Taking paws

The blood work is in, and it turns out Taiga was having a heart attack on Tuesday. He's recovering by sleeping long hours and by resting his head on my chest, purring peacefully when he's awake. It tires him to walk across the room, so I have not drafted him to write a blip today. One of his large paws is enough to fill my hand, and we spend time holding paws/hands and comforting each other. We will--like mutually-fond creatures everywhere--continue to enjoy the time we have, knowing that there is an expiration date on each of us. It just isn't stamped where we can see it, which is just as well.

I am doing some collaborative work with a friend who sent me a very interesting interview with the American photographer W. Eugene Smith. The interview, conducted in 1956, was published a few days ago. There are links to his very powerful black and white prints, so if you're interested in B&W you can enjoy studying his work. There is discussion of some important ethical issues that street photographers and photo-journalists need to consider. The interview ends with a question I expect we all ask ourselves from time to time: "What if nobody sees it? Besides a few friends?"

This is relevant to Vivian Maier's work as well. And to all of ours. If you can hand a digital camera to a two-year-old and get interesting shots; if an artist like William Klein can make a strong artistic statement with blurry street shots of no particular technical excellence; if everybody and their brother-in-law has a phone capable of recording everything that happens every day: what are we doing? What are we trying to achieve? What's it all about?

I love W. Eugene Smith's answer. "The goal is the work itself."

I think Vivian Maier would say the same.

I continue to mourn the loss of my motsoalle, to cuddle Taiga back to as much health as he can enjoy, to work on a writing project of great importance to me, and to find my way through a great storm of emotion. I am not able to comment much just now, but I am leaving comments on in case you'd like to say anything about that very interesting W. Eugene Smith interview or anything else.