Patricia Lay Dorsey, photography

my Young Musicians book is completed and ready to order!

2011-12-12T00:29:00.013-05:00

(Click on my book cover image to see it larger)

I see that I first wrote a blog entry about my young musicians project on March 8, 2011. Well, nine months later, almost to the day, my "Young Musicians" book became a reality. And yes, it was an eventful pregnancy and birth, not always easy but always a labor of love.

You can see and, if interested, order this book by going to

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2794319

Once there, if you click on "Preview Book!" you can see every one of the book's 160 pages filled with 271 photos of the amazing participants in the 2010-2011 season of Detroit's Civic Youth Ensembles. The book Introduction gives you some background on this program and how I first learned about it. By the way, to see the photos in full page format, be sure to click on the square icon on the bottom right of the Preview page.

The responses to the book that I've received thus far are immensely gratifying. The director of the CYE program wants to order a good number of books to give to donors. Last night I showed the buyer at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra store a copy of the book and he expressed interest in selling it there. But, most importantly, the young musicians and parents who have seen the book, love it. It was so they could see the photos I'd been taking that I created the book in the first place, so their response means the most to me.

But you know, every part of a photographer's life must satisfy the photographer him or herself. You can't be in it for recognition from the outside. You must truly love the process in and of itself. And I do. I love the late-night editing just as much as the out-among-them time shooting. And playing with sequencing is like eating peanuts to me; I can't get enough of it.

I have to admit, though, this time I am as pleased with the product as I was with the process. The book looks better than I ever could have imagined. Yes, my friends, mother and child are doing very well indeed!

Occupy Detroit

2011-11-15T23:40:00.011-05:00

Patience facilitates the daily camp meeting at Occupy Detroit on November 4. There had been a violation of the Community Agreements the night before and the community was making a consensus-based decision on how to handle it. Click on image to see it larger.

I first started photographing Occupy Detroit on October 23, Day 10 of their encampment. My original intention was to find images to add to a project on Detroit’s people that I had been working on for some months. But after eight hours with these amazingly committed folks, I was hooked. For the next three weeks my camera and I spent every free minute down at Grand Circus Park where Occupy Detroit made its home.

I knew that history was being made and I wanted to document it, mainly for the occupiers themselves. That was why I started making 8.5 x 11 inch prints of selected photos and, with the help of Todd and Bob down at the camp, put together an ever-expanding photo album. It eventually contained 127 prints. Todd and Bob kept the album at the Info Tent so the occupiers could see a tangible record of what they were contributing to this worldwide movement for economic and social justice.

It was only this week that I found time to post a portfolio of images from Occupy Detroit on my website. A nasty cold and the fact that the encampment is in the process of moving to an inside location helped me see that my part of the project was coming to an end.

What had especially interested me was the encampment itself and how they created an inclusive society that met the needs of its people like any small city, while expecting mutual responsibility and accountability. This was not an easy task as the encampment included homeless as well as homed, young and old, diverse races and religions, students, the employed, underemployed and unemployed. But they did it through hard work, listening to every voice and making all decisions using a consensus model. And unlike most other big city occupations, Occupy Detroit has had a good working relationship with the mayor, city council and police. All sides deserve credit for that.

It is clear that Occupy Detroit is as much a cultural as a political movement. What started as an encampment has become a deeply connected community that will continue to forge new ways of living and working together as equals. I feel honored to have documented its origins. As history tells us, change always comes from the bottom up.

2011-10-19T17:49:00.005-04:00

My oh my, two posts within three weeks of each other! A first for sure. But I have to share just a bit about the 5-day Filter Photo Festival I attended in Chicago last week.

All I can say to other photographers is: DON'T MISS IT IN 2012!!! And yes, I am shouting. This one of the best organized, people-friendly, informative and community-building photography events around. Not that I'm an expert -- it was my very first Portfolio Review, after all-- but it's hard to imagine anything much better than this. My only concern is that it will get too popular and possibly lose the sense of intimacy and family that we experienced this year. But I'm sure the wonderful organizers and volunteers you see pictured above will work it out no matter what happens.

I have just written the Filter Photo Fest organizers an email in which I described how the festival was for me. This is what I said:

"Oh my, what can I say about those five days and nights?!! It is simple. My life as a photographer will never be the same again. I will mark my photographic journey as pre-Filter Photo Fest and post-Filter Photo Fest. I came to Chicago as a passionate photographer and that has not changed. What has changed is my confidence in my work as worthy of being seen, my sense of being part of a loving and supportive community, and the knowledge that my work has wings that will soar to places I cannot imagine.

"The responses by my sister and brother photographers and portfolio reviewers to my self portrait project, Falling Into Place, let me know that I have created a body of work that touches people deeply. It is now up to me to see that it gets out there in every way I can. And, thanks to Filter Photo Festival, I have companions at my side who are as committed to having it seen as I. I am no longer alone. And that is priceless.

"Thank you, dear Filter Photo Fest organizers, volunteers, reviewers, workshop, panel and lecture presenters, and especially each and every participant. I will be forever indebted to you. May your lives be as rich as you have made mine. And may we meet again...

in loving gratitude,

Patricia"

What I don't say is what they already know: Doors were opened for me as a result of the Portfolio Reviews and I am now on the threshold of a bigger, broader world than I could ever have imagined. To mix my metaphors completely, as the seeds bear fruit, I will post here and let you know so you can taste the juicy richness with me.

Oh my, life is so good.

My Detroit

2011-09-30T17:46:00.008-04:00

A wedding at the Belle Isle Casino. Click on image to see it larger.

Oh my, this is when I know that life is good--when I haven't had time to update my blog for over two months! Yes, friends, all is well. Better than well. Spectacular! I'm immersed in a new photo project even as I try to pull together the thousands of photos I took last winter and spring of the hundreds of young musicians who participated in Detroit's Civic Youth Ensembles 2010-11 season at Orchestra Hall. I've promised the kids, their parents, the conductors, staff and donors to create a Blurb book that they can order online, but I've gotten bogged down in the task of transcribing the 110 interviews I recorded and want to use as a basis for the text. Trust me, this is not as much fun as taking and editing photos, but I'll get it done.

Of course, I'm having a wonderful time with my new project! I always do. Nothing makes me happier than jumping into a subject with both feet, hands, heart, mind, body and spirit. Oh I do LOVE photography!!! This project especially. It is my love letter to Detroit, a city that photographers from around the world are showing as a place in ruins, but that I know is full of life, energy and people who never give up. And I should know. I've lived either in the city or within a mile of the city limits for 46 years. I adore Detroit and its people.

So I've been going through my last 5 years of photos and have been out on new photo shoots several times a week since mid-August. What a rich harvest I am gathering! And I have a wonderful deadline to work towards: the Portfolio Reviews at Chicago's Filter Photo Festival in mid-October. It will be my very first Portfolio Review and I've been choosing and printing images for weeks now. I'll be showing 13 x 19 inch prints from my self portrait series (Falling Into Place) and my new project that I am calling "My Detroit." Over a two-day period I will be spending 20 minutes each with one museum director, a museum curator, one gallery owner, one gallery curator, two online magazine editors, one book publisher, and one creative consultant who is considered an expert in marketing and the business end of photography. Each reviewer will look at my prints (and if we have time, my book too), give feedback, answer questions, make suggestions, give critiques and, hopefully, want to see my work gain greater exposure. It is a bit scary and very exciting. I feel ready.

Regarding my precious body, I am fit as a fiddle. In the summer I was regularly swimming a mile of laps three times a week, and now that we've gone indoors, I'm swimming more than an hour four days in a row every week. This is in addition to working out at the gym once a week with Matt, my trainer. I am feeling GREAT!!!

I'll post a photo later. Now I've got to go put our quiches in the oven for dinner. Ta ta...

Visura Magazine, Issue 12

2011-07-16T00:24:00.004-04:00

Visura Magazine, Issue 12

Once in a long while life deals you the perfect hand. You didn't deserve it. You didn't expect it. It just happened. All you can feel is grateful. That's where I am tonight.

Yes, I knew my self portrait project "Falling Into Place" was to be featured in Issue 12 of Visura Magazine. How could I not know? The editor Adriana Teresa and I have been fine-tuning this particular photo edit and text for five months. But there's something about seeing the magazine as a whole that makes me shake my head in disbelief.

How could it be that my work is in the company of such powerful photographers as this? It is hard to believe. I spent hours today reading every word and viewing every photo in this issue of Visura Magazine and came away feeling as though I had been taken on journeys to other times and places. In some cases I felt like I'd been socked in the stomach, leaving me gasping for breath. In others, tears welled up and threatened to fall on the keyboard of my laptop. None of the features left me unmoved. That is Adriana's gift: to bring forth from her contributors depths they might not have known were in them. I know that is what she did with me.

I go to bed tonight breathing in a sense of wonder and breathing out gratitude. Now I know why they say it takes a village to raise a child. The same is true for a creative endeavor. So many people have helped me come to this place. I am indebted to them all.

Mother Nature shows off

2011-07-02T23:16:00.009-04:00

(Click on this photo to see it in a larger size)

One of the best things about living in the Midwest is its magnificent summer storms. We had a stunner tonight with more thunder and lightning than Ed and I can ever remember seeing. Actually it was two storms back-to-back. The first came in from the north, and the second from the west. Both brought wind and rain but it was the electricity that made tonight special. One brilliant flash of lightning and deafening clap of thunder struck simultaneously right over our house. It is moments like this when we are grateful for the mobile phone tower at the police station next door. Our own personal lightning rod.

Ed and I sat out on our screened porch and watched Nature's fireworks for at least 30 minutes. And then came the most extraordinarily colored sky I've ever seen. This photo of our house in that strange light is untouched by Photoshop. That is exactly how it looked.

An hour after the storm, our community put on its annual July 4th fireworks display. Sorry, folks, Mother Nature stole the show this year!

Happy 90th birthday, dear Magi Mooney!

2011-06-24T23:08:00.005-04:00

Fem Libber from the start. Outrageously honest. Politically liberal former candidate for Mayor of Detroit. Member of the Raging Grannies of Metro Detroit since it formed in November 2002 to protest GW Bush's build-up to his unprovoked attack on Iraq. Longtime volunteer at St. Patrick's Senior Center in midtown Detroit. Beloved great-grandmother, grandmother and mother of six. Fighter for women's justice and ordination in the Roman Catholic Church. Involved in just about every women's local and national organization, especially those relating to women's reproductive rights. And tonight a redhead again after years with a white braid hanging down her back.

Detroit's own Magi Mooney. One of a kind!

Burnians at LOOK3

2011-06-10T01:50:00.000-04:00

David Alan Harvey, Anton, Panos, Wendy, David McGowan and Patricia (photo taken by Rachel)

I am way too sleepy to be doing this but I can't stop myself. The Burnians who can't be here at LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, VA need to know that they are with us in spirit.

Kurt Lengfield annd Bryan Harvey (DAH's son)

Doug MacLellan, Michael Lloyd Young, DAH, Wendy, Panos, Anton and Patricia (photo taken by Scott Zetlan)

And before I drop over from exhaustion -- happy exhaustion -- here is an example of what I learned today in David's Low Light/High Mind Workshop. Thanks to DAH I am now shooting on manual and playing with my shutter speeds for the first time ever. What a fabulous workshop!!!

Click on photos to see them larger

LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph 2011

2011-06-08T06:09:00.006-04:00

I was delighted to run into Linda O on the pedestrian mall shortly after having checked in at the hotel here in Charlottesville, Virginia. She and I had originally connected on David Alan Harvey's blog, Road Trips, and then had met in person during the 6-day workshop he and Jim Nachtwey co-taught at Look3 in 2009. She is now taking Chris Anderson's workshop while I am simply here for the festival. I took this photo as she was preparing to show me the start of a beautiful essay on her mother who has suffered a stroke.

The theme for LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph 2011 is "home" and it feels like coming home to be here again. Over these next four days I anticipate seeing old friends and making new ones, having my artistic sensibilities stretched and deepened, and strengthening my already passionate commitment to photography.

During my first 8-hour day of driving on Monday I asked myself what I saw as a benchmark of success in my life as a photographer. The answer was clear: passion! Not recognition, awards, exhibitions, books or anything that comes from the outside, but only what wells up within me as I pursue this work. And as I thought about the past four months of working on the project, Young Musicians, all I could see was passion. Of course I want my photos to be good but that is not the most important thing to me. I want to tell the story as effectively as I can. The story is what interests me not my photos. That is a shift in my thinking.

Linda O was saying that she has come to a place in her life as a photographer where all she cares about is the quality of her photos. Not the story, not her feelings about the work. She wants to know which of her photos is excellent, and is ready to get rid of the rest.

Isn't it wonderful how each of us finds our own way in life?

So today I will scoot around to different galleries and see the exhibits connected with LOOK3. That will include the work of Nan Goldin, Christopher Anderson, Massimo Vitale, Antonin Kratochvil, LaToya Ruby Frazier, BD Hope for a Healthy World, World Press Photo Awards, and Pictures of the Year. I have already seen the work of Ashley Gilbertson and George Steinmetz because their images are outside in the mall. I came a day early specifically to be able to do this. It is so rare that I am able to see prints of this caliber that I want to take my time and savor them rather than rushing through and/or being in such crowded conditions that I can barely move (as will be true at the openings this weekend).

It is supposed to reach 97 degrees Farenheit (36 Celsius) today so Charlottesville will be HOT in more ways than one!

on the move...

2011-06-04T23:28:00.005-04:00

I've been on the move of late. Three days after photographing the final concert of the season for the Civic Youth Ensembles, I
was on a plane headed to Los Angeles for the Opening Gala of "Beauty Culture" at The Annenberg Space for Photography. This is a blockbuster exhibit in which I am fortunate to have an image (the self portrait of me looking in my grandmother's mirror that I use as the cover of my book, "Falling Into Place"). The New York Times even gave "Beauty Culture" a 2/3 page write-up! You can see my photos from the opening on my PBase.com website.

While in Los Angeles I was delighted to spend five days with my dear sister and brother-in-law, Emily and Gorsha Paramonov. In addition to the opening, we went to the Los Angeles Planetarium made famous in the iconic film "Rebel Without a Cause," met my online photographer friend Anna Boyiazis at her photo exhibit at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, and spent the weekend at Emily and Gorsha's beautiful villa in the desert that is available for rental. My dear friends from San Diego, Phil Ouelette and Scott Weldon, drove up from San Diego and joined us there on Saturday. If you go to the Portfolios section of my website, you can see Phil and Scott featured in "Just Another Married Couple."

Five days after returning home I was in downtown Detroit for three 12-hour days at my beloved Detroit Electronic Music Festival (now called Movement). This was my 7th festival in a row and, as the only white-haired scooter-riding EM music lover in attendance, I've become a bit of a celebrity. I think what blows the young folks away is not simply that I'm always there but that I obviously adore this music and spend as much time on my feet dancing my bootie off as they do. Oh yes, Grandma Techno (their name for me) loves her DEMF! To see my ever-growing festival photo essay, go to my website and click on "Their Music, Their World' under Portfolios.

And now I'm packing up for a trip down to Charlottesville, Virginia for the world-class LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph! I'm leaving early Tuesday morning and will be on the road for a day and a half. It's over 600 miles from Detroit to Charlottesville and I like to spend the night at a motel on the way. Folks often freak out when they hear I drive these distances by myself but I love taking road trips. That's the advantage of having a wheelchair accessible minivan with a ramp. It means I can go where I want when I want. Independence is where it's at!

another late night

2011-04-25T02:53:00.002-04:00

Photo taken of Cori Matsui on electric guitar and Joe Willard on stand-up bass at the Civic Youth Ensembles jazz concert on Thursday, April 21, 2011. Click on photo to see it larger.

I seem to be happiest working on my photos late at night. While listening to jazz on Detroit's WCRJ-FM radio station, I sit here at my laptop in a room with only two lights burning and time passes without my noticing. All of a sudden, I'll glance up at the digital clock on my screen and see it is 2 AM. Sometimes it's closer to 4 AM. Occasionally 5 AM.

Gosh, I wonder what it would be like not to have a passion that consumes you? Hopefully, I'll never find out.

My work with the young musicians of the Civic Youth Ensembles continues. But not for much longer. Their final concert is Sunday, May 15th and that's it for the season. How I am going to miss them! Miss going down to Orchestra Hall twice a week for rehearsals. Miss parking in the musicians lot and hearing the security guards Mel or Dan call out, "Hi Patricia!" as I come in through the Stage Door. Miss having such amazing music wash over me for hours on end. Miss hearing the life stories of these passionate young musicians as I record interviews with them. Miss trying to find that new angle, texture, layered perspective, gesture, expression or mood with my camera. Miss downloading hundreds of photos every week and opening them up with the same excitement I had on Christmas mornings as a kid. Miss working with my photos to get them looking the best I possibly can. Miss playing with edits and sequencing.

I love every step of the process. Well, taking care of the business end of things isn't exactly my favorite part. Like when I found out a week ago that, before I could publish the photo book I had in mind, I would have to get a signed Model Release form for each of the 500 musicians in the Civic Youth Ensembles program! That wasn't much fun. But, after a rather sleepless night, I sat down and wrote a group email explaining that in order to create a photo book that the parents and musicians could buy, I would need for them to download, print out, sign and mail me back the attached Model Release form. Luckily I already had 100 of them in hand. That just left 400 to go! But, since Heather of the CYE staff sent my email to 727 parents and musicians on their list last Thursday, I've been getting a good response. It will happen. I'm now confident of that.

I have also been getting emails requesting that I send email attachments of the photos I've taken of themselves or their children. I had invited them to do so in my group email because I really do want to share these photos with the people who will most appreciate them. It is a time-consuming process but worth it. I would want these pictures if they were of me or my kids. It's the least I can do. Everyone has been so patient with my constant click-click-clicking in their face. What good folks!

OK, so now it's close to 3 AM and I still need to take a shower before going to bed. Thank goodness I can sleep in in the morning...

Young Musicians

2011-03-08T22:18:00.016-05:00

Six days after I posted my last blog entry, everything changed. The access I'd been trying to get for two months came through and I was off and running. I haven't stopped since! My new photo project features hundreds of young musicians who participate in Detroit's Civic Youth Ensembles.

I eat, sleep, dream, think and work on it day and night. In fact I have turned night into day, often staying up playing with my photos until 2 or 3 AM. I've even pulled a few all-nighters, not making it to bed until 5 AM. I am what you could call obsessed. Imagine the joy of blending a love of photography, young people, music and Detroit into one body of work!

I spend nine hours on Saturdays and six hours on Wednesday nights photographing at rehearsals, and have recently begun to record audio interviews as well. Early on, my mentor David Alan Harvey suggested I focus on taking portraits of these young musicians and he was right on target! Yes, I take photos during reheasals, but it's the portrait-taking that feeds my passion. And now that I'm hearing the individual stories of these amazing young people, I'm feeling more engaged than ever. I see the final slideshow as having an audio track combining sounds of the music and conductors during rehearsals and excerpts from these interviews with the individual musicians.

In some ways it is a natural outgrowth of my decision to do a photo project on the people of Detroit, for, although many of these musicians and conductors come from other cities, counties, even different states and countries, they all meet in mid-town Detroit to make music together. And this has been going on for 40 years! What a gift our city gives these young musicians, some of whom I will be saying "I knew them when..." And what a gift they give Detroit with their magnificent concerts and the passion and hope they bring into our city.

I hope to continue working on "Young Musicians" through mid-May when the Civic Youth Ensembles 2010-11 season ends. I feel like the luckiest person alive!

Detroit

2011-01-09T23:37:00.019-05:00

STILL HERE

I been scared and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
Snow has friz me,
Sun has baked me,
Looks like between 'em they done
Tried to make me
Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--
But I don't care!
I'm still here!

by Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

Have you seen them? The plethora of photo essays in magazines, newspapers and on the internet that show Detroit as a lost cause? Seems like Detroit's downfall is the latest fad among photojournalists. They're coming here in droves. I recently saw two Detroit essays in a well known French photography 'zine; one was by two Parisian photographers who had traveled all the way to Detroit to photograph its abandoned buildings and desolate neighborhoods. And the realities they show are real...but they're not the only reality.

With each essay I saw -- and many of them were well done -- I felt more and more compelled to show the side of Detroit that I know and love. But until I read Langston Hughes' poem, I couldn't decide how best to go about it. His last line, "I'm still here!", was the key. It brought to mind all the people I've met in Detroit since I moved here in 1966, especially those in the Black community. Talk about strong. And resilient. And full of dignity. And committed to their community. Truly amazing people.

As soon as I realized it was Detroit's people I wanted to feature, I went back into my photo archives. And there they were...many of the Detroiters I've known over the years. But I also wanted to add new portraits, ones taken specifically for this project. So today -- two days after I conceived of this new project -- I went to the Detroit Institute of Arts in search of people to celebrate with my camera. And, of course I found them. Or I should say, they found me.

One of my favorite things about being a photographer is that it allows me to go up and talk to anyone I want. For a people-person like me, there is no greater joy. Today I met Tommy who introduced me to Ramona and Tracy. Then I introduced myself to Harold, and later I ran into Brad (pictured above) whom I'd met a long time ago. Tommy responded deeply to the Langston Hughes poem and to the idea of my project. He's going to connect me with some of his musician friends (he is a bass player). Brad and I had lunch together and it looks like he will introduce me to a group of Detroiters who call themselves The Westsiders. Fascinating fellows, both of them.

Can you see why I love being a photographer?

So this is just the start. You know me; I love long-term projects. By the way, I calling it "Detroit says, I'm Still Here!"

New Years resolutions

2011-01-02T22:59:00.003-05:00

(Click on image to see it in a larger size)

I recently found this composite in my archives. According to the metadata stored on the image, I'd created it on June 2, 2008. At least that was when I'd saved it in its present form.

I've always loved this image. It triggers three responses in me: 1) it makes me smile, 2) it makes me feel for another, and 3) it makes me look at the world differently. As this new year begins, those are my three resolutions. Don't need any more than that...

we're all related through our art...Robert Henri

2010-12-29T16:57:00.003-05:00

I don't think we can ever know how a simple act of kindness can touch another. Today I know as a recipient of such a kindness that it can change everything.

As I was pulling together the final edit of 12 images from my Winter Nudes project to submit to the B&W Magazine's annual Portfolio Contest (see above), I saw that an email had come in. I opened my Mail program but didn't recognize the name of the sender. It was notifying me that a comment had been posted on this blog, specifically under the entry, "Thanksgiving Weekend." It was from a photographer I have never met but admire greatly. He was taking the time to tell me how he had searched Google to find me and then had gone to my website and looked at my work. His response touched me to my core. It will warm me from this day forward. I can't even thank him because he didn't leave his email address, but my thanks will be to do for another what he has done for me...

amazing news!!!

2010-12-23T23:00:00.006-05:00

This year sure is ending on a high note! On Sunday night I heard that my project, "Falling Into Place," has been awarded 3rd prize in the 2010 FotoVisura Grant for Outstanding Personal Photography Project. This was totally unexpected. I'd been pleasantly surprised when it was named one of the 40 finalists, but never imagined it might end up being one of the three winners. It just didn't cross my mind.

I wonder if other folks feel this way when they win awards. As I said to my husband, failure is a lot easier to accept than success. Does it make me weird to feel that way? I mean, we can always give ourselves excuses as to why our work is overlooked, unappreciated, or even rejected. I've been in the art -- and now, the photography -- worlds long enough to have had my share of rejections. Anyone who submits their work to competitions, juried exhibits, magazines, newspapers and online blogs or zines better get used to that possibility or they're in for a lifetime of misery. No, it isn't fun to knock on closed doors, but you've got to believe that one day a door will open and you will sail through. That certainly happened this week with the FotoVisura grant, but it also happened last week when the respected Los Angeles photographer/editor/writer/teacher/curator Aline Smithson featured "Falling Into Place" on her blogzine, LENSCRATCH.

So how am I handling success? I like it. It feels good. But it especially makes me happy to know that this particular project will be seen by lots of people. From the responses I've already received, it is clear that my honest approach to self portraiture is making a difference. And the inside view I give of what it's like to live with a disability touches people in ways I could never have imagined.

You know, I think I'd forgotten to mention that "Falling Into Place," the book, is now available for sale. It's a self-published Blurb.com book that you can buy online. If you want it autographed, just email me and I'll send you a signed archival sticker to paste in the front of the book.

And don't forget to visit my website -- http://www.patricialaydorsey.com -- where you can see several of my photography projects. I'm always updating it so it bears checking every so often.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Thanksgiving weekend

2010-11-28T18:22:00.003-05:00

Even though Ed and I don't celebrate Thanksgiving with a big dinner, I still found myself recalling Thanksgivings-past with a bit of nostalgia. It was a VERY BIG DEAL in the Lay household. Our dining room table was set with the good china, silver and crystal goblets. The table would groan with a roast turkey and Pepperidge Farm stuffing, rice and gravy, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, cheese onions, homemade rolls, and ambrosia for dessert. After we three girls married, our poor husbands had to wait patiently while everyone was served and Daddy gave his extra-long Thanksgiving grace before eating. The food was always a bit cool by then but we loved it anyway.

As a vegetarian for more years than I can remember and an avoider of rich fatty foods for the past eight months, I know that I would now have a very hard time sitting down to Mom's Thanksgiving dinner, but those were different times. Besides what's important are the memories not the calories.

One thing that remains the same is that Thanksgiving weekend ushers in the holiday season. Ed and I started talking about our holiday cards and last night I took this as a possible image for the card. Ed likes it and so do I. We both appreciate that it seems to welcome the viewer into our home, and for anyone who's ever been here they'll recognize the familiar sight of Ed at the piano. It would have been a perfect shoot if Eddie had been playing Mel Torme's The Christmas Song but that quirky guy chose Easter Parade instead. He is definitely his own person! (You can click on the photo to see it larger.)

Hi! I'm back...

2010-11-18T22:57:00.004-05:00

My but it's been a long time since I've posted here. I doubt if many folks bother to check this blog anymore but here goes just in case...

There's no way I could catch you up to date with all that's been going on, so I won't even try. I'll just take this moment and share what's going on right now.

Physically I feel great! Still working out twice a week with Matt, my trainer at the gym. It's been over six and a half years now and I know it is making a HUGE difference in my life. I seem to get stronger and stronger. Now, I did have a period of adjustment to what I call my "new body." Last April I dramatically changed my eating habits. Healthy food and less of it. Over the months I've lost between 25-30 lbs., which was over a fifth of my total weight. Now, that was great because I was definitely carrying more weight than I needed, but when you lose such a large percentage of your body weight, you lose muscle as well as fat. It takes your body time to build the muscles again but we're there now. Strong, strong, STRONG! And swimming laps three times a week doesn't hurt. I may be dealing with MS but, dammit, I'm healthier than almost anyone I know. A healthy diet, lots of exercise, no meds, and a positive outlook on life.

Photographically speaking, things are in a very good space. I just learned that a curator for an important exhibit at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles wants to use one of my self portraits in the digital slideshow portion of an upcoming show called Beauty Culture. It opens on May 21 and I plan to attend the opening. Lucky for me, my sister and brother-in-law live in Burbank, just outside of LA, so I can stay with them and we can go together. That will be WAY cool.

I recently discovered another of Detroit's hidden treasures -- the Detroit Civic Youth Ensembles -- a program that's been going on for 40 years. I saw and photographed their two autumn concerts and am in the process of getting permission to do an ongoing photo project featuring these youngsters --700 of them aged 5 to 18 -- their musician teachers/conductors and college-age mentors. It's looking like I'll have to wait until January but, hopefully, the answer will be yes. I am REALLY excited about this! It incorporates my love of children, music and Detroit. A perfect match!

If you check out my website -- http://www.patricialaydorsey.com -- you'll find a number of new and reworked photo essays. I've been a busy bee...

But this current "high" hasn't come easily. As with any period of growth, I had to let go of old ways of being, thinking and acting. I mainly needed to cut loose from those I had seen as "authorities" and develop my own sense of myself as a photographer. As helpful as it is to have mentors and community, there comes a time when we must cut the apron strings and forge ahead on our own. That's not to say I don't still have wonderful photographer friends in my life, and it's not to say I'm not grateful for every bit of help I've received along the way; it's just that I'm ready to fly under my own power and no longer have to ride on someone else's wings. This process is not easy. At first it feels like a loss. But there comes the day -- and I'm there now -- when you realize you are your own authority. That's when you know you've found your voice. And that's what it's all about.

The Space Between

2010-08-21T12:39:00.009-04:00

“The meaning appears in the space between the images, in the mood they raise in the beholder.”
Minor White 1952

I let the children guide me
for it is their “space between” that
I long not to capture
but illuminate.

This is
the void we adults try to fill,
the place where children are
most at home.

Here sun and shadow
kiss our cheeks
like mothers saying
goodnight.

Flowers open their lips
and speak of
love.

The children have no fear but
only trust, boundless trust,
in the mystery they
know so well.

Only when I close my eyes
can I see what they see,
but to photograph with
eyes closed is foolhardy.

It is the fool I must
become.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
summer 2010

"The Space Between" photo project can be seen on my website. Just go to http://www.patricialaydorsey.com and click on "The Space Between" under portfolios. It is a work-in-progress so you might want to check back every so often.

I've been working on this project all summer. I say "working" but it's really been more like playing. Seeing summer through the eyes of children has awakened memories of popping hot tar bubbles with my bare feet, sticking my arm down into the chilled ice water of the old soda pop machine at Carr's General Store, the smell of dried seaweed and jellyfish on the beach where we rented our summer cottage, family dinners around the round wooden table on the front screened porch. Oh, so many memories of those months that were endless, timeless. The children have helped me slow down and savor every minute of this long hot summer.

How grateful I am to them, and to their parents who signed model release forms and trusted me to show their children in respectful ways. I hope the end result pleases them.

And I have a dear poet friend, Dorothy Walters, to thank for helping to revise the poem into its present form. As they say, it takes a village...

Haiti remembered

2010-05-18T12:24:00.010-04:00

[Click on each image to see in larger format]

Last weekend I was in New York--Brooklyn actually--for the NY Photo Festival. After three full days and nights of photo-related activities and exhibits, I decided it was time to be a tourist. So around noon on Sunday I scooted across the Brooklyn Bridge. What a stirring experience! The bridge actually vibrates with a sense of history. It is a reminder of what amazing things we humans are capable of when we dream BIG and then dare to act on our dreams.

After a brief scoot around the Manhattan neighborhoods near the bridge, I bought a salad at a deli and took it over to City Hall Park to eat. I had a plane to catch later in the day so couldn't stay very long. I returned to the bridge and was not surprised to find it crowded with tourists and locals. After all, it was a beautiful Sunday in May.

When I got to the first tower there was a group of NYPD officiers standing around. Soon I saw why. Almost immediately they stopped all pedestrian and bicycle traffic to let a parade of persons pass. It was not a large parade but one that touched me deeply as soon as I read the first sign. It said,

"KORETH: Kombit Rekonstriksyon Haiti.
A Day of Solidarity and Prayer for Haiti's Lost Sons and Daughters.
Sunday, May 16.
Help us honor the 230,000 lives during the January 12 magnitude-7 earthquake."

introducing my new Canon 7D...

2010-04-21T22:22:00.008-04:00

What a BIG DAY!!! My first new camera and lens since October 2007--the Canon 7D digital camera and the Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. What gave me the impetus to take this monumental step was my ever-deepening desire to create true multimedia, ie., stills, video and audio. If you Google "Canon 7D, reviews", you'll see why I chose this particular camera. And I chose the 15-85 mm lens because I've used an 18-55mm exclusively since 2007. I know it suits the way I like to shoot.

By the way, I bought the camera, lens and assorted accessories online from B&H Photo in New York. They carry everything any photographer or videographer could ever want, and are independently-owned as well. Now maybe I paid more than if I'd bought at Best Buy or Costco, but in my opinion it's worth it. We need to support independently-owned businesses whenever possible. I lost my favorite local camera store to the tanking economy in 2008. Don't want to lose another precious resource...

This is a test photo I took of Ed watching "Seinfeld" on TV after dinner tonight. What impresses me is the crispness of the details, accuracy of the color and really high quality of this and the other photos I took today. To see it in a larger format, simply click on the image. And I did NOTHING to this image in Photoshop--this is how it came out of the camera! I couldn't be more pleased.

As for my learning how to shoot video, I feel so fortunate to have heard about a 3-day online workshop Vincent Laforet is giving April 30-May 2 through CreativeLive. It is called "An introduction to HDDSLR Cinema" and is designed for first time filmmakers and photographers making the transition into video. Sounds perfect to me. And get this--it is FREE!!! You can register by going to:

http://creativelive.com/courses/vince_laforet/

Even if you can't make the workshop, you can still order a DVD of the entire weekend by clicking on that link. The DVD costs $$ but if you order now, you'll get a discount.

Hey, maybe I'll see you there...

my new project

2010-02-24T02:32:00.002-05:00

I am currently in San Diego, California on a two week shoot for my most recent photo project. My subjects are Scott and Phil, a gay couple who have been together for 22 years and married for the past three. We've been close friends for 16 years and these dear fellas are allowing me to document their day-to-day lives in a most personal and intimate manner. They have said yes to all my requests and are true collaborators in the process. What an incredible honor it is to be trusted like this. I only hope my essay can reflect the depth of their love and respect for one another. Their marriage is among the healthiest I've ever seen.

remembering Nan

2010-02-06T19:00:00.007-05:00

For three hours on this sunny February afternoon, five of us who had known and loved Nan Merrill during her nine years here in Michigan, gathered to celebrate her life. We met in my living room and, after sharing sweets, coffee and conversation, we began to share stories, silence, song and some of Nan's writings. All of us -- Sr. Mary Francis, Jerry Burns, Inez Jenkins, Mary Reese and myself -- had first met Nan when she lived and worked in the old St. Agnes parish rectory on Detroit's westside from 1985-9. We remembered her hospitality, humor, wisdom and openness to the Unknown in every facet of life. Jerry read from two of her six books. Sr. Mary Francis allowed Nan's love of Silence to envelop her when we'd take times to let the stories and readings sink deep into us. Inez shared wonderful stories of Nan's sensitivity and humor. Mary spoke of her kindness, and I read three dreams Nan had dictated to me over the phone in her last weeks. She wanted them to be included in the book she hopes will be published posthumously. It was like having Nan here with us. And she was...

~ nan ~

2010-01-10T16:03:00.010-05:00

How do you sit with a dear friend as she prepares to cross over into uncharted territory? You can only go with her so far, then the passage is blocked. She must take those final steps by herself. How hard it is to accept that, especially when you've shared life for years. She must go on alone while you stay behind.

I don't even know if I believe in an afterlife, but one thing I do know: once we have loved and been loved, we are bonded for life. As long as I live, my friend Nan will live. And that goes for all the lives she touched, lives that count in the millions. For Nan Merrill is the author of six books and founding editor of a newsletter called Friends of Silence that was sent to thousands every month for over 22 years. And now she lies in her bed in a hospice in Vermont, with her son Mark and her daughter-in-law Susan holding the phone to her ear as farflung friends like me tell her we love her.

I just reread the interview that is linked to "Friends of Silence" above, and called Nan back so I could read aloud to her the Prayer of Abandonment by Charles de Foucauld. It is her favorite prayer.

Beloved. I abandon myself into your hands.
Do with me what you will.
Whatever You may do, I thank you.
I am ready for all. I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, my friend.
Into your hands I abandon my soul.
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart.
For I love you and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands
without reserve, with boundless confidence.
For you are the heart of my heart.

Go gently, dearest Nan, go gently...

And on Saturday, January 23, she did. After three weeks of standing at death's door, Nan gently pushed it open and became one with the Light. May she continue her work among us.

laying the old to rest; embracing the new

2010-01-01T07:15:00.002-05:00

Time is a human construct. It does not really exist. All that exists is this moment, and it's gone as soon as we recognize it. Nonetheless, the end of one year and start of another offers a good opportunity to sit down and reflect on our lives, to see where we have been and where we want to go next. I use a journal as a tool. It helps me focus and express in words what I am thinking. I am often surprised at what comes. But not this time. When I sat down with my journal this week I was not surprised to see words of gratitude cascading down the page as I looked back on 2009. I won't bore you with the particulars but photography was at the heart of it all.

What happened to me as a photographer in 2009 fills me with wonder. And it was more than what happened to me from the outside; it was what happened on the inside. I have finally claimed my identity as a photographer. I am no longer just someone with a digital camera who takes pictures. I now am the camera.

Does that sound egotisical? I hope not. I don't mean it that way. It's just that it no longer matters whether or not my camera is in my hands; I still see the world through its lens. Every moment is a frame. Every feeling translates into an image. Not that anyone else can see it. That doesn't matter. I see it. I am it.

So I enter 2010 as a photographer. I have no idea how that will manifest itself in what work I do, how that work is shared, what challenges and joys I will encounter. What I do know is that I am who and where I want and need to be. If I stay true to that, the rest will take care of itself.

Happy New Year to you...

dreaming big

2009-12-20T17:57:00.005-05:00

This has absolutely nothing to do with photography but everything to do with using your WILL to create the reality you want. The background is that I’ve lived with a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis for 21 years. Before that time I was an athlete who ran marathons, did long-distance biking and had been an excellent swimmer all my life. After my diagnosis I gave up all forms of exercise. In some ways, I just plain gave up period.

In 2000 I had just begun to use a motorized scooter to get around but decided it was time to reclaim my body’s ability to swim. My first time in the pool I was shocked to find I couldn’t swim a stroke. All that summer I took water aerobics classes and gradually regained some strength and confidence in the water. By September I was swimming two lengths of the pool…and very happy to do so, I might add. That winter I signed up for indoor swimming at our local middle school.

To cut to the chase, I’ve been a faithful swimmer winter and summer since that time. Bit by bit I increased my distance from 2 to 6 to 10, until I was up to 36 lengths, one-half mile. To be honest I thought that was the best I could do, so I stayed there. Until two weeks ago. That was when I was given a book to read – Zoe Koplowitz, “The Winning Spirit.” By the time I had finished this autobiography by a woman who walks with arm-brace canes because of MS but has now completed 22 NYC Marathons – each taking between 28-36 hours – I realized I’d let my mind limit what my body could do.

So two weeks ago I started upping my lap swims with the goal of swimming 72 lengths or one mile. First I got up to 42 lengths, then to 48. Well, today I am unabashedly proud to say that I swam 74 lengths, just a bit over my one mile goal. And you know what? My body feels fine. Great, in fact. You know, that sweet body tiredness you get after a good workout.

I’m sharing this to say YOU CAN DO IT TOO!!! Never say never. Don’t sell yourself short. Don’t let your mind limit your dreams. I think that those of us who know him would agree that Magnum photographer/Burn Magazine editor David Alan Harvey has lived his life this way, and certainly has created Burn Magazine with this kind of unbridled belief in the impossible. And is in the process of creating a new online showcase for child photographers on CIRCUS in exactly the same way.

So my holiday/New Year’s wish for each of us is that we dream BIG. Whatever that might mean to us. Just believe in yourself and make it happen. Think of Zoe and ask yourself if you’re dreaming BIG enough!

hugs to all
Patricia

NY Times Lens blog

2009-11-09T01:32:00.001-05:00

I've lived long enough to know I don't have a clue what's coming next. I've always been amazed that some people can make five-year plans. Hell, I can hardly make a five-minute plan! Tonight is a perfect example.

Yes, I'd known since late September that Jim Estrin of the NY Times Lens blog was interested in my self portraits project, "Falling Into Place." We'd been in email contact, but it wasn't until he came up to me at the Burn gallery exhibit at David Alan Harvey's loft in Brooklyn on Friday, October 9, and said he wanted to interview me for a blog entry, that I knew he was serious about showcasing my work. Two weeks ago we'd had a good hour-long interview by Skype, and a few hours ago we completed the process with a fact-checking phone call. But I must admit I was surprised when he answered my question about when the post might run by saying, "At 12:01 am tonight."

If I were to say this is a dream come true, I'd be lying. I could NEVER have dreamed my work would be featured on the NY Times Lens blog! This is unimaginable. But there it is. I can't ignore the fact that it is up and running. And Jim's words touch me deeply. He is such a gentle soul, a truly compassionate man. The link is:

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/showcase-74/

There are so many people who are behind this miracle, foremost being David Alan Harvey who mentored me on this project from the start. Without his encouragement, skilled edits, and belief in the worth of this project, I would have given it up long ago. And all the photographers I've met on DAH's original blog, Road Trips, on his "Photography Magazine of the Year" Burn magazine, and earlier on PBase.com...all of whom have helped me hone my skills and find my way in this new-to-me world of photography. Even the iconic photographers Mary Ellen Mark, Eugene Richards and James Nachtwey have supported me in this work. God, I am so lucky.

So now it is 1:30 a.m. on Monday morning. I wonder if sleep will find me tonight. Right now I'm still vibrating. I always say that life is an adventure. Well, my friends, tonight I know that it is. Oh yes, it most certainly is.

Reimar has recovered!

2009-10-25T19:18:00.003-04:00

After a mere seven weeks, my friend Reimar's face is again equal on both sides. He really beat that Bell's Palsy in a hurry. I say his positive attitude had a lot to do with it. Yea, Reimar! And yea, Skype, for keeping us in such close touch. I realy look forward to our Sunday visits. Isn't the internet great???

more from Burn Gallery Exhibit/Loft Workshop Slideshow

2009-10-10T11:49:00.007-04:00

Mike Courvoisier with Rebecca Norris Webb

DAH

Mike troubleshots a computer/slideshow snafu

Patricia & Anton. Photo by Mike Young.

Burn Gallery Exhibit & Loft Workshop Slideshow

2009-10-10T03:13:00.006-04:00

A portion of the Burn Gallery Exhibit

Erica, Anton & Vivek

Alex Webb presents his and Rebecca Norris Webb's work.

DAH introduces the loft workshop students.

my friend Reimar in Westphalia, Germany

2009-10-04T18:15:00.000-04:00

When I was a child back in the 1940s, people used to say the time would come when we'd be able to see moving pictures of the person we were talking to on the phone. By the time I was a teen in the '50s, I didn't think that was too cool an idea. I mean, who would want to be seen with your hair up in rollers and your pimples uncovered by make-up? Well, now that day has come thanks to Skype, and at 67 I no longer care how I might look to my callers. Just being able to visit with my friends is good enough for me.

But what I could not have imagined was that Skype would be free -- at least to those of us with broadband internet access -- and that it would mean I could talk with persons from around the world. I guess back in the 1940s and 50s, I couldn't have imagined I'd even HAVE friends who lived in almost every time zone on the planet. Or that I would have met these folks not in person but on the computer. How times have changed!

So, for the past three weekends, Reimar Ott and I have been Skyping one another. We'd already been email buddies but this is SO different. It really is like sitting across the kitchen table and shooting the breeze. And for me, it's been a special joy to see Reimar's progress in recovering from the facial paralysis that came on suddenly on Wednesday, September 9. Each week the left side of his face is becoming more plastic again. This week he could even wrinkle his brow on both sides!

There may be down sides to this technological age, but this is definitey an UP side. Anything that brings people closer together is to be celebrated. Let's hear it for Skype!

candy time

2009-09-27T20:11:00.001-04:00

I continue to play with my Blue Mirror Project wherever I go. After six months and tens of thousands of images, I have a pretty large collection of possible keepers. CLICK HERE to see the most recent edit. When you see the drop-down menu under Portfolios, click on The Blue Mirror Project. I intend to stay with this project for at least a year. It is such fun!

portrait of Ed

2009-09-19T23:24:00.003-04:00

I've been looking at a book of Yousuf Karsh's portraits that I recently bought at a used bookstore. Yes, they are posed -- sometimes in a rather cliched way -- and many are so familiar it's hard to view them with fresh eyes, but I think the man was a genius. When he captures a subject's soul, you know it. It's like a light shining from within. To me, his portraits of artists are among his best.

So tonight I'm sitting in our living room looking at Karsh's photographs. Every time I look up, there is my Eddie sitting in his old leather chair with one side of his face in shadow and the other highlighted by the lamp. It takes me awhile but I finally wake up to the fact that a Karsh moment is right before my eyes. What you see here is just one of my efforts to show the essence of this man I've loved for over 43 years. Such a gentle spirit.

just for fun...

2009-08-28T15:27:00.002-04:00

I am in such a strange place photographically that the best I could do today was simply PLAY...thus today's composite. On Wednesday I completed/uploaded/ordered my final edition of the Blurb book I've been working on for fourteen and a half months. And now I don't know what to do with myself. I feel like a bag that's been turned inside out and has nothing left.

If you are interested in seeing the final photo edit/text of "Falling Into Place," CLICK HERE. Once at my website, click on "Falling Into Place" from the drop-down menu under Portfolios. To read the text, click on "INFO" in the box under the cover photo. Then wait for the photos to download to see the entire photo edit.

OK, I'm not REALLY done. In October my mentor, Magnum photog David Alan Harvey, and I hope to meet with Melissa Harris, editor-in-chief of Aperture. At that time I'll give her a copy of the Blurb book and hope she's intrigued enough to want to publish it. But until then, there's little I can do. Which, after all this time of being totally absorbed in this project, feels very strange indeed. As I say, I don't know what to do with myself. My niece says to enjoy some down time and rest but that's not my idea of fun.

My idea of fun is to be utterly passionate about a photo project, so much so that I wake and sleep thinking/dreaming about it. To be honest, right now I don't even want to pick up my camera. For a formerly everyday shooter, this feels weird. Hopefully it will soon pass...

Mirror Me in Burlington, VT

2009-08-08T23:30:00.002-04:00

I was recently in Burlington, VT. visiting a friend whose health is not good. During the times she was resting I scooted down to the pedestrian mall on Church Street. It is very like the one in Charlottesville, VA except there are more interesting street performers in Vermont. One of my favorites was Jason who juggled, his buddy Brian who sat nearby quietly smiling, and Candy who played with her pet rat, Dulce. They were trying to make enough money to get to Montreal. I'm sure they'll make it.

muscle memory

2009-07-31T23:33:00.003-04:00

Today I picked up the final pages of my transcribed interview with Carl Bower. If you recall, Carl is the photographer who graciously offered to come to Detroit to help me work on the text of my self portrait book, Falling Into Place. He had seen my Blurb book and heard me speak in Eugene Richards' workshop during Look 3 Photo Festival in Charlottesville, Virginia in June. Carl became deeply committed to seeing that Falling Into Place be published and get out into the world. His way of offering tangible help was to come to my home for an overnight stay and during those two days and one night to ask me probing questions that I answered and recorded digitally. We ended up with four hours of recorded material. I took these files to Victoria of Top Notch Transcription Service, a local business I found online, and have now received the entire transcription--170 pages in hard copy and as a MS Word document. Victoria did a magnificent job and took a very personal interest in my project.

So now my task is to tease out a small percentage of my verbiage to use as text in my book. In two weeks I'll be attending a 4-day writers retreat with two wonderful writers I've worked with in years past: Anya Achtenberg and Demetria Martinez. Their retreat is called "Writing From the Eye of the Storm" which feels appropriate to what I'm now feeling in relation to this project. I'll be working on my text before and during the retreat and look forward to receiving feedback from Anya, Demetria and the other writers--many of whom I know--who will be part of the circle. The timing could not be more perfect.

Today's self portrait was inspired by reading two questions Carl asked me in the final minutes of our two days together: What is the aching of muscle memory? When muscles remember, what do they think about?

a sign of the times

2009-07-19T14:59:00.002-04:00

At first I thought the sign said "Hungry, need food" so I reached into my dashboard compartment where I keep dollar bills for just such a purpose. But when I stopped at the traffic light and could clearly see his sign, I rolled down the window and asked what kind of work he needed. He said, "I used to do janitorial work but now am mainly doing things like landscaping." I'd guess that "landscaping" would include cutting lawns, pulling weeds and maybe planting trees and shrubs. Last week he'd started coming out on the street corner with his sign and had gotten a few jobs as a result. Today he was out there waiting for a woman who'd promised to come back on Saturday to give him a job. He was OK with my taking his picture.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the 49 metropolitan areas with a Census 2000 population of 1
million or more, Detroit-Warren-Livonia, Michigan, reported the highest unemployment rate in May, 2009, 14.9 percent. But this is probably lower than the reality because of the methods used in taking the survey. For instance, if this fellow had been interviewed yesterday he would have been counted as employed because he'd earned wages during the week prior to the interview. It wouldn't matter how much he'd earned or how temporary was the job. Another point is that for purposes of the survey a person is considered unemployed if they are jobless but are actively looking and are available for work. That means if they've stopped looking and simply given up on finding a job--as many have--they are no longer counted as unemployed.

Then there is the Wall Street-based Goldman Sachs bank that received--and has now paid back--a $10 billion injection of TARP funds in late 2008 to help it weather the market meltdown. According to an article in the New York Times last week, "Goldman posted the richest quarterly profit in its 140-year history and, to the envy of its rivals, announced that it had earmarked $11.4 billion so far this year to compensate its workers. At that rate, Goldman employees could, on average, earn roughly $770,000 each this year--or nearly what they did at the height of the boom."

becoming "an unmoved center"

2009-07-15T16:30:00.003-04:00

After working for days to capture this particular image, I was grateful today to discover a link to this quote from "Zen In the Art of Archery" by Eugen Herrigel, a Westerner who had lived in Japan:

“Should one ask… how the Japanese Masters understand this contest of the archer with himself, and how they describe it, their answer would sound enigmatic in the extreme. For them the contest exists in the archer aiming at himself—and yet not at himself, in hitting himself—and yet not himself, and thus becoming simultaneously the aimer and the aim, the hitter and the hit. Or, to use some expressions which are nearest the heart of the Masters, it is necessary for the archer to become, in spite of himself, an unmoved center. Then comes the supreme and ultimate miracle: art becomes “artless,” shooting becomes not-shooting, a shooting without bow and arrow; the teacher becomes a pupil again, the Master a beginner, the end a beginning, and the beginning perfection.”

Special thanks to Erica McDonald for pointing me in this direction.

It is all too easy--for me anyway--to get in a tizzy when an idea pops into my head...as happened with this photo. So simple an idea, actually, but such a complex step-by-step process to bring it to fruition. First I had to buy the kite, one that spoke to me of playful soaring. Then I had to find the right kite-catching tree in a place where there would be someone who could "rescue" it later. Next I talked to the park maintenance supervisor to get his OK. The next step was the fun part--going down to the park at a "good light" time and finding someone to fly the kite for me. In particular, to fly it into the tree I'd already chosen.

I was lucky. On Saturday we had a lovely dusk with a sprightly breeze. I scooted down to the park and looked around for a likely kite-flier. My friend Aly was sitting by the water with a friend and I told him of my search. He said, "Well, it's been a long time but I used to fly kites." So this 70 year-old retired social worker from Egypt unfurled my shocking pink ladybug kite, got it up in the air and flew it into the perfect spot in the kite-catching tree!

After an unsuccessful series of shots that evening, I got up at 7:15 a.m. the next day and found my kite glowing in the early morning light. It was then that the kite and I became one, the tree and I became one, the morning light and I became one, and my camera and I became one. An unmoved center.

So now my "Falling Into Place" book project has one more image. And this image is more important to me than the thousands that preceded it. Why do I say that? Because it answers the question posed to me last week by Carl Bower, the photographer who came from Washington, DC to Detroit to help me with the text for the book. And what was Carl's question? "What is the longing of your body and how would you show it in a photograph?"

To see how this image fits into the whole, check out my website.

July 4th, 2009

2009-07-05T21:58:00.003-04:00

Is it just me, or did this July 4th feel better than the last eight???

seeing with new eyes

2009-07-03T16:23:00.006-04:00

Since completing the photographic essay workshop with David Alan Harvey and Jim Nachtwey at LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph three weeks ago, I have barely picked up my camera. I'd say this is the longest I've gone without taking pics since I bought my first digital point-and-shoot in December 2000. Then today I was reading a book, "Martin Parr" by Sandra Phillips, that I'd bought after hearing Martin speak and show his work to the audience in Charlottesville's Paramount Theatre during Look3. It got my juices going and I went around the park finding unsuspecting people to photograph. This little girl was one of them.

But things are different for me now. Even when I'm shooting from my lap, as I did here, my inner eye is looking at the entire frame in a new way. I keep hearing Jim Nachtwey's voice saying, "Think of each frame as a piece of sculpture. Walk around it. Take into account its dimensionality. See it from all angles." I also hear Jim's frequent critique of our images: "You were five seconds too late (or early) and/or five steps too far to the right (or left)." I hear both Jim and David say, "Yes, you captured the moment, but is it a PHOTOGRAPH?" That became the mantra of the week, "Is it a photograph?" Time and time again we students would ask, "What do you mean? How do you define a 'photograph'?"

Well, they never did actually define it in words, but they did show us what they meant as they critiqued our photos for five hours every day. By the end of the week it got so we knew when we were looking at a "photograph" and when we weren't. The photograph had all its elements in place, there was a certain harmony to the whole (even if it was a quirky harmony), nothing distracted our eye from what the photographer wanted us to see, but most importantly, there was a certain feeling that hit us in the gut when we saw a "photograph" and a kind of apathy when we didn't.

When I look at the photo I shot today, I'd say it's close but it would have been better if I'd been just a step or two to the left.

And it isn't just Jim's and David's words I remember. It is their actions. I can still see David Alan Harvey shooting pics during a spontaneous bluegrass performance by some wonderful ole Southern boys outside a crowded bar in C'ville at 1 a.m. on the last night of the festival. I see how he was squatting, standing, bending, dodging this way and that, stationing himself in as many different positions as possible in order to get different angles with every shot he took. The man was in perpetual motion. He was a living example of what he'd called "working it non-stop" whenever conditions were perfectly set up to take good pictures.

So now I'm wondering if I just needed some time to let all that I'd seen and heard during those remarkable six days--eight days counting the festival--percolate down deep into my being before picking up my camera again. My guess is that I'll be assimilating what I saw, heard and experienced for a long time to come. I'd been told that taking a workshop with David Alan Harvey was life-changing, but add James Nachtwey to the mix and you're talking once-in-a lifetime. Am I grateful? Hell yes!

summertime & the livin' is easy

2009-06-26T10:47:00.003-04:00

For the first time in more decades than I care to admit, the inside of our house is being repainted. When you're dealing with an old house like ours, "repainted" is a catch-all phrase. We're lucky to have a master carpenter, plasterer and do-everything kind of fellow named Tom Sape tackling this job. I say "lucky" because he's also steamed wallpaper off the walls, rebuilt the holes in the wall that he found there, sanded/stained and polyurethaned the hardwood stair treads, filled in and leveled out serious cracks in the walls, repasted peeling wallpaper, AND repainted the walls and woodwork. Tom started several weeks ago in the upstairs and will work his way down. Except for a few weeks off here and there, we expect him to be with us all summer.

So summerime livin' is definitely NOT easy for Tom, but it IS easy for me because I'm doing my best to stay away from the house and its fumes while the work is going on. That includes daily lap swims with my husband Ed at our lakeside community park, a grilled veggie burger from the concession stand for lunch every day, watching the kids build sand castle on the beach, sitting out on the dock contemplating sky and sea (well, lake), and hours spent reading in a wicker rocking chair in front of the community center. Poor me!

the best fall of my life

2009-06-21T23:17:00.004-04:00

Much of the time living with a disability is a big fat bother. But there are moments touched with magic. Like the early evening I was out taking self portraits for the photographic essay workshop David Alan Harvey and Jim Nachtwey were co-teaching during the Look3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville a couple of weeks ago.

I had turned the dial to self-timer, pressed the shutter release button and lowered my camera down to the red brick pavement. The light was good and I intended to get a shot of me riding my scooter up the hill in this quaint Virginia town. Knowing I only had ten seconds before the shutter would release, I pulled my scooter accelerator lever down hard.

As if a noose had tightened around my neck, I was yanked towards the left wheel of my scooter and thrown to the ground. I immediately knew what had happened because I’d experienced it once before: the long end of my neck scarf had gotten caught under the wheel. Whenever this happens I remember the famous dancer Isadora Duncan who had died like this in 1927, but she was riding in a sports car not a scooter.

I heard myself cry out in pain. Two men came running over to help. I calmly instructed them on how best to lift me back into my scooter seat: “Stand behind me, put your hands under my armpits and lift me up until I’m standing upright. Keep holding tight because I can’t walk on my own, then swing me over into the seat of my scooter.”

The fellow was strong so the lift went smoothly. His friend saw my camera on the pavement and brought it over to me. I thanked them and they walked away.

It was only then that my brain kicked in. Could I have captured the fall with my camera? I caught my lower lip in my teeth and quickly hit the playback button. There on the LCD screen was my body lying on the pavement, partially obscured by the rear wheels of my scooter. My mouth was open in a cry. I was in clear focus with the foreground blurred and the whole frame perfectly composed. As if it had been set up.

I was so excited I had to share it with someone. My “lifter” was talking on his cell phone in front of a nearby restaurant. I scooted up and showed him the picture, but he didn’t seem to understand. I didn’t want to bother him so I smiled and scooted down to the pedestrian mall. Earlier I’d seen a classmate about a block away with his camera gear slung around his neck. I soon found him again. “Montie, Montie, you’ve GOT to see this!” He understood.

When I showed the picture and told the story to David, Jim and the class during our daily critique the next morning, David, who had been mentoring me on my self portrait project for a year, let out a loud “Whoop!” and came over to give me a congratulatory kiss. Yes, my ribs were a bit sore and I had a small scrape on my knee and big toe, but that was nothing. Of the thousands of self portraits I'd taken since starting this project on June 11, 2008, this was the first and only truly authentic photo I’d ever taken. All the others, although reflective of my lived reality, had been consciously set up in one way or another.

I’ll always think of this as the best fall of my life.

at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival

2009-05-31T23:34:00.003-04:00

Once in a while--a VERY long while--it happens. "It" being the good fortune of seeing one of your all-time best shots appear out of nowhere. Of course we all hope this will happen every time we click the shutter release button, but does it? Hell, no. If I get one of these shots a year I'm happy...ecstatic actually.

As for this particular image, I don't really know how I managed to capture this composition, why the colors are so vibrant, why there is such a life and energy to the whole. All I know is that I feel grateful, oh so grateful to be a photographer. Can't imagine anything I'd rather be doing with my life.

Now, I must say a huge thank you to this beautiful young woman with her sense of drama and Cleopatra profile for agreeing to participate in my Mirror Me project. It is because of her that this image sings...

a time to celebrate

2009-05-16T23:30:00.001-04:00

Is there anything sweeter in the world than a friend who celebrates when you celebrate, weeps when you weep, and listens when you need to talk. Pat Kolon is that kind of friend. On Friday I visited her and we started by sharing what's been going on in our lives. I then received a marvelous massage, followed by a delicious dinner including fresh asparagus from the garden. After dinner I showed her my newly published "Falling Into Place" Blurb book, the one I hope to present to book publishers for their consideration at the Look3 Photo Festival in June. Her reaction stunned me. She cradled the book in her arms and tears welled up in her eyes. She said, "Your baby has been born!"

Pat has been with me from the start of this self portrait project. She's also listened to all my stories about the ongoing saga that was the "Road Trips" blog and is now Burn Magazine online. Pat drove with me to New York in October and April for photography-related meetings with David Alan Harvey, my mentor on this project. She even attended a slideshow/fiesta at his Brooklyn loft in October. In short, she's followed this leg of my journey as an always-understanding companion.

So yesterday Pat held my "baby" in her arms and wept with joy. And then she went through it page-by-page noting things I'd never noticed in several of the photos and carefully reading every word of the text. Her sighs and smiles and murmurs were like music to my soul. All the months of hard, often solitary, work washed away and in their place was left the feeling that it had all been worth it.

What a friend.

in the Detroit Zoo butterfly house

2009-05-10T23:29:00.000-04:00

I've been a WILD WOMAN shooting everyone and everyplace for my Mirror Me project!!! Every weekend since starting this project in New York City five weeks ago, I've gone off on multi-hour photo shoots. They've taken me to Detroit's Belle Isle Conservatory, the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, Detroit's Eastern (Farmers) Market, two gatherings of my women's community--one in Ontario and the other in Michigan--and yesterday to the Detroit Zoo. I am ADORING every minute! I get to go up to anyone I want, ask to take their picture and hear a bit of their story. A good number of them then email me and I send them a copy of their pic. Of the hundreds and hundreds of people I've approached, only a few have declined my invitation to be part of this project. Adults, children, elders, teens and persons of all ethnicities are represented. I already have about 270 possible "keepers" and am planning to keep at it for a year. Oh yes, to answer your unspoken question, I VERY MUCH see this as a book.

the ongoing evolution of Detroit

2009-05-01T23:27:00.000-04:00

After reading in this morning's paper about Chrysler going into bankruptcy, I had to go downtown and just wander around my city. I started and basically stayed around the Detroit River. This is where it all started for this city on the straits--de troit in french--and it's where a lot of our history still stands, some of it just barely. Like these old warehouses and industrial buildings two blocks north of the river. I don't know why but seeing them today comforted me greatly, especially with the GM headquarters building glittering like a jewel in the distance. Maybe it was because this juxtaposition speaks to Detroit's ability to weather change, to keep rising like a phoenix from the ashes. So now the Motor City phase of our history is probably on its way out. But I'm sure the folks who saw these old buildings fall into disuse felt sad too. I ask myself, what's next? Something will come along because Detroit never gives up. We just keep redefining ourselves generation after generation. So even if we only have the Big Two, and in a month might be down to the Big One, Detroit is still alive, still fighting, still creating, still evolving. We'll make it...

Mirror Me at the DIA

2009-04-20T23:24:00.000-04:00

Every Friday night the Detroit Institute of Arts presents live music in the Diego Rivera Court. My friend Pat and I are often in attendance. Thank god we were last Friday for we heard one of the most original experimental jazz trios around. And it was the first time these three musicians--Thollem McDonas on piano, Joel Peterson on bass and Skeeter C.R. Shelton on sax--had ever performed together! Such magic! They go by the name Box Deserter Trio and are now on a two-week tour. If you can see them, do. I was so enthralled I drove to Ann Arbor to see them perform on Saturday night at the Kerrytown Concert House. A totally different sound but equally mesmerizing.

After Friday night's performance, these fellows kindly participated in my "Mirror Me" project. This photo is of Detroit-based Skeeter Shelton who plays a mean sax. To see a tight edit of the mirror photos I took all over Manhattan a few weeks ago, simply go to my website at www.patricialaydorsey.com and click on "Mirror Me NYC" in the dropdown menu under Portfolios.

Mirror Me at the Conservatory

2009-04-13T23:20:00.000-04:00

On Saturday I spent a magical three hours taking photos for my Mirror Me project at Detroit's Belle Isle Conservatory. The holiday weekend had brought out many families so I had lots of interesting subjects. Have I told you how much I love working on this new project? Yes, I guess I have. But my love of it grows each time I go out on a photo shoot, for what I find is that it gives EVERYONE joy, not just me. Now, how many photo projects just plain make people happy? And using the mirror as a prop seems to cut right through people's self consciousness in front of a camera. They're so busy trying to see me reflected in the camera that they forget to put on their "camera smiles."

Now this kind of shooting does take a lot of energy. It's relational as well as photographic as I am always engaged with my subjects. But that's what I love about it: I'm meeting so many wonderful people. Oh yes, I can already see that this will be a long-term project!

To see a tight edit of the mirror photos I took all over Manhattan last week, simply go to my website at www.patricialaydorsey.com and click on "Mirror Me" in the dropdown menu under Portfolios.

"Mirror Me"

2009-04-11T11:55:00.003-04:00

TA DA...here it is, my new project! To see a tight edit of the mirror photos I took all over Manhattan last week, simply go to my website at www.patricialaydorsey.com and click on "Mirror Me" in the dropdown menu under Portfolios. I also took mirror pics at my niece's wedding in New Jersey a week ago today, and have been adding to my collection every day since returning home to Detroit last Sunday night. I already have over 100 photos that I like!

The idea for Mirror Me came full-blown on the long drive to NYC on Monday, March 30. I'd been wracking my brain for months trying to come up with an idea for a new project since I knew my Falling Into Place and Active Elders projects--both of which can be seen in part on my website--were winding down. But it wasn't until my friend Pat--who is pictured here in Times Square--said she would be interested in a project that explored why people live where they do, that a lightbulb went off in my head. It was her saying, "Where people choose to live REFLECTS who they are," that set off my creative fire. Thanks, dear Pat, for being my Muse! When we got to New York, I went to a CVS pharmacy, bought a cheap plastic handmirror and I was off and running...

I ADORE THIS PROJECT!!! It lets me approach strangers and engage with them. I've heard such amazing stories. I can do it any place, any time and with any person I choose. How perfect is that??? I plan to stay with this project for many many months, maybe even a year, and at the end? Of course I already see the book!

I wrote a brief introduction describing what happens with this project. Let me quote:

We look into mirrors to see ourselves. But when I give people my mirror, I ask that they look not at themselves but at my face instead. Thus my mirror becomes a way of communicating not with self but with another.

For a social worker-turned-photographer like me, what could be more perfect?

late afternoon in Central Park

2009-04-07T11:47:00.002-04:00

Oh my but we had a FABULOUS time in New York!!! I've been hard at work with tons of pics since returning home late Sunday so that's why I've neglected you, my dear friends. Please forgive me. Some of the pics I'm working on are those I took at my niece's wedding in New Jersey on Saturday, but my REAL excitement is about the brand new photo project I started in New York and am continuing here in Michigan. I'm going to keep it to myself for awhile but, trust me, it is TOO COOL FOR WORDS! I can't stop thinking about it. Here we go again...

off to NYC

2009-03-29T12:07:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow--Monday--my friend Pat and I are off to New York City. Again! My third trip to New York in eight months. Lucky me! The trip is (officially) to attend my dear niece Carolyn's wedding to her beloved Jonathan in New Jersey on Saturday, April 4, but we're extending it to have 4 days and nights in the city first. One of those days David Alan Harvey and I are planning to meet for a final edit of my Falling Into Place self portrait project. And Pat's and my nights are already filled with plans for theater, dance and music. Oh my, I'm getting excited just writing about it!

Although I'll have my laptop along I doubt if there will be any tme for "computing," so this will probably be my final entry for the week. Have a lovely week everyone...

P.S. I took this photo from the ferry last August.

my gallery show opening

2009-03-27T22:32:00.001-04:00

What a success! And I'm not talking about my photos; I'm talking about the people. Today was the opening of my "Active Elders" exhibit (go to my website to see a tight edit of the portfolio) and a good time was had by all. At least that's how it seemed to me. Many of the women and men whose portraits were on the walls were there, as well as folks from other chapters of my life like Pointes For Peace, the Raging Grannies, St. Leo's church community (where I haven't been since 1993), a woman who works out at the same gym as I, two women from our neighborhood, and even Maria who had done all the printing and mounting of my photos and her co-worker Clarence who was EVERYWHERE today taking photos! My husband was there even though he rarely ventures beyond the perimeters of our community. Dear Eddie. Nine of us from my chorus--the Gaia Women of the Great Lakes Basin--sang, and everyone joined in as we'd hoped. Mary Alice had made beautiful song sheets and was the perfect song leader for the day. By the way, two of the Gaia women and one husband (pictured here with Mr. Freeman) came across the border from Ontario to be with us.

Oh my, it was like a homecoming...and I didn't have to leave home. Because that's what this gallery feels like to me, home. It's in the same building as the classes where I've taken at least 1000 photos of these amazing elders over the past nine months. And they are now like family to me. How fortunate I am!

You'll be interested to know that after all my worrying about people being upset that their pictures weren't in the exhibit, no one said anything negative at all. Everything was love and joy! Just goes to show what a waste of time it is to worry...

Mary views my show

2009-03-25T22:58:00.003-04:00

Well, it's up! All forty-two of the large photos and eighty of the small ones are on the walls of the Ellen Kayrod Gallery in Detroit awaiting Friday's opening reception. So the work is ready but am I? This is a strange feeling, to see months of work "in the flesh," no longer just on my laptop. People ask if I'm excited and I have to admit that is not exactly the word I'd use. Relieved. Satisfied. Grateful. Those words more accurately describe what I'm feeling. A bit uneasy too. And my uneasiness was borne out by an encounter I had while the curator and I were hanging the show on Monday.

One of the maintanence workers in the building that houses both the Senior Learning Center where I took the photos and the gallery where my show is hung, came into the gallery to check things out. His first comment was, "I don't see any pictures of me here." Now, this is a fellow I only saw a few times during the nine months I was working on this project. I don't even know his name and I'm sure he doesn't know mine. But he went on, "I helped you out that time. Remember? Why didn't you take a picture of me then?" I tried to explain that I was focusing on the participants in the classes, but he was having none of it. "There's a picture of Larry, my boss." Well, yes, that picture of Larry working the desk in the lobby was the first one I ever took. And Curtis, his co-worker, was also photographed. But only because he often joined the art class to draw and paint. I tell you, this fellow hammered away at me for a full five minutes without let up. Nothing I said satisfied him. So do you see why I'm a bit uneasy about the opening on Friday?

I was so conscious of this problem while choosing which photos to show. I knew some folks were going to feel left out and probably hurt if their picture wasn't included. But I've met at least a hundred individuals over these past nine months, many of whom were not in the few classes I focused on. And of course the photos I showed needed to satisfy my rather rigorous demands for quality. Anyway, I did the best I could to show as many people as possible in my final edit. That was why I included the 4'x6' photo collage with 80 small prints.

OK, so I just need to clear my head, realize not everyone will be happy, and go on from there. I feel good about the show myself and terribly grateful to the wonderful people who let me into their lives. Friday will be fine if I just stay true to myself.

installing my Active Elders exhibit

2009-03-21T23:41:00.002-04:00

On Thursday Mary Herbeck, the curator of the Ellen Kayrod Gallery in Detroit, and I got my photo collage completed and hung. We would have gotten some of the forty-two 12"x18" photos hung too but we ran out of the velcro fittings they required. Mary had thought we could use another substance to hang these photos that are mounted on foamcore, but it turned out they were too heavy. Apparently she was able to hang two walls on Friday and said there was so much traffic coming in and out of the gallery that she finally had to close the doors. After my having been taking photos of these elders for over nine months, there's lots of curiosity about whose portraits made the final cut. Actually it was my anticipation of this heightened interest that inspired me to add the collage of eighty 4"x6" photos to the show. I wanted as many persons as possible to feel included. I was fortunate to find the perfect poem by the great African-American poet Langston Hughes to post beside the collage. It goes:

STILL HERE

I been scared and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
Snow has friz me,
Sun has baked me,

Looks like between 'em they done
Tried to make me

Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--
But I don't care!
I'm still here!

by Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

On Monday I'll be going back to the gallery to continue helping Mary hang the show. There was a bit of a problem with three photos that needed to be replaced due to some minor imperfections, but Maria, the printer who has been doing all my work, made a gigantic effort and managed to accomplish the task this afternoon. Today I also completed my Photographer's Statement that will be mounted on the wall of the gallery, so I am finally finished with my responsibilities. YIPPEE!!! The exhibit opens with a reception at which my women's singing group will perform--I'll be singing with them too--on Friday from 12:30-2:30 pm, so we're in good shape.

This is my Photographer's Statement:

Photographs are NOT the experience itself; they are mere glimpses into a moment that passes as soon as you’ve “captured” it with your camera.

What you see on the walls of this gallery are glimpses collected over the months I’ve been privileged to share with these amazing women and men who carry the history of our country’s best and worse times within the cells of their being.

How grateful I am for their openness, teachings, kindness and contagious love of life. Photos are nice but personal experience is everything.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
Detroit, Michigan
March 27, 2009

me, me, me...

2009-03-14T22:24:00.002-04:00

"but i agree about the future test in showing something that's not all about me, me, me."

The above is a quote from one of the posters on Burn Magazine. He wasn't referring to my essay but he might have been. Yes, nine months of pointing the camera at oneself can easily deteriorate into navel-gazing. I was just lucky that I started my "Active Elders" photo project at the Hannan Center for Senior Learning just two days after my self portrait series. They've been running concurrently and I think that has saved me from getting too focused on "me, me, me." Sometimes, though, I've felt like a juggler trying to keep one too many balls in the air.

Right now both projects are coming to a climax of sorts. The exhibition of "Active Elders"--of which you can see a tight edit on my website--is opening on March 27. The gallery curator and I start hanging the show next Thursday, March 19. On Monday I'll be picking up the last six mounted prints at the camera store. The show includes 41 prints--12"x18"--mounted on foamcore. There will also be a wall of 85-90 small 4"x6" prints.

My challenge has been to choose photos that show as many of the participants in the Hannan House classes as possible, while keeping a close eye on quality. It has not been easy. But that's why I'm adding the small prints--just so everyone will be seen. And I also wanted to keep my print prices low enough so that folks could afford to buy them. That's where the foamcore came in. It really looks quite good, though, so the artist in me is satisfied.

The photo-taking phase of my self portraits essay--"Falling Into Place"--is also in its final month. By now it's not easy to come up with new ideas but I'm doing my best. This morning I made yet another attempt at photographing myself getting out of bed. I've been working at this since my very first day of shooting and was not yet satisfied. This one might work, though. I like the lighting. It kind of makes the whole thing look a bit mysterious, which to me is a plus. I'm trying to avoid overly-obvious shots, but it doesn't always work out that way.

Gosh, long-term projects are a challenge. Trying to stay edgy can be almost impossible. For me anyway. I often find myself sliding into a narrative, storytelling mode that borders on the obvious, and that's not what I want. I want visual poetry. Easier said than done.

nine monhs later

2009-03-12T22:14:00.003-04:00

This is the very first photo I took for my self portraits project, the one that I now call Falling Into Place. Yesterday, March 11, marked the nine month anniversary of the start of that project. A full term pregnancy. Time for the birth of something new.

I've never worked on a photograph project for this long. Back when I was a visual artist I remember staying with one project--Phantasy Rooms--for over a year, but my photo essays have generally been completed within 2-3 months. The strange thing is that I've been working on not one but TWO photo essays for the past nine months. The other is what I call "Active Elders." It is composed of photos I've taken of mostly African-American elders who take classes at the Hannan Center for Senor Learning in downtown Detroit. You can see a tight edit of this essay on my website.

Both projects are coming into their fullness. Forty of the the Active Elders photos will be shown in a solo exhibition at the Ellen Kayrod Gallery in Detroit, March 27-May 8. There is an opening reception from 12:30-2:30 p.m. on Friday, March 27. My women's chorus--the Gaia Women of the Great Lakes Basin--will be singing and there will be a free buffet lunch served. Join us if you can!

Falling Into Place is in its final months of shooting. By June I plan to have a self-published Blurb photobook ready to show art book publishers at LOOK3: the Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, Virginia, June 11-13.

Ah yes, the birth is imminent...

last week winter; this week spring

2009-03-11T17:50:00.002-04:00

March is doing its level best to keep us guessing. In the past four days we received enough rain that, had it been snow, it would have accumulated over 15 inches/38 cm. But lucky us, the temps stayed above freezing. However folks who live in low-lying areas close to rivers and creeks were not so lucky. There has been flooding all over the state (Michigan). Today the rains have been replaced by sun and wind...and lots of puddles!

my new website is up!

2009-03-09T11:06:00.000-04:00

I've lost count of how many websites and blogs I've had over the years, but my brand new one--Patricia Lay-Dorsey, photography--feels like the most significant yet. Of course I always say that, being one who is prone to hyperbole. But it really feels like the start of a new level of commitment to my work, work that I adore.

Actually I have my life as a blogger to thank for introducing me to digital cameras.

It was December 2000 and I had been keeping a daily blog for ten months. Someone-I don't remember who--said I should add photos to my daily ramblings, so I bought a Hewlett Packard point-and-shoot digital camera and that was the start. I soon moved up to a Fuji FinePix with a powerful zoom. It served me well until July 2006. That was when I decided to get serious about my photography. On July 4th, a couple of professional photographers I encountered at one of Detroit's many street festivals, advised me to buy the Canon Rebel XT. The next day I did and I've been hooked ever since.

As a single-minded passionate person who throws herself full force into every moment of life, it was no surprise that photography soon became an obsession. When I started I didn't know an f stop from an aperture but that soon changed. In October 2006 I took a "Fundamentals of Photography" course at a local community college and that--plus shooting every day--gave me what I needed to use my camera on settings other than Automatic. The following spring I took a series of classes called "Photoshop for Photographers" at the art college where I'd studied painting, life drawing and sculpture back in the 1970s...and I was off and running!

Oh yes, four months after buying my Canon Rebel I joined PBase.com, an international photo sharing website. The photographers I met there inspired, supported, educated and expanded my vision of what photography was and how I could express my own unique way of seeing and being in the world. I am especially indebted to Phil Douglis who mentored me for months in the principles and nuances of what he calls "expressive photography." Phil's online cyberbook, Expressive Travel Photography: communicating with pictures, is an excellent resource for all levels of photographers.

In April 2008 I made a life-changing connection and that was with the Brooklyn-based Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey. At that time David was scheduled to offer a six-day workshop called "The Photographic Essay" to be held as part of LOOK 3: the Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, Virgina in June. I signed up for his workshop and, in doing so, learned about his interactive blog called "Road Trips." I quickly became a regular poster there. But, as it happened, my plans to attend David's workshop had to be scrapped. My dear Ed's back sent him to the hospital in May and then onto a months-long journey of pain and limited physical abilities. I needed to stay home with him. But that didn't keep me from pursuing my photography and, in fact, it allowed time for a brand new series to emerge, one that used self portraits to show my world view as a woman with a disability. When David saw the first twelve photos posted online he declared it to be a book-in-the making and offered to mentor me. We've been working together ever since.

On the first day of 2009, David Alan Harvey published a tight edit of my "Falling Into Place" self portrait essay on his brand new online magazine called BURN. I continue to take photos for this project and plan to do so through the spring. In early April David and I will meet in NYC and do a final edit for the self-published Blurb book I'll be creating to show to publishers.

By the way, this will not be the first time David and I have met in person. In late July he and his assistant, Mike Courvoisier, went hours out of their way to drive to our home outside Detroit. At that time, DAH did the first tight edit of my work. He also took a portrait of Ed and me for his "off on a family drive" photo project. Then in October 2008 my friend Pat Kolon and I drove to Brooklyn to attend a Slideshow/Fiesta that marked the end of one of David's week-long workshops in his loft. I was also able to sit in on the final day of that workshop.

One last note about persons who have been significant in my photographic life. In August 2008 I took a weekend workshop at the Center of Photography in Woodstock, NY with the world-respected social documentary photographer Mary Ellen Mark. The first day was devoted to a portfolio review. When I laid out ten large prints from my "Falling Into Place" self portrait project, Mary Ellen just smiled and said softly to herself, "These are excellent, really excellent." Mary Ellen and I spent over an hour together the next day talking and walking around the Ulster, NY County Fair where we'd gone for a photo shoot. That was when I took the photo posted above. It's probably the first time most folks have ever seen MEM with her hair unbraided! Mary Ellen has continued to support me by email, and for that I am deeply grateful.

Whew! I didn't know I was going to go all these places when I started this entry, but, hey, that's what being a blogger is all about! So now I'm going to stop this historical essay and get back to work on preparing for the gallery exhibit of my "Active Elders" photo essay that's opening in less than two weeks. I shall return...