of a place where we were seated at once and waited on with attention. "Is this a Mafia place?" I asked?

"Oh, yes", Bob replied.

I have missed Bob for twenty-five years because our paths did not cross much when I came to live in the United States—chance meetings in the street or at Dean and Deluca where we would have a coffee together. I always came away chuckling at something he had said. And there was and always will be his writing.   
   
My favourite clip from Bob's multitude of TV appearances is his part in the documentary about R. Crumb.