…scanned from my archive. My grandmother Fanny

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…scanned from my archive. My grandmother Fanny

My grandmother Fanny was one of the sweetest and kindest people I ever knew, almost to a fault. She lived for her family and friends and would literally do anything to help or support them, but as a result I always wondered about her own happiness.

She raised my mother and her brother Jerry, and helped my grandfather Boris run his photo studio on the boardwalk, just downstairs from their ocean view apartment in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. I of course have dozens of photos my grandfather took of her, posing almost demurely for the camera in his studio, on the boardwalk, the beach or their roof (otherwise known as tar beach). These two photos were mixed in amongst them all, but stood out because they were not the typical poses or expressions I see in most of the other photos of her.

The one on the roof was not taken on my grandparent's roof, there were no giant container tanks near their home, but I love my grandmother’s almost haughty attitude and posture towards the camera, so unlike her. I have to imagine she was either playing for the camera or grandpa was in the doghouse big time and his stare down was captured for history.

The other photo looks like a studio shot but so much more relaxed than they usually are. Her smile is the prettiest I have seen on her, and whatever grandpa did in the first photo, he must have made up for by thge time this was taken.

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…scanned from my archive. My mom’s 97th birthday

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…scanned from my archive. My mom’s 97th birthday

…scanned from my archive. My mom’s 97th birthday

Yikes! Today my mom turned 97 today. In honor of this event I pulled out a few of my favorites and a few I’ve not shared before.

I literally have hundreds of photos of my mother growing up in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. As I’ve mentioned many times, my grandfather had a photo studio right on the boardwalk near Brighton 4th Street. In our family, growing up in front of the camera was a big part of our lives. My mother, her brother Jerry, myself and my cousins Michael and Leslee all spent part of our formative years posing in the studio for my grandfather.

The five older photos I chose were all taken in the studio or on the boardwalk railing just next to it. My mom still has the same haircut she did as the child in the photos, as you can see from the photo I took last week of her and Luke. She did try the big hair thing for her prom. The dress is from Orbach’s I’m told.

Happy Birthday Mom, your spirit is an inspiration. More photos here…

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…scanned from my archive. Tim and Nico go out Midwest – 1974

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…scanned from my archive. Tim and Nico go out Midwest – 1974

In 1974 my brothers Tim and Nico took a trip out the Midwest to visit their grandparents. My stepmother Susan was originally from Minnesota but her parents had relocated to Missouri and so the family took off for the heartland. Along the way they stopped for a visit to Mount Rushmore.

I love this shot that my father took. The quintessential snapshot would have typically had my brothers facing the camera, framed from head to toe (because we all know how important it is to include footwear in meaningful family portraits), with the four presidents shrunk to minuscule versions of themselves in the background. My father was a good photographer however and he managed to catch this quizzical pose of my brothers tilting their heads to presumably enhance their viewing of the famous landmark (I must remember to ask them why one of these days).

In a way this kind of photo is more powerful as it forces the viewer to imagine the faces of the two curious boys while adding a bit of humor to the picture and keeping the presidents framed up clearly.

The photo of Tim water skiing on a lake in Missouri was badly faded. Sometimes with older prints, the inks fade at different rates, typically the blues, which leaves the picture with a reddish cast to it. I restored the photo a bit and brought back some of the original color, a little Photshop can go a long way.

I like the portrait of my brothers taken against the side of the house, it reminds me of some of the old WPA photos taken during the Depression by the likes of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange of workers photographed against barns and other structures out in the dust bowl. Probably a stretch considering the difference in attire and circumstances, but photos evoke what they evoke and that’s the beauty of it. More photos here…

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…scanned from my archive. Boris Lenoff, Fire Island 1958

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…scanned from my archive. Boris Lenoff, Fire Island 1958

…scanned from my archive. Boris Lenoff, Fire Island 1958. While growing up, there were always certain photos that seemed to be present, either in frames on the wall, taped to cabinets, stuck to the fridge or in one of the several photo albums lying around. My father and my mother’s father Boris, were usually the photographers of most of the family photos, so they aren’t present in as many of the family photos as other family members. Boris was a professional photographer, so like myself, he was usually much more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it.

So this particular image was always very important to me because it was one of only a handful of photos that had both my grandfather and me in it. It was also taken at one of my favorite places in the world – Fire Island. This was shot on the side of our house in Fire Island Pines with the big dune that protected us from the winds and our neighbor’s eyes looming behind us.

If you know Fire Island at all, you know it is all sand and dunes, so if you don’t like sand you are in a lot of trouble. I loved sand and I loved standing next to my dad or granddad and watching them saw, hammer in nails or do just about anything with wood. So I was a really happy kid in this photo, and by the looks of Boris, he was having a good time too.

Emotional connections with photos are made through repeated viewings, and that through that process we start to develop the visual narrative of our life story. The photos on our walls, our fridge and our family albums will always be the way I remember those parts of my life, and I was so lucky to have had so many great photos to tell that story. This one will always be one of my favorites. Larger photo here

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…scanned from my archive. My Jesus years

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…scanned from my archive. My Jesus years

…scanned from my archive. As it is holiday time, I thought a few photos from what I would call my “Jesus Years” would be appropriate. From about 1972-1974 I looked like my hero at the time, George Harrison, and that meant hair down to my ass and a goatee. Although I was only 18, he was the Beatle I admired the most, probably because he was the main guitar player and I was aspiring to be one as well.

The first photo is from my High School graduation at good old Seward Park HS located on New York’s lower east side. The reason for the informal dress was I happened to graduate in January of 1972, 6 months earlier than the rest of the class of ’72. We held a brief and “come as you are” reception for which I felt a suede fringe jacket was just right for the occasion.

Shortly after my graduation, I moved out to San Francisco, the Haight-Ashbury to be precise. This is me in front of our flat, literally on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. The days of the Summer of Love were long gone and the neighborhood was run down as heroin had replaced LSD as the drug of choice for many. I don’t want to say how many of us lived in that flat, but lets just say it was very, very cozy.

The last shot was taken in Yosemite. It was the last leg of a cross-country trip in 1974 from NYC where I was retrieving some things for my permanent move to SF. I drove with my girlfriend at the time, Nicky and her friend, whose name I have long since forgotten, but who happened to conveniently have a false leg which was the perfect place to stash our pot for the trip out west in case we got stopped. He unfortunately had to take his leg off every time we wanted to light up, but it didn’t seem to slow us down much.  More photos here

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