A Lovely Surprise

Well, a very big birthday just passed. I guess when you look at it, they're all pretty big, and you know how I love to beat up clichés. There's one that goes like this I think, "One door closes and another opens". Well, maybe this is a good example: I just lost two assistants. Thats not good. But what's great is that I have a brand new assistant that is considerably better than the two that I lost and her name is Moriah. So i guess the cliché works again. And what do you know that on my birthday that after having 7000 other assistants over the years, that lovely Moriah shows up with her equally lovely mother with a beautiful birthday cake and wished me a happy birthday. My god, it doesn't get any better than that. So I'd like that thank Moriah and her mom for an extremely delicious, outstanding, beautiful cake. And I'd like to see that if they ever remotely think of it again, if they could make it without sugar and calories. Oh forget that. Who am I kidding. It's all Good, Joe D

http://elliegantcakes.com/

If You Have Nothing Good To Say...

Photo ©Ann Raine

My best friend, life partner, and one of the finest photographers I know tries to remind me that in the world of blazing speed and internet no one really knows how old you are and you don't have to remind them. Never let it be said that I sometimes don't listen to advice.

I was brought up in the West Village on Carmine Street. You were taught early in life, if you didn't have anything good to say, keep your mouth shut. There's a whole lot of truth to that, so what I'm about to say is not designed to hurt anybody or any company. I'm just trying to relate the old days with the new days. In the beginning of my career I shot with Leicas and Nikons. For all intensive purposes I shot Nikon from 1968 to 1984. In 1984, I signed a contract with the IOC and as part of that contract I had to shoot Canon and Fuji film, rather than Nikon and Kodak. The people at Nikon were the best; totally dedicated, great products, great service, great everything. Okay, I'm going on; let's cut to the chase... A student of ours, Ann Raine, is a Nikon shooter. She purchased the NEW Nikon D3s, for the cost of a used Volkswagen. She had her new camera mounted on a tripod and it had a minor fall onto the carpet and two screws fell, out of the flash hot shoe mount. She returned it to Nikon and they took over a month to repair it and the repair bill was $500. I guess what I'm trying to say is I better listen to what my mother and father taught me and shut up. Where have you gone Dominick Bastello? (he headed the repair department at Nikon & was a wonderful human being, a very good black & white photographer who also taught me a lot about life and my photography.) I miss you

Ann Raine the Great

As a photographer and a film maker, I have the ultimate obligation to make my clients happy. They pay me and they expect to get what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. That's my job and I do the best possible job I can do. Of course, you always try to push the envelope or think out of the box, all of those cliches, which I interpret as putting a little of your own style into the visual medium. As a mentor and a teacher, I feel the same obligation. I take it very seriously and sometimes I go back to the studio and I wonder, "Did I do a good job, did they get it, were they able to make a better photograph?" Sometimes you know, sometimes you don't. In every workshop there are a few photographers that shine brighter than the rest. They're not necessarily the best photographers, but they put forth one hell of an effort. Ann Raine is a California girl who's been transplanted to the East Coast. She loves Arabian horses and she loves photography. Attached you'll find three of her photos and a link to several more. I'd like to thank Ann for the kind words. She motivates me to do a better job. As the truth be known, I constantly learn from the students. The student becomes the teacher, and the teacher becomes the student.

Photos ©Ann Raine

http://www.annraine.com/-/annraine/gallery.asp?cat=136818&pID=1&row=15

"I've attended numerous photo-walk workshops with Joe DiMaggio over the last several years, and I keep returning for a number of reasons: Great mentoring, interesting photographic venues, but most importantly, every time I participate in one of these day-long events, I feel a freedom to experiment, a license to open up and go-for-it (photographically speaking.) I am not as concerned about getting every photo perfect as I am in pushing the limits of my skill and knowledge, by practicing and experimenting to ultimately get the great photo!"

- Ann Raine

My View From the Corner By Angelo Dundee

There's an old adage - he who hesitates is lost. As part of my feature film "In This Corner" I needed one great person that made the journey from the blood and guts days of boxing all through the Golden Age of Boxing and is still vibrant, viable and inspiring. Who could this be, only one person Angelo Dundee. He's seen it all and lived it all. He is the man.

In a world that's filled with large egos, split second decisions, people who don't listen at all you have the exact opposite with Angie Dundee. There's never a been a bad word spoken about Angie and the reason is he's genuine, the best and only sees the good in people. In the middle of a hellish Nor'easter Dylan and I made our way to Foxwood's and Angie was gracious enough along with his business manager Mark Grismer, to give us a history of Boxing through his eyes. I learned more about boxing, in two hours then I did in the last 30 years.

Angie and I go back a long way, I did stories on him for Sport Magazine, Inside Sports, and The New York Times. He was amazing then and he's still amazing. At the end of the interview I asked him about Yuri Foreman. He said you got to like Yuri, because he's, "white, polite, contrite and he can fight."

On July 10th we're going to push the envelope on the DiMaggio/Kalish Learning Center. We're going to have a small elite group of photographers who are going to get special access to the great Bobby Kyle Blues Band. Each member of the workshop will be responsible to supply one photograph for use in Bobby's new CD cover (inside and back), and his webpage. Any body who has ever photographed music knows the famous phrase, "back stage passes." In this case, you will have an unprecedented back stage pass for rehearsal and the concerts with Bobby and the band. They will also make themselves available in the late afternoon for environmental portraits. This is not only going to be fun, exciting, and hopefully result in some dynamic photos, but to the best of my knowledge I don't think it's ever been done before. This highly specialized project will be sponsored by Sigma. They will be supplying fast long lenses, and fast wide angles. Last but not least, I have a funny feeling there may be some other surprises that day.

Joe D.

Tech Rep Rudy Winston

You spend 30 years perfecting your style, your visual literacy, the way you communicate with people. All of the things that make you a credible photographer and filmmaker. Then you take on the responsibility of a mentor. It is a very serious undertaking. Your students expect you to know all the answers to all the problems. The reality is you don't know all the answers to all the problems. So who do the mentors go for help? You go to somebody who is smarter than you are and knows virtually everything about not only his products but the competition's products. That person for me is Rudy Winston. So let's be clear right now. You're not getting his phone number or his e mail so let's get that out of the way.

I've known Rudy for over 15 years. He's not only a fine photographer, great teacher, great tech rep but great husband and father also. Rudy always has a few minutes to make very complicated matters extremely simple. Simple enough for me to understand. I think if Rudy went into politics he'd be able to solve some problems that other people just can't seem to deal with he's that good. So when people want to know who I go to - Rudy's my Go-To guy.

Having said that Rudy has a beautiful daughter and his daughter's name is Ciana and out of all the wonderful condolence cards and letters I received for my son Joseph, this one stands out. Rudy you did another great job! By the way, thanks to Chuck and Steve for your condolences also.

Ciana © Rudy Winston & Ciana's Drawing