Reynolda House

Whenever I get the opportunity to see striking photographs from great photographers, I try to take advantage of it and make it a photographic pilgrimage of my own. Sadly, the last time I was able to make a photo-centric trip was back in 2010, when I flew to New York City to see Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photos at the Museum of Modern Art.

Portal, Reynolda House, Winston-Salem

This time, I drove to Winston-Salem, North Carolina to see some glamor and celebrity photographs of the great portrait photographer Edward Steichen.

RJ Reynolds Smokestacks

The photos are being exhibited (the show ends this coming Sunday) at the Reynolda House, on the estate of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds.

Repurposed tobacco buildings, Winston-Salem

Downtown Winston-Salem

All of Steichen’s photographs were, of course, fantastic, and I enjoyed walking through the gallery and through the decades of his photos, noting the changes in his style and perspective. Portraits of Martha Graham, Eugene O’Neill, Gershwin, Walt Disney (and Mickey Mouse). His use of shadows and light are inspirational and definitely got the gears turning. When I make these photo pilgrimages, seeing the photos is only part of the experience. The other, equally important part, is making photographs, and exploring a new place. Winston-Salem, a tobacco town like Durham, is certainly more familiar to me than New York, but no less fascinating. Also, the drive through towns like Burlington and Greensboro on the way is in itself a drive through North Carolina history.

Moravian Church, Bethabara

Isaac and I wandered among 19th century buildings on the grounds of Bethabara, and then explored downtown Winston-Salem.

Log Cabin, Bethabara, Winston-Salem

Distiller, Bethabara, Winson-Salem

Along the way we stopped at Sciworks as a concession to Isaac so that he would let me explore the other stuff.

Isaac and reflected twin, Sciworks, Winston-Salem

Isaac moves a heavy stone sphere with one hand, Sciworks, Winston-Salem

Lee Street, Greensboro

A day of photographs, North Carolina history, and science on a typically muggy North Carolina spring day, this journey was well worth the drive. And though Lori and her friend are neither celebrities nor models, I feel that I was able to honor Edward Steichen and all the other great photographers that have come before me with a lovely portraits of some every day folks.

Lori and Friend, downtown Winston-Salem

I may have made a mistake. It was calculated, rational, carefully thought through, but still, probably, a mistake.

At the beginning of the year, I started focusing on trying to make at least part of my living from photography. Really, I wanted more time to focus on, and think about, making good photographs and seeing where it might take me. It has had its ups and downs, but it has always felt like the right choice. Part of embarking on this journey necessitated putting all my photographic eggs in one basket–financially, I couldn’t justify keeping my Olympus OM-D, and instead I plowed that money back into my bread and butter Canon EOS DSLR system. It was the right choice to make, but it was a mistake.

A friend of mine is going to Spain soon, and I started looking back through my Spain photos–which were all taken with a Panasonic GF-1–that I planned to share with her. Since the GF-1, I have been a big fan of small, mirrorless cameras, and they have accompanied me on many travels.

It is hard to articulate everything that I love and miss about my smaller cameras, but it’s definitely a real feeling, and I am finding myself looking anew at cameras like the Fuji X-E1 and X100s, the Olympus E-P5, and others. I don’t know if it is the mirrorless gestalt, or the surprisingly good image quality, or just the additive effect of these and other attributes, but there is something to these cameras that is more than the sum of their parts.

It’s not all rose-colored glasses, of course. The GF-1 fell apart at high ISOs while night-shooting and the files were hard to work with without showcasing jaggy artifacting, and the OM-D had a tendency towards purple fringing on blown highlights. However, they often created more effortless, playful shooting journeys with their relative weightlessness and lack of ostentation. They just begged to be played with and taken everywhere. They were never a burden, never sources of aches or soreness.

So if you have a mirrorless camera or nice compact that you are thinking of selling so that you can get yourself a DSLR or a nice lens for your DSLR, think again. Even if it’s right, it might be wrong. Even if it’s rational, you may find yourself trying to fill the void. In life, there is a delicate balance between nurturing your bank accounts and nurturing your soul–the mirrorless cameras have, for me, always been the soul-nurturers (which is not to say I don’t love my Canons, but it’s different).

The score of Beck’s “Saint Dude” indicates an “Abiding” tempo. One of the songs is titled “The Title of This Song.” Song Reader is party honky tonk, part electronic, part rock, and all Beck.

Violinist and NMR mainstay, Karen Galvin.

I had the good luck to find out that the extremely talented New Music Raleigh would be playing the whole “album” at King’s Barcade in Raleigh.

Old Ceremony singer Django Haskins lends his talents to the show

I first met Shawn and Karen Galvin, the masterminds behind New Music Raleigh, back in 2010, when I was asked to shoot a concert of theirs at the Murphy School in Raleigh. Generally known for playing the work of more “classical” (that doesn’t really seem like the right word–instrumental? Orchestral?) living composers, NMR assembled a highly talented group to do something completely different–play Beck Hansen’s most recent “album”–the twenty-song book of sheet music and illustrations he published as Song Reader.

New Music Raleigh co-founder and percussionist, Shawn Galvin

Since first hearing New Music Raleigh, I have been a fan of their work, their talent, and their mission. I have also always been a casual fan of Beck–I very much respect the work he is creating and the disruptions he has caused in the music industry, even if I haven’t been a rabid fan of all of his songs.

I learned about Song Reader while listening to a feature on NPR a few months ago, and then, at breakfast with Shawn and Karen discussing general promotional photos, they mentioned they’d be playing the whole thing, all twenty songs. Their eyes lit up when they started talking about the project, and I knew this would be good.

Django rests backstage during intermission

I, along with the rest of the audience, was not disappointed. An eclectic mix of styles, Song Reader was brilliantly interpreted by NMR, with an excellent arrangement from Brett William Deitz.

All of the songs were unmistakably Beck–the chord changes, the irreverent titles of the songs and playful instructions in the scores fairly shout “Beck made this!” So even though it’s not Beck himself, personally performing these songs, it IS Beck, performed by other talented musicians.

With music probably influencing my photography more than other photographers or photographs, this show was an absolute treat for me, and I am glad to have had the opportunity to get to know, collaborate with, and listen to, Shawn and Karen and their collective of talented musicians.

I recently had a couple of photo gigs–photographing vintage dolls and doing some promo shots for the very talented Karen and Shawn Galvin of New Music Raleigh–that involved so much gear I elected not to do a “What’s in My Camera Bag?” because the logistics were too tiresome. There was a ThinkTank Airport International bag full of stuff, and THEN lightstands, Alienbees strobes and modifiers, and lighting accessories. Given enough time, I’m sure I could have figured it out, but suffice to say, it was a lot of stuff.

Sometimes (maybe even most times), less is more. In stark contrast to the kit I brought to the previous shoots is the kit I am bringing with me to tonight’s New Music Raleigh performance of Beck’s Song Reader at King’s Barcade in Raleigh. This kit is dictated by the venue and by the lighting I am likely to encounter–i.e., standing-room only and pretty dark. Though I may have access to a very difficult-to-reach upper perch, most of my photographs will likely be taken from down amongst the crowd. I will need to have the full kit on me as I make my way through the crowd, which dictates having a smaller bag and a lighter, smaller kit than I might otherwise bring. Lighting dictates fast zooms or, even better, fast primes, which have the added advantage of generally being smaller and less obtrusive than their zoom peers.

I will note that you should always have a backup camera if you are shooting something professionally. In this case, I will have the 1DmkIII that I used to make this photo, but didn’t picture it because it will likely be left somewhere where I can access it if needed, but it won’t be part of the working kit.

So here’s what I have in the bag (a Tamrac Adventure Messenger 4) and why:

• Canon 5DmarkIII–I elected this body over the 1DmkIII because it is smaller, has better high ISO performance, and has comparably good autofocus. I don’t need super high framerates, weather-sealing, or fast flash sync for the show.
• Canon 24–70 f/2.8L (I have the original version of this lens) — An absolute workhorse lens and likely to do a lot of the heavy lifting tonight. Sometimes I sub a 16–35 f/2.8L here, but I find that the extra reach on the long end is often more valuable than the wideness you lose on the other end.
• Canon 35 f/1.4L — This is one of my favorite lenses, and one of Canon’s best. If the light is really low, and/or I want faster shutter speeds or lower ISOs, a “wide normal” prime will help get me there. Since I should have pretty close access to the stage, this lens is likely to get some action, as well.
• Canon 85 f/1.8 — This lens is tiny and fantastic. I used to have the super sexy 85 f/1.2L, which was a great lens and the king of low-light telephoto primes, but the lesser lens is well-built, has very fast AF, and good sharpness. It is a no-brainer to bring this in place of the cumbersome 70–200 f/2.8L IS. While the zoom would probably work well for this application, it is large, heavy, and more likely to crack concertgoers over the head and block their vision–not good. If I knew I were going to be stuck in one spot, I might bring the zoom, but even then I would seriously consider shooting what I could and cropping the 22mp 5DmkIII images later.
• Extra batteries for the 5DmkIII — I’m not likely to need more than the one in the camera, especially because none of the lenses I’m bringing have image stabilization, but it would be silly not to have a spare, just in case.
• CompactFlash and SD cards — in the standard tough, weatherproof case I like.
• Microfiber cloth — for my glasses as much as the lenses, since the eyepieces tend to get smudges on my glasses while shooting.

This spring in Durham we have had a stretch of cool, drippy, cloudy weather that reminds me more of Seattle than North Carolina. Where we have temperatures lingering in the sixties this year, we usually have muggy eighties. I am enjoying the cooler weather, and even the rain.

Even though it’s not always fun to get soaked while wandering around downtown, you often have unique opportunities to photograph things in different ways, and to play with large reflections. So out I went with raincoat, boots, and the more weathersealed of my cameras, in search of interesting stuff.

In addition to reflections, rainy, overcast days often provide dramatic, fast-moving clouds, even light, and sometimes dramatic light when the sun peeks through the moving clouds. You can get contrasts of golden light and dark blue clouds, and if you’re lucky, you might get a rainbow or two in there (today I was not so lucky).

I also took the opportunity to play around more with Google’s Nik Collection, a suite of tools that I have used for years (before Google bought them), but have only recently started using as plug-ins with Adobe Lightroom (having before used them in Photoshop). With Adobe poised to push its Creative Suite into the Cloud, I am working harder than ever to move my workflow completely into Lightroom.

I know that I posted some similar shots of Durham and the West Village area recently, but I hope these are different enough that it doesn’t feel repetitive.

Hopefully, before too long, the rain will stop long enough that I can at least mow my lawn–once the weather turns nice, everything green starts taking over!

***NOTE: I wrote this blog post back in August of last year, and have rediscovered it while doing some website housecleaning. Therefore, some of the future happenings are now past happenings–each of the weddings I photographed was a wonderful celebration. It is appropriate to have found it now, when photography IS my focus and when I am trying to transition into a fully photographic life. It is also appropriate now, with the spring weather still coolish and breezy, when I am most yearning for the murmuring of the ocean and cold sand between my toes. Now, almost halfway through the first year of my great creative experiment, is as good a time as any to step back, look at where I’ve been, and chart my course through the waters ahead.

Those of you who check in here regularly or occasionally may have noticed that after a burst of regular posting (due to some discovered resolution to write and share my experience with others) I have gone somewhat quiet recently. I have been very busy–photography is not my full-time profession, and my family and my job have kept my hands full, juggling all the life things that one is required to juggle. We have found time for fun, and relaxation, and of course, through it all, I have been taking photos.

I learned long ago, at a sailing camp on one of North Carolina’s wide rivers that run into the sound, that it’s important to take a step back from time to time, to check one’s compass and adjust accordingly. I have not had a lot of time for reflection, but when I have, I’ve been grateful to have found, in photography, both a deeply satisfying mode of expression and a way to chronicle my life and to help others chronicle theirs.

I have found myself sitting under the stars on some soil or sand in this grand old state, sometimes in the stickiest of weather, sometimes with a breeze, sometimes with a natural light show. Sometimes alone, sometimes grateful for the company of my wife or my son. And I have thought about all of it, what all of it means. The photographs, what they mean. This life, what it means. And I am grateful for the photographs I have taken–even the quiet ones that are not technically perfect or deeply meaningful to anyone outside of myself–because they remind me of a particular time and a particular place. Sometimes a particular feeling, or some perfect moment.

The photos themselves can never be perfect. Part of the joy and the agony of photographing the world is that you can neverreally capture what you see and experience. You can’t render three dimensions into two and not lose something. No matter how many bits or pixels or inches of print you have, you can never wrangle a cooling breeze into your photos, can never contain your child’s laughter. You can only provide yourself, and others, with some crude portal into a memory–a jumping off point for your neurons, a catalyst for your imagination. Sometimes the frustration of not being able to capture it all on that wafer of silicone or that frame of film can be almost unbearable.

And then sometime later, you might find yourself in the thick of a rut or at a point where you feel like the drudgery of everyday life is relentless and pulling you apart, piece by piece, a little bit at a time. While in that state, you might find yourself looking back through your photos, your little electronic or paper portals (printing your work is always grand), and you might find yourself inspired or consoled, reliving memories, spending time with old friends in beautiful places.

Next weekend marks the start of a series of weddings that I will be photographing, and each one of them should be deeply satisfying for various reasons. I am compelled to photograph, in part, because of the places it takes me and because of the people I come across. There is a tapestry of connections woven through my experience, and it is most often in the people and the places that I find the most gratification.

As usual, I am writing a meandering blog post that has no great single MORAL–you know, a central theme that drives home some incontrovertible point about photography or about life. That is part of the reason I haven’t blogged recently–because I had no lesson. But photography, like life, isn’t always about a point or a lesson or a particular meaning. It’s about trying to hold on to some tangible evidence of an ephemeral moment, of trying to set in concrete something elusive. Photographs mark time, eras, periods, change. They describe the past in an imperfect way, like the warped glass in old windows.

I stopped writing fiction a long time ago because I didn’t see the point. I got burned out and found that it wasn’t satisfying to me on its own–it had to accomplish some larger goal–being published, making money, making a life, whatever. That hasn’t happened with photography yet, and I very much hope that it never will. I don’t expect to be immortal, or be famous, or even to be well-known. But I feel compelled to record these things in my life, the way I see them, to communicate my experience, even if it’s just for myself. You can never know where it will lead, what it really means, or if anyone will ever notice. I know that it’s brought me into contact with some extraordinary folks living extraordinary lives.

To be a cyclist is to be a student of pain… at cycling’s core lies pain, hard and bitter as the pit inside a juicy peach. It doesn’t matter if you’re sprinting for an Olympic medal, a town sign, a trailhead, or the rest stop with the homemade brownies. If you never confront pain, you’re missing the essence of the sport. Without pain, there’s no adversity. Without adversity, no challenge. Without challenge, no improvement. No improvement, no sense of accomplishment and no deep-down joy. Might as well be playing Tiddly-Winks.
–Scott Martin

Shouts  of encouragement, the soft whir of tires on pavement as a rider speeds by, then a crescendo of sound and murmuring as the following peloton nears, arrives, and passes, the aggregate air the riders push out of the way hitting you like a gentle, but insistent, spring breeze. The process repeated every minute or so, the leader sometimes changing, lap after lap. Ten minutes, twenty. The pace slackens a bit, the shoulders start to slump on the straights, the mouths gape. This is cycling to me, and it is beautiful.

Let me make it clear: I am no cyclist myself, and until last year’s Ninth Street Derby, had never experienced competitive cycling outside of memories of old Wellspring Criterium posters and the occasional glimpse of Le Tour. After having witnessed the energy, the competitiveness, the toughness and the grace of road racing, I am hooked.

A criterium seems to me like the cycling equivalent of an F1 race–a short, tight, technical course that features both speed and endurance. Competitors sprint for primes, and strategically work with teammates to maneuver into favorable position. A physical and mental challenge, the criterium format features riders competing against both other riders and their own tiring bodies.

Criteriums are also ideal for spectators and photographers, with their fast and repeating action. Watchers have the opportunity to view the action from multiple viewpoints and at regular intervals as the riders lap.

I like the purity of cycling–to me it is more graceful than running, but features the same, human powered motivation. The riders are all incredibly focused as they jockey for position in tight bunches, and their sportsmanship admirable. Smiles abound between races, with teams mingling with spectators and each other, sharing stories. Folks are competitive, to be sure, but the community is positive, encouraging, and tight-knit.

The brainchild of Duke cycling coach Rusty Miller, the Ninth Street Derby enriches the community and the city that I have been proud to call home my whole life. Evidence of Durham’s continuing rebirth, the bicycle racing is at once a celebration of human and machine, of exercise and competition, of clean energy and the power of spirit.

I never expected to be so taken by a sport that I once considered hipsterism taken to an ugly extreme–arrogant aero-clothed yuppies on carbon-fiber superbikes banging on pots and pans about the evils of fossil fuels and “cages.”

I am sure that lunatic fringe exists (probably in Sausalito ;-)), but I am so grateful to Rusty and to all the cyclists–youth, collegiate, and pro–for shattering all of my preconceived notions. This is grand entertainment, folks. A grassroots, accessible, fast action sport that celebrates the human body and spirit–what’s not to love?

This year’s Ninth Street Derby featured lots of thrilling action, with the home team Blue Devils putting on quite a show (as a Carolina alumnus and Durham native, this presented a complex problem of allegiance), and I had ample opportunity to practice and refine my cycling photography. Hopefully I’ve captured some of the energy and excitement in these photos. I hope you can feel the camaraderie, feel the adrenaline and tension in the racing, hear the whirr of so many wheels being furiously pedaled.

To all the athletes, thanks for the show!

For galleries of the various races I photographed, please follow these links:

• Men’s A
• Women’s A/1/2/3
• Men’s B
• Women’s B/C/4

If anyone is interested in a technical writeup about photographing cycling, please leave me a comment or make contact. I’d be happy to share my experiences.

I spent most of the day yesterday having a ton of fun photographing amateur, pro, and collegiate cycling at the second annual 9th Street Derby in downtown Durham. This is not a paid gig, so I am free to play, and really wanted to nail down my panning technique and get some shots I could be proud of. Among the four thousand plus frames I shot yesterday, I think there are a few that accomplished my goals!

Because of the magnitude of the editing task ahead of me, I thought I’d stall with a quick “What’s in my bag” blog, inspired by a series that I can’t find now where various pro photographers show and tell their camera bags to give folks an idea of there style and what gear might be suited for what situation. Rather than show you everything, though, I thought I’d start a series where I’ll periodically show how I pack my bag for various different situations. While I have more gear to bring, I generally try to pare it down as much as possible–for the sake of my back and arms, but also because of creative and security considerations (if you get tired of carrying your bag around and put it down somewhere, you’re opening up the possibility of theft).

Anyway, on to the bag, as packed for cycling. Pictured above is everything I took with me for the day at the derby, all packed into a ThinkTank Urban Disguise 50 shoulder bag. When you think sports, you immediately think telephoto lenses, the need for fast focus, and fast frame rates. So, I packed the mainstay 70–200 f/2.8L IS (I have the older version of this lens) and also a 300 f/4L IS, but then I also packed my 16–35 f/2.8L (also a v.1) since some of my favorite cycling photos are wide angle. Last year at the derby, I used a 24–70 f/2.8L (ALSO v.1–do you note a trend here?) and that worked great, but I wanted to see if I could go even wider with Canon’s ultrawide. These lenses were on a 5D mark III and a 1D mark III. Ever since I got the 5D3, the 1D3 has essentially been relegated to backup duty–it’s heavier, has noisier high ISOs, and has smaller file sizes (which can be a great thing, btw). I keep it around for the odd occasion where I might need a deep buffer, 10fps, weather-sealing, a battery that lasts forever, or 1/320th flash sync speed–as it turns out, there are a lot of reasons I keep it around! For the most part, I kept the 16–35 on the 5D3 because the 1D3 has a 1.3 crop and I wanted the full wideness of my lens. Then I had either the 70–200 or the 300 on the 1Dmk3.

All of that is pretty standard stuff, and there were several other photographers at the event with variations on essentially the same kit–there were the Nikon versions, and a PJ there had the 300 f/2.8 instead of the f/4, but in general, pretty similar stuff. The one thing in my bag that the others probably didn’t bring (I didn’t see any others) is the 3-stop neutral density (ND) filter. I know what you’re thinking–“Mark, you’re shooting fast action sports! Those guys are averaging 30+ mph on a tight half mile course! What reason could you possibly have for a neutral density filter which cuts light getting to your lens?!?!?” I see your incredulous face. Well, I’ll tell you–so I can do stuff like this:

In order to get shutter speeds slow enough for panning on a bright sunny day (These were ~1/60th of a second), you need low ISOs and to stop down. If you don’t want t0 (for reasons of DOF) or can’t (the 16–35 only goes to f/22) stop way down, an easy way to get slower shutter speeds is to use an ND filter. I originally bought the 3 stop filter so that I could use wider apertures when shooting with strobes, but it also comes in handy for this sort of stuff.

Rounding out the bag is a microfiber cloth (I wish I could remember where I got that one–it’s my favorite!), extra batteries for each camera, compact flash and SD cards (the SD cards are in the case under the CF cards), and an Induro carbon fiber monopod (which I didn’t end up using, but my sore arms wish I had). Carbon fiber monopods are relatively cheap, very light, and very strong for their size, making them ideal for someone like me who occasionally needs more stability, but almost never uses a tripod. Also, a note about memory–one of the most critical components of my bag was the amount of memory I had packed, as I went from shooting 4,000+ frames at the derby to even more shooting at a concert (see below), with no time in between to dump photos onto a hard drive. With less memory (I actually had even more packed), I could have been in real trouble come concert time.

Later that night, I used the same kit to shoot a concert with a bassoon ensemble at a dimly lit venue. For the concert, though, I switched the lenses to take advantage of the 5D3’s superior noise handling, and I also used the monopod this time.

I will try not to fill my blog with too much of this stuff, but I know it is sometimes interesting to other photographers and to those who are beginning to assemble their kits and looking at what might work. So for those folks, I hope it is interesting and I will try to do more of these from time to time. And, enough stalling–I need to start working on those photos!!!

Not too long ago, I was contacted by Southern Living magazine regarding stock photos I might have that would communicate Durham’s “essence.” I sent them photos of the Durham skyline, of Brightleaf Square, and of American Tobacco, since those are some of the most distinctly “Durham” features of our city.

They ended up focusing on my skyline photos, and then chose someone elses’s photos of Brightleaf (it’s not sour grapes, just making that clear), but the question lingered in my mind–when I think of Durham, what images, spaces, buildings come immediately to mind? Like the St. Louis Arch or the Chrysler building in New York, the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco and the Sydney Opera House, what landmarks make Durham instantly recognizable?

For me, it will always be the long rows of crenelated brick walls, the big, uniform windows. The legacy of tobacco in Durham is utilitarian, red brick factories, warehouses, office buildings that are now being repurposed in beautiful and creative ways. Big open interior spaces, thick wood floors, rough trunks of darkened wood holding up ceilings–these are the things that will always stay with me as “Durham.”

More than Duke (and Duke Chapel), more than the CCB Building or the Bull at Five Points, more than the flashing red and white bulls of the Bullington building. Perhaps, more even than the Durham Bulls themselves, these red brick relics of a former prosperity, with their corrugated skybridges, their water towers, smokestacks, and railroad tracks, are what Durham is all about.

When I was a kid, it would include the smell of curing bright leaf tobacco, but those days are long gone.

Sometimes, Bad Things happen. Many of them are accidental, or incidental. Many others are purposeful, vengeful. As we grow older, these aggregated threats to our everyday life make us both more appreciative of the value of life, and also more weary. The challenge is in how we carry the burden, and how we pass it on to our children.

When I was taking these photos at Duke Gardens in Durham, I planned to write a blog about what a treasure of a garden we have here (and to be sure, we do!). After hearing about the bombs at the Boston Marathon, it’s become something a little bigger. I picked Isaac up from school as usual, and he wanted to go to the duck pond, so off we went. If you ever need some relief from the burdens of the world, follow an energetic child around in a beautiful garden.

We were carefree, wandering the garden without agenda, map, or schedule. As a lifelong Durham resident, it is all too easy to take for granted this beautiful, serene space near downtown. Sometimes, though, like today, I am fully thankful for the quiet spaces and their ability to transport me away from daily life for a little while.

It’s these moments that must keep in mind and cling to when those Bad Things happen. There will always be those Bad Things–there’s nothing we can do about them. I don’t believe we should hide from them, or cower in our houses and wait for the sky to fall. I think we should be out appreciating the incredible gift of life that we have, and appreciating all those moments, big and small.

I’d be lying, of course, if I said I appreciated every moment of my own life. There are the days of lethargy, boredom, despair, depression. But there are also these moments of intensely focused clarity–those moments that you know are important, and then some Bad Thing reminds you just how important that time really is.

Just as a creative person never really knows which photographs, paintings, or stories will really resonate with folks, so we never really know which moments in life will be the memorable ones. Sometime after we left the gardens, we stopped for an afternoon snack, and I ended up eating pimento cheese. No big thing, really, but sitting there, with my wife and child, the pimento cheese reminded me of my grandmother and grandfather, and brought back many memories of time spent with them. It was a poignant everyday thing. I miss them.

My afternoon with my family would have been a good day by any measure. I am very fortunate to have so many daily reminders of all the good, and love, and beauty in the world. Humankind has an amazing capacity for cruelty and darkness, to be sure, but also an amazing capacity for compassion, and joy.

The trick is to cling on to the joy. Really, really hard.