Elena Kaplan Wearing Her Miccosukee Indian Skirt

My daughter Elena was about four or five when this photo was taken here in the back yard. She loved going out to the Miccosukee Reservation on the Tamiami Trail every weekend, and playing with the kids her age and watching the birds.

One of Louise Tiger's relatives made this skirt as well as one for my wife Stephanie, and Stephanie and I each got shirts as well. Elena loved wearing that skirt to school. Compared to the other kids she'd lead an exciting life, spending time on Indian Reservations and the inner city black ghetto, meeting governors, senators, and even a couple of presidents and presidential candidates.

She spent quite a bit of
time in the black section of Miami staying with one of her teachers from the day care center she was attending. She spent a day at Hair Styles By Mr. Ralph where she spent over an an hour getting her hair plaited into cornrows with long Bo Derek style braids complete with beads on them.. It was mostly the other mommies at the elementary school who were jealous. I don't know if they were just afraid to go into that neighborhood or unwilling to spend a couple of hundred bucks getting their hair braided. I took pictures of her getting it braided and posing with the finished hair do. Mr. Ralph was thrilled with the photos, which he used in his advertising. A cute blonde hair white girl with a very much typical black hair style was an attention getter for sure. She loved posing for the camera. Now I'm wondering whatever happened to that skirt. Elena now has a niece Gabriella that's about a year younger than Elena was in this photo. I bet she'd look cute wearing that skirt.

Tech data on the photo. The scan was made from a 5x7 print that's been filed away for thirty or so years. The camera was a Minolta Autocord loaded with Kodak Ektacolor CPS film in hazy sunlight.

Barry College Library

On The Wall At The Mario Flores Gallery

The opening party was last Friday and there were actually a lot of people there but I managed to chase a few away from in front of my display of photographs long enough to actually see the pictures in the shot. No, Phil Morris wasn't "posed", but he was already looking at the photos before I tried to get this shot. He lingered afterwards for quite awhile and we chatted a bit. He seemed most interested in the photos of the Miccosukee and Seminole Indians. Most people are.

I was the only one showing traditional black and white gelatin silver prints, and frankly some of the other photographers' work was, to me anyway, stretching the definition of photography a bit more than I'm comfortable with. Still, Mario has been encouraging me to go off exploring some new directions with my black and white photography, which seems to be getting me out of the rut I've been stuck in the past few years. It's still gelatin silver though.

This photo was shot with a 21mm Super-Angulon on a Leica M3, scanned off of a 4"x6" print.

From Barry University To Rootz Gallery

Here I am with Mario Flores at his Rootz Gallery a few weeks ago. Most of these prints are well over thirty years old. As I was digging them out of my files I ran across a lot of old magazines and advertising brochures featuring my photographs. A lot of that dated back to the period of twenty-five or so years when I did all the photography for Barry College (now Barry University) in nearby Miami Shores.

Claudia, my ex-wife called me a few days ago to tell me that her friend Ann had passed away. I knew Ann from back in the days when she worked at Barry, long before I'd met Claudia. A memorial sevice for Ann will be held Friday morning in the chapel and Claudia wanted me to know. She and I will go there together, but I also want to take a few photographs around the campus while I'm there.

The school has grown a lot over the past twenty-five years. I thought that it might be interesting to photograph some of the same buildings and scenes as they look today and put them here on thepriceofsilver along with the images from those old publications.

I also want to visit the school library. They have several of my prints included in their collection, and they're framed and on display in the library. They're from my Miccosukee Indian series. I'd like to get some photos of the prints hanging in there. Claudia is going to tell me that I'm on campus for a memorial service and to return some other time to take my pictures. Then she's going to yell at me for not getting a haircut. Some things never change.

THE SOUL SNATCHERS (See? No Photo Even!)

Well, there WAS a photo here. One of the sexy young ladies over at Starbucks didn't like being in a photo on my blog. Maybe she was afraid that the guys would think that she wanted to snatch their soul? The photo had nothing to do with this text, but I used it to segue into what I wanted to write about.

The Soul Snatchers is a new book by my old friend Robert W. Morgan. We've known one another since about 1973 when we were both doing some research to see if there might be some truth behind the local Miccosukee Indian legends of a big hairy hominid, usually called a skunk ape, living in the Everglades. From time to time various people have claimed to have seen one, caught a brief glimp really, while slogging through the swamp on a hunting trip or collecting wild orchids, maybe photographing the birds. He and I both became friendly with the Tiger family ~ that's how he an I met ~ and I still stay in touch with one of the Miccosukee Indians who gave up the Everglades for living not too far from me.

I have also stayed in sporadic touch with Robert W. Morgan. He's an author and a film maker. Early next year he's hoping to start filming a new movie. It's set in the Everglades. We've been emailing back and forth about the project. He wants me to shoot the stills, and I might also get a bit part. In the meantime he's written another book, The Soul Snatchers. I'll be published and available in a few weeks. Check with your local bookseller or Amazon and pick up a copy!