Miss Israel, Titi Aynam - for OUDC

I recently photographed Titi Aynam, the first Ethiopian-born Jewish Miss Israel. She was speaking at AJC in conjunction with Operation Understanding DC.

Her physical beauty is obvious. She is also an exceptionally articulate and level-headed woman.

One thing she said stuck with me: "when you are the first at anything, there are special pressures and challenges you have to rise to overcome."

Assignment for Enterprise Community Partners

These photographs of Belarussian-born painter Ludmilla Vaynberg, plus a mashgiach (kosher supervisor) in Far Rockaway, New York, were made on assignment for Enterprise Community Partners.

Among its many missions, Enterprise funds and supports efforts that build community resiliency.

These people's lives were distressed by the ravages of last year's Hurricane Sandy, and live in facilities run by JASA, which cares for many living along the hard-hit Atlantic coastline.

Thanks to Nicole Gudzowsky, communications director at Enterprise, for making this happen, and for caring.

Operation Understanding DC at the New Heights Program, Anacostia High School DC

I documented a presentation by Class 19 students of Operation Understanding DC, who facilitated a diversity and empowerment workshop to the 'New Heights Teen Expecting and Parenting Students Program' at Anacostia High School, Washington DC.

Caitlin Christian and Kelsey Brown of OUDC

Caitlin Christian and Kelsey Brown (at rear left), with Aaron Jenkins of OUDC (in white shirt and tie) with staff and students of the New Heights program

Thanks to Aaron Jenkins, the new executive director of OUDC, Caitlin Christian and Kelsey Brown, the OUDC student presenters, and the faculty and members of the program at the high school.

Pete Seeger, z'l.

I got to meet and photograph Pete Seeger on assignment a couple of times. Once at the AFL-CIO Meany Center, where he was one of several teachers I documented at a labor song workshop, and the most extensive was an assignment for, of all places, the American Psychological Association.

The producer from APA for the session was a youngish African-American DC native, who knew only a very little of Pete's history and music. We were doing the shoot on Capitol Hill, where Pete's family and lived for a time in the 1920's or 30's. 

Pete gave her a gentle and respectful street-by-street history of what and where DC was segregated back in his younger days, and what and how things were done to protest it. 

And why. 

I recall him sort of interviewing her, about her family's background and history, too, bringing her into the circle.

I mostly remember he was quite excited to tell me of the efforts of a municipality in Brazil that was successfully incorporating people-oriented democratic economic practices in their locality, integrating them appropriately and effectively with their customs and culture. 

He was still a believer in transformation, its necessity, its possibility, in people power. In hope.

I also remember him unceremoniously just dropping his rather famous banjo, with the words "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender" emblazoned on the drum, into a soft evergreen bush in someone's front yard while he changed his coat, then retrieving the banjo from the branches, where it had nearly fallen out of sight. (His friend Woody Guthrie's guitar had "This Machine Kills Fascists" stenciled on it. 

Pete's motto was, shall we say… gentler.

I also recall he was simply a pleasant person to be around, very un-prepossessing, and though he had a reputation for being somewhat shy and at times taciturn, he was quite chatty with me and my colleague.

Interestingly, no one recognized him on the street, even though he was being honored that week by the Library of Congress. He was quite modest in his dress & carriage. I liked that. A lot.

We also spent time with his wife Toshi. She kind of ran his schedule. Pete was still the college dropout kid in some ways, an earnest fresh-faced young troubadour singing & playing his guitar to anyone who'd listen, out to save the world one song at a time.

 Even though she was about two feet shorter than him (Pete was unusually tall), Toshi pretty much ran their daily business, throwing out a hooked fishing line periodically and firmly reeling Pete back into doing what he needed to be doing. 

They were married about 70 years, until her death last year. They obviously loved one another very much.

Mahatma. A tzadik. A great soul. 

He will be missed. 

Now where is that hammer?

Operation Understanding Class XX - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day training session.

Images of the first training session of Class Twenty of Operation Understanding DC.

I have been covering this organization's effective and meaningful work in diversity training, cukltural awareness, and racism-busting since its inception.

Thanks to Aaron Jenkins (AJ), their new executive director, for the continued opportunity to serve.

Cold Highway

I have created a new artists book, Cold Highway, depicting a snowy trip along Interstate 99 in Pennsylvania as night fell.

It is available from my Blurb bookstore.

Thanks to my dear Ruth, and to Marjorie and Sean for hosting us, and for the blessings.