Post retirement (old guy) reflection on my work as a photographer, created an itch I’ve been scratching, to curate and show the result of a dozen years. Still early on and skimpy. May take a year or so: http://www.brookemeyer.com
Almost January 2026: Nah! It’ll take a LOT longer! Just imagine, an endless supply of paper and crayons with no Bell Schedule! Can spend hours reading about Lady Day and Dorthea Lange! After 75 years of perpetual motion, time to savor my great good luck.
And I think Kurt Vonnegut had it right: “The moral of the story is, we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize — or they don’t care — is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”
Photographer & Clients at “Picture Days” 2016
Bravo Academy of Dance – Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Like “Mac”, I find sleep and comfort irresistible. And good food . I made all of his. No convenient bagged junk. Real Chow: Half can of Salmon with a shot of Olive Oil in AM (and Cosamin DS for bad joints, same as I still take to not need knee surgery) split with our attitude Lab, “Rocky”. PM, Bone In Raw Chicken Wings. Later, as he and Rocky got older, ground up raw Chickens, cooked Rice, Collards and Sweet Taters.
Mac
Saturdays, a “Trotter” on the deck, from Nahunta Pork Center at the Raleigh Farmers Market – which got disappeared in 45 minutes! Never had to have their teeth cleaned.
Disclaimer: I once wrote to a young lady from a Navy Training School who later told me my letters were complex and hard to read – she was right).
We both aged to relish and enjoy quietude. This is almost, a self portrait. We both got grey muzzles. And shared a deep love of our missus, whose side he would not leave in her illness. As she would not leave his. The hard part of love is good bye. Eventually, account balance is zero, with no credit line. So it goes.
This was a favorite of my late Sweetheart -she insisted on the framed print above our fireplace, each Christmas. Later, I had the good fortune to gift it to Santa and Mrs Claus!
Watching the Cary Ballet Company “Nutcracker” last night was wonderful.
I didn’t know it then, but this photograph from 2021 would be the last I would make, after a dozen years of CBC productions. It was inevitable. As Chaucer wrote in 1395: “Time and tide wait for no man.” Decided the next fall, without regret, it was time to retire.
Cary Ballet “Nutcracker” Final Bow | Cary Arts Center | 19 Dec 2021
The extraordinary performance I saw last evening was deeply life affirming. Being part of that, lasts forever. About as long as it will take me to really curate about 5 TB of Digital Negatives! The luxury of time & absence of needing to earn is a new kind of freedom that I fully embrace. Like the hugs I got last night.
Last week, driving by the spectacular Town Hall and Academy Street Christmas displays, the child in me, marveled! The old man in me, finds peace and comfort in the simplicity and elegance of 15 years ago.
Ambassador Loop Lamp Post| Cary Town Hall Campus | 26 Dec 2010
Page-Walker Arts & History Center started life as a railroad hotel next to still used train tracks. So I occasionally had to pause teaching Thursday night Photography Classes on the second floor, while Trains rumbled by with their warning horns. Freight and Passenger!
Got waylaid by a bunch of Labrador Retrievers on the way in. Sent my heart into overload. Never did find out what the meetup was for but – oh my.
Christmas Day through the 26th of 2010, it snowed in Cary, North Carolina. Rare event. Beginning with my two Labs, I made photographs of our “White Christmas”. Spent the next day making photographs in Downtown Cary. Which looked a LOT different tonight, driving down Academy Street.
But this is really about two dogs whose ashes I’ve kept to go to sea with mine:Melanchete’s MacGyver AKC CGC & Melanchete’s Rocky AKC CGC.
Leaving a Harris Teeter today with some necessities (Beer), I saw two ICE Officers walking into the store, guided by a Harris Teeter Manager wearing a Corporate Logo Shirt. I heard him say “she might have gone left”. To their credit, the young ICE Officers were not wearing Helmets, Sunglasses or Masks or had Weapons drawn. I had no idea if they had a court ordered Arrest Warrant. Two Town of Cary Police SUV’s were parked nearby.
Pushing my cart towards my truck (old widowers need to get their steps in), I made eye contact with one young ICE Officer, rolled my 75 year old salty veteran Submariner eyes and shook my head in disapproval. Midway to my truck, in my peripheral vision I saw a young Hispanic woman, also in a Harris Teeter Company shirt looking past me as she walked quickly away, as unobtrusively as possible.
And I thought about my immigrant Grand Parents and Great Grand Parents. And why they came to a foreign land without even knowing the language. And I thought about the poem by Emma Lazarus on the base of this statue.
A decade ago, I made this photograph. A proud American Veteran.
3 Dec 2011, I expected to visit the North Carolina Museum of Art with timed Tickets to a Van Gogh Exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art with the company of dear friends and house guests, visiting from Toronto. Phone rang: Lindsey Chester of “Cary Citizen”.
“Our photographer called out sick, can you come make photographs with Santa Claus?” I stalled, said I would call some folks I knew in Cary Photographic Artists. Did and got zero response. Sweetheart said, “Oh just go do it, we’ll be fine.” So I loaded my truck with what I thought I needed and headed to Downtown Cary. Courtesy of Joy & Dan Pike, found a pop up tent and chair in Chatham Street, in front of what was then Ashworth’s Drugstore.
Watching the Ken Burns film tonight about the American Revolution, put me back in a Paris Vacation Apartment, in Marais, after an evening at the Opera for the 50th Anniversary of Balanchine’s Ballet “Jewels”. I was coincidentally reading David McCulloughs biography of “John Adams”. This is an excerpt from Abigail Adams letter of 20 Feb. 1785:
My Dear Sister,
The first dance which I saw upon the Stage shoked me, the Dress’es and Beauty of the performers was enchanting, but no sooner did the Dance commence, than I felt my delicacy wounded, and I was ashamed to bee seen to look at them. Girls cloathd in the thinest Silk: and Gauze, with their peticoats short Springing two foot from the floor poising themselves in the air, with their feet flying, and as perfectly shewing their Garters and draws, as tho no peticoat had been worn, was a sight altogether new to me. Their motions are as light as air and as quick as lightning. They balance themselves to astonishment. No description can equal the reality.
They are daily trained to it from early infancy, at a Royal academy instituted for this purpose. You will very often see little creatures not more than 7 or 8 years old as undauntedly performing their parts as the eldest amongst them. Shall I speak a Truth and say that repeatedly seeing these Dances has worn of that disgust which I first felt, and that I see them now with pleasure. …. The art of dancing is carried to the highest degree of perfection that it is capable of; at the opera
I have Scarcly room left to say that I am Your affectionate sister
Sunday evenings tend to memory – favorites. This market, in walking distance from our vacation apartment, was a favorite place to shop, with my sweetheart. Way different than Harris-Teeter.
And I promise, walk along Rue De Rivoli with Leeks and a Baguette poking up from a shopping bag, dressed like Americans and a tourist will ask, in English, for directions.
I’d say, stifling a smirk, “Parlez vous francais?” And get an admonishing poke in the rib from my sweetie (who had no French at all, even my pathetic skill). “Yes”, she’d say, in English, “Where do you want to go?”
In 2024, I moved back to Cary from the hinterland of an unincorporated part of Wake County, behind a Golf Course where my sweetheart & me snuggled in our last years together.
From 2011 and after downsizing in 2013 (I was burnt on I/T jobs) and before 2020 parted us by death, I made photographs for the now closed but still available publication “Cary Citizen”.
Made this photograph in March of 2011. Was heading back to my truck after making photographs of the Cary Kite Festival at Bond Park. Dogwood Blossoms suspended above a Town of Cary trash can. A metaphor for today’s politics.
Journalism Photography was different from my work at Cary Ballet Conservatory. My Press & Fair & Parking Pass to the NC State Fair via Cary Citizen was to tell a story. I never made photographs to laugh at anyone. With, yes. At, no.
So seven years later, I still struggle with this image. The hat says “Navy” which as an ex Submariner, still really bothers me.
Aboard USS Andrew Jackson SSBN 619, there was once a a crew member who ate so much during a two month patrol, he could not fit through a hatch to leave the ship. Literally, stuck aboard.
Solution was to: 1. Not feed him for a couple of of days 2. Strip him down to skivvies. 3. Oil him up (don’t remember if it was vegetable or Shell Tellus Hydraulic). 4. Put a few pounds of air pressure in AMR and pop him outout the hatch. He probably had a waistline north of 58″, triple the diameter of a 19″ hatch.
Not humorous. Not at all. Yep, he got out. Before stuck making another Patrol
Just like in 1863 Paris, when paintings by Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet and Camille Pissarro were rejected by the Paris Salon, I again received the same from a Juried Photography Competition, sponsored by a local camera club. So in the tradition of the Salon des Refusés, here are my rejects.
Disclaimer: These prints are on my apartment living room wall and are NFS.It did get me out for the reception to visit and talk story. And flirt!
By December of of 2012, I’d found my artistic & spiritual home at Cary Ballet Conservatory. Especially in Theater.
Made this image on 12/12/12 at the Cary Arts Center. Didn’t realize she was my “Muse”. Stage Makeup and Street Clothes. Later, home at my desk, after downloading and backing up the photographs I’d made at rehearsal, I stared at this, with my Bourbon & Beer and realized :
I loved it without knowing why.
I had no idea why it looked this way.
I understood nothing about light. Theater was a comfort zone, the lighting was just there. I was completely ignorant of lighting design and the properties of light!
I don’t remember how or why I found music by Eva Cassidy. Child left this life almost 30 years ago. Her recording of Sting’s “Fields of Gold” aired on BBC2 and launched renewed posthumous interest that echoed back to the US.
Lent my CD recordings to a music teacher/neighbor/dog rescuer/ informally adopted grand daughter whose pace and demands of young adult modern life makes me glad I’m old and out to pasture.
So having time to graze in Senior Sunshine, I ordered replacements from my favorite Book/CD store “GoodwillBooks.com“. This reached my mailbox a few days ago:
Turns out my 75 year old tear ducts still work. And I was thinking about having the privilege and trust of teachers and parents and children for a dozen years of work as a photographer at Cary Ballet Conservatory. And my sweetheart who is “still here beside me every day, ’cause I know you by heart“.
————————————————————–
You left in autumn The leaves were turning I walked down roads of orange and gold I saw your sweet smile I heard your laughter You’re still here beside me every day ‘Cause I know you by heart
The North Carolina State Fair, besides rides and crazy foods (delicious fun), is essentially about farming. A hard, uncertain life. My Fair & Press Credential permitted access to the barns behind the Show Rings. I was careful to be respectful. Click images for full size.
2015 North Carolina State Fair – Photographed for Cary Citizen
After two side trips, wandering about my local Barnes&Nobles bookstore and handling, twice, a plastic wrapped copy of “The Americans” by Robert Frank, I went home and discovered the Wake County Library didn’t have it. So I surfed my favorite book store, Goodwill Books . Us down sized Widowers know what old folks get rid of!
Found a copy near me, in Gastonia, North Carolina. Ordered and it arrived today. It is, extraordinary. And highly recommended.
The news this week reminded me of an embarrassing incident I caused as a photographer, so focused on the image, the ride was was stopped!
The 2016 North Carolina State Fair featured a new “SkyRide” transporting visitors high across the Fair. Fascinated, I used my Fair & Press credentials to talk myself into the passenger loading area. Solely focused (no pun) on making a dramatic image, I (innocently and ignorantly) backed my butt up to the “Emergency Stop”. And it worked! And I got highly disapproving looks from the folks working the ride. Sheepishly, I slinked away.
So watching the video of a videographer riding an escalator backwards, ahead of the President & First Lady – yeah, no way he’s going to ‘fess up to the butt stop.
My first attempt at a High School Senior Portrait Session was 13 years ago. I’d made Prom Pictures in a neighbors home and was recommended to another neighbor. It was also about a half year before my lighting “Epiphany” and subsequent truckloads of gear. So outdoor ambient light it was.
After okay (and way better than Life Touch Prestige) sessions in the garden of Page Walker Arts & History Center (which I discovered later was illegal as I was being paid and did not have a Permit) and Raulston Arboretum (where it’s legal if you don’t interfere with Visitors or damage the horticulture), I suggested a visit to the North Carolina Museum of Art.
Rodin Garden at North Carolina Museum of Art – June 2012
Confession: I’m a a failed B.F.A. Major and Rodin fan. I’ve made multiple, full afternoon visits to Musée Rodin in Paris and spent quality time with the large scale marble sculptures on the mezzanine of the Musée d’Orsay. So I felt a kinship. And the young lady and her chaperone Mom agreed. And it planted the seed of an idea for my Illegal Sunday, 6 years later. And I bet if Auguste Rodin was still around and saw these, he’d grin.
The month before making this promo image for “Collabo”, a joint performance by the Ballet & Jazz Companies at Cary Ballet Conservatory, I discovered, while visiting the NCMA (North Carolina Museum of Art) Booth at Cary’s “Lazy Daze”, it would not be allowed. There were new rules against “commercial” photography. Being well versed in corporate inanity, I acted surprised, nodded and smiled, saying I certainly understood.
Having previously photographed performances by the non-profit Cary Ballet Conservatory at NCMA and me working pro-bono and content I was breaking no rules, I devised a work around. First, I didn’t tell anyone. Second, it was planned for a Sunday and I knew the NCMA Rep at Lazy Daze wouldn’t be there. Third, I deployed Dance Moms on the perimeter and nobody messes with Dance Moms – plus they were also VALS (Voice Activated Light Stands) and held a bunch of “speed lights” triggered from my camera.
There is a 24″ x 36″ framed print of this image on my living room wall. I would be willing to lend it to NCMA for display – Gratis! Seriously!
It’s hard to comprehend this was only four years ago. I was still a “Widower Novitiate”. Work provided balance. This studio session was with a stunning natural beauty and drop dead graceful, elegant dancer. Proof that the Great Spirit was in a really good mood when she was born. To work, to collaborate with such hard working artists was a great gift. I was very, very lucky.
Studio Session at Cary Ballet Conservatory – June 2021
This gallery from 2009 was my first visit and I was overwhelmed. It is color and crowds and noise and crazy food and animals and rides and wonderful.
From 2010 to 2019, I had Press Credentials from the Fair & Cary Citizen! Which included a Parking Pass to the Vendor Lot at Carter Finley Stadium and a Shuttle to the Fair! Plus, before opening day, I would select two images from the previous Fair to enter into the Photography Competition. Winning “Best Fair Scene” in 2016 with a Ribbon and a Check, I think made me an Official “Tar Heel”!
Re-visiting those galleries is a project I hope to finish by the start of this year’s Fair. Meanwhile, here is my skimpy, amateur maiden voyage. Click each for full size
In 1863 Paris, paintings by Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet and Camille Pissarro were rejected by the Paris Salon. Today, I received the same from an online Juried Digital photography competition, sponsored by a local camera club. So in the tradition of the Salon des Refusés, here are my rejects.
Dubious – “This Tap Dance Croc Rock thing doesn’t really work for me!”
Seen – “The guy with the long lens on a tripod – he looks legit.”
1947, T-Bone Walker wrote this lyric. My hearing of it is Eva Cassidy.
Today, this old carcass got out to the Cary Downtown Park to test drive some new gear. A monochrome only sensor (take that Bayer Filter!) and some colored filters traditionally used on B&W film. I was today, a novitiate.
Another gray hair did a presentation at Cary Photographic Artists and I hit that thing like a bass to a lure! Turns out, odd duck that I am, been using Pentax gear forever. So I already had the glass.
Weather turned from ugly to wonderful. So test drive today aka “play” with a monochrome only sensor and colored filters (it’s a physics / visible spectrum / traditional B&W film thing). Saturday, in the park. Click each for full size.
Halfway through a new edit of four (ok, five) photography sessions for an ex co-worker & /friend from my corporate days. Roughly a year before my exit/nearly fired by mainland China Managers, I’d been self teaching photography after a 2007 incident in Paris where a skilled pick pocket “liberated” an already obsolete Sony P&S from my jacket, hung on the back of a bistro chair while I went to the loo. But that’s not what this is about.
May 2009
A trusting co-worker and horse owner bought into my photography enthusiasm! We set up a shoot session at the stable where she boarded her horse. It was my first introduction to:
A. The inexplicable bond between horses & women.
B. Discovering all Stable owners are crazy.
C. I had a LOT to learn about making photographs. A lot!
So with enthusiasm and naivete, we made some photographs. Which I was embarrassed by. So I asked for and got a d0-over. Looking at the photographs I made for her 3, 7 and 11 years later (different horses), I can see the difference made by the experience of a wearing out s bunch of camera bodies and maybe 6oo to 700 K clicks. How to get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice!
Today, finished editing and posting (including a play I mis”played”) all the dress rehearsals of Cary Player production I photographed for Cary Citizen between 2011 and 2016! Online galleries are here, just click on the name: Cary Players Galleries.
And 2016 was, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!
Dress Rehearsal – Cary Arts Center – 28 November 2016
Somewhere around 2014, after downsizing to a Townhouse on the far east edge of Wake County, I attempted to put down roots in the local community – aka teaching photography classes for Town of Clayton Parks & Rec. Center. Got along well with the young lady in charge of programs. Which failed spectacularly when she was promoted and replaced with – I am not making this up – two men. But that’s not what this is about.
I’d discovered YN-560 III speed lights – fully manual, with built in radio receivers for wireless remote control – for $58 each from B&H in NYC! Robust and throw away cheap compared to OEM speed lights by a factor of 8 or 9! Killer good for head shots and a whole bunch of other stuff
So teaching a lighting class at the Clayton Community Center one evening, a newly purchased YN-560 III suffered an infantile failure in the hands of a student. I assured her, it was something that happens with electronics and next day, logged on to order a replacement. And the $58 price was now $85! Confused, I asked the Google to explain and the answer was a new Tariff.
Which explains why I decided yesterday to buy, probably my last camera, from B&H in NYC, ahead of the 25% Tariffs announced, today on goods from Japan. Yeah, another $550 for I have no idea what would’ve been a deal breaker.
Tonight, 3 July 2025, is Don Giaovanni on WCPE. Long ago, after teaching a Photography Class at Page Walker Arts & History Center, I listened to Thursday Night Opera on my drive home. Usually, understand not a word.
Soprano Lora Fabio – Page Walker Arts & History Center, 24 November 2013
Yet, it was a comfort. A connection to humanity. Across generations and centuries. And once, at a Winter Concert at Page Walker, ostensibly making photographs for Cary Citizen, after I thought I had the story, put down my camera and – I didn’t know a human voice could do that. Later, unable to speak – she understood. I was jelly. “Song To The Moon” from Rusalka by Dvorak – oh my.
Heard my upstairs neighbor empathically say, through blessedly open screens to fresh air after a rain cooled off the unrelenting heat of the week! She is rightfully resentful of Rabbits munching her plantings. They are gastronomically cheeky, as a lady a few apartments down, feeds them.
And having been self embarrassed at previously missing a photo opportunity by having to dive into my camera bag to find a lens, mount it and check the battery and memory card, I’ve left a ready camera near my door. Disclaimer: I tossed a piece of celery leaf from my dinner outside. It was left, ignored – I was had! And the missing piece of ear -not easy being a Rabbit! Still, we both agree on Billy Holiday.
Primarily, I believe, due to cultural family inertia, I was sent to 1st Grade at a Catholic Elementary School. At that age, you believe the grown-ups, especially in 1956. Eventually I got my Catholic religious ticket punched with 1st Communion, complete with a blue suit and a big family party that funded a new bicycle! And later, Confirmation, where you’re supposed to be old enough to choose – as if I had a choice.
In about a month, I’ll be 75. And I vividly remember being hauled from the asphalt playground to meet Sister Mary Edward of the Order of The Sacred Heart. Drug dealers wish their bull dogs looked that mean. I was accused of being a “bully”, having been seen swinging back at a real bully and defending myself, like my TV Cowboy Heroes. So 2nd Grade me was made to hold out my hands, palm up while Sister Mary Edward beat them with a varnished yardstick. It was real wrong and while I didn’t have the courage to declare my spiritual free agency until late in High School, I knew. I’ve been to churches of three different faiths this year for Choral Concerts. They were wonderful.
Fifteen minutes before my turned off, 225 F oven, renders portions of slow cooker pork stew (seasoned neck bones, homemade stock and all the vegetables that needed using) to go on brown rice & millet in homemade veg stock, I’ve some time to write.
Best I can remember, I cycled through 13 or 14 DSLR’s between 2007 and now. There are, 500 or 600 K clicks later, a lot of stories. But today, duh, I realized all my work had to do with intimacy. With us humans. Even my OBX photographs are about, being alone, with clarity.
This is from one of my last portrait sessions. A young woman I’d known as a young Dancer. And I got to visit with her and her Mom and give them the prints they ordered. It answered the question of why, I made photographs.
This from 2012. Some images stay in memory. We visited and talked story. Child was a gift, unaccepted. For a moment, I was photographer and parent. Grown, she met her promise.
Late today, in dangerous heat, I watched a U-Haul Truck unload into an empty apartment in my building. While I was tending the Clam Sauce for my Linguini. In comfortable air conditioning. A vivid reminder of life changes.
Stopped working in the Fall of 2022. And now, luxurious with time, seeing it again. School holidays were Golden Time for me. I could move a ton of lighting gear into studio for a week and schedule dancer sessions. The Artist & Dad genes in me kicked in. I was, chest beating proud of them all. Her folks know!
Studio Session, Cary Ballet Conservatory – 27 Dec 2019
Summer Solstice starts this Friday evening. Here in North Carolina, it’s been been July muggy heat, early. Saw my first Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on my Viburnum. Missed making it’s photograph mostly due to my inactivity (aka lazy old guy photographer).
Redeemed my professional embarrassment with a Bee. And today, a young Cottontail who took leisure ‘neath the shade of my Apt. Complex Landscaper Protected aforesaid Viburnum. Doves, Towhees, Chipping Sparrows – way more entertaining than any streaming service or social media app.
This is not AI or Photoshop. Made this image of Yates Mill Pond in Nov. of 2024. It’s simply the Mill, reflected in the pond, from an observation deck opposite.
When I was making this photograph, test driving some new to me gear and working on finding my balance as a newly relocated widower, I fell into conversation with a young man sitting on a bench there. He was a young man. Younger than my sons. And regardless of my “I’m just an old guy photographer schtick”, it didn’t take long to realize he was trying to find solace from family conflict, driven by their inability to comprehend his experience of war.
So, my Dad gene kicked in and I listened. Which is, as I explained to my very young neighbor today, just the same as the woman at BJ’s Warehouse who checked me out today and lost her husband one month ago – after taking care of him with Parkinson’s and working full time. And we talked about losing a spouse. But mostly, I listened. It was, for both of us, hard reflection. And solace.
Sometimes, especially for old photographers, sleep is elusive. This, from almost exactly six years ago, was a child seeking refuge from Stage Fright. And the image has stayed in memory. I know exactly how she feels.
Cary Ballet Conservatory “Aspiring Dancers” 18 May 2019
Late in 2018, I decided to let go of film & medium format cameras. New digital versions were astronomically expensive and the film versions were costly, in money and time.
This photograph is from a last portrait session with a Pentax 645N Film Camera and Kodak Ektar film. Had the film processed and scanned the negatives myself. The process after that is just the same as a Digital Negative.
But that’s not what this is about. It’s about Art and Artists. Which explains the rolls of Ektar film in my frig., that fit my 1914 Kodak Autographic Junior & 1925 Kodak Brownie Model F.
Old guy, responsible me, has been mulling selling my post widower, post house sale purchased, 645 Digital Gear. Nah. The Muse Provides. I got plans.
Portrait Session at Cary Ballet Conservatory – May 2018
By now, I though I’d be further along, organizing and curating a dozen years of work at Cary Ballet Conservatory. The delay is mostly due to the luxury of quiet time and vivid memory. And reflection. An example is this photograph.
Eight years earlier, her Mom hired me to make photographs of her First Communion at the Church Altar. A new and agreeable Monsignor literally gave his blessing to me working during the Mass.
Cary Ballet Company: Space & Tech Rehearsal, 13 March 2019 – Cary Arts Center
One year later, nearly to the day after I made this photograph, there was another Space & Tech Rehearsal for the 2020 production – just days before COVID cancelled pretty much everything. And that Fall, I became a widower.
Things sort of got back to normal by late 2022 – but my “creative spirit” tank was on fumes and I retired.
Now my goal is to share what I learned about Craft and Art. Working on that!
Today, FedEx delivered a lens that I’ve spent six months searching for. Bought my first copy around 2010, just as it was discontinued by the mfr. Paid $1,400 then, a sum of intense discussion between my newly corporate laid off self and my late wife. But embarking on my encore career, I’d promised myself I’d never miss another photograph of an actor because I lacked the right gear. That it was a youth theater performance, was to me, irrelevant.
Sold it after she died, with a bunch of other gear, no longer used or needed by a retired photographer.
Cary Ballet Company, March 2019
And then recently, volunteered to photograph, pro bono, some Elementary School events. Which caused me to look for a replacement that was, like a Hens’s Tooth, not to be found. So, bought some almost wannabe lenses that just didn’t resonate. And will be sold soon. Here’s the bittersweet part.
Covid changed everything. And caused an exciting, beautiful young dancer to return to Latin America. And unable to cope with his illness and crushed dreams, ended his life.
Made this photograph nearly 15 years ago, on a weekend. Hiding out from some of my late wife’s about to visit relatives.
North of Hatteras, found an off season, duck hunters motel in Manteo. Cheap. And like the song “Sheets so thin, I could see myself grin”. The National Seashore is open 24×7. 0430, fuel up with guys filling boats with ice and gas.
Later, got a pre-dawn, cursory glance from an ATV riding Park Ranger, patrolling the beach. My tripod explained my presence.
So I was left in peace. It is, in a way, a prayer.
And my plan is, in about 10 years or so, or whenever one of my vital parts hits its expiration date, my ashes will be scattered, about three miles east. In compliance with North Carolina State Law.
Which allows that maybe, 100 years from now, I could be a speck of a kids sand castle on Nag’s Head. And so it goes
This afternoon, nearly demanded an outdoor excursion, especially ahead of two days of forecast rain.
I visited what I consider a cathedral, the Wildflower Garden at Hemlock Bluffs Nature Reserve. A 19 year old lens and a beater camera body with 146K clicks on it. Old and worn, like me. Click an image for full size
Listening to the 1958 recording by Tony Bennett, sometimes, inhibits sleep. Maybe because of the Cole Porter lyric.
Or maybe, because of some photographs I made at Camp Lejeune. The day of a year long deployment to a far away land, of danger, long ago.
And I told a very young friend about it today. And I showed her these.
“Every time we say goodbye, I die a little”
“Every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little”
“Why the Gods above me, who must be in the know Think so little of me, they allow you to go”
“When you’re near, there’s such an air of spring about it I can hear a lark somewhere begin to sing about it There’s no love song finer But how strange the change from major to minor Every time we say goodbye”
Worn out after food shopping, exercise and vacuuming, I parked my tired old body next to an open screen on a gorgeous day, after the landscape crew mowers & blowers were done, savoring Bourbon & Beer, while dinner warms.
And watched this Senior Citizen Rabbit cruise by and chow down on low hanging Holly Leaves in front of my apartment. And thought about how many times I read “Runaway Bunny”, long ago.
Made this photograph, 3 July 2011 – a Sunday. At the newly renovated and yet unopened, Cary Arts Center. There was a”Wet Paint” sign on the theater stage and I’m not sure if they had a CO (Certificate of Occupancy ) yet.
Didn’t know yet but I would spend a lot time there, working, until the Fall of 2022.
I do know that the adult male in the upper left, had just arrived from Belgium, with the rest of the Brussels Chamber Orchestra. The three young violinists were members of the Triangle Youth Symphony.
I don’t understand how anyone can read music and play it. Some sort of mysterious alchemy. Art, I finally realized, is my spirituality. It sustains me.
True story. Made this photograph in the “Annex” of the since sold & relocated Cary Ballet Conservatory. A Mom from the 3D Project Jazz Company left me a voice mail message (remember voice mail). Which I listened to on my laptop speakers in a Paris Apartment. Replied, we were flying home next day and yes, I could do a Sunday promo shoot.
No time to plan or rent gear.
Did have a 5 by 9 ft piece of black velour from Joann Fabrics. My late wife had sewn in rod pockets for hanging as a background. They’re laying on it.
Had one light up on a boom but was standing on a shaky piece of the lobby furniture while the Instructor, a big man named Yaqshaan Medan, was holding my belt & waist band, while I reached out over the very young dancers, with back button focus. And it worked!
Which explains why I entered it, this week, into a Digital Only Open Juried Photograph Completion.
That’s a lie – the real reason is, I have to remember to breathe when I look at it.
I no longer live behind a golf course, my tripod on the empty expanse in the midnight, sky above the tree line. This week, a Lunar Eclipse will happen again. I’m pretty sure, it will look like this. Eugene Cernan, the last Man On The Moon, left his daughters initials, “TDC”, on it. Still there.
Diwali, also called Deepavali or Deepawali, is the Hindu festival of lights. It symbolizes the spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. Photographed for Cary Citizen, 22 October 2011.
I’m gathering speed on the array of photo editing & writing projects in plan! Today was editing and posting another Koka Booth Amphitheater event I photographed for Cary Citizen, in 2011. It was my sophomore year covering Town of Cary public events, which explains a lot more “keepers” than my freshman 2010 attempt. I was learning.
Eid al-Fitr is a holiday celebrated within Islam. Eid al-Fitr is the end of the month long, dawn to sunset fasting of Ramadan. It follows a Lunar calendar, so this year, 2025, it falls on 30 or 31 March, depending on location. Fourteen years ago, it fell on Aug. 30/31. The Town of Cary Festival was held on 8 Oct. 2011
Written about this before. The idea keeps revisiting me. It’s been 13 years since I made this photograph but I know the date and venue, like it was a tattoo. This young dancer, in full stage makeup and street clothes was, to my astonishment, my very first experience with a “Muse”. Trust me on this, Muses are very, very real. She and this appearance, changed my work and understanding of light for the next decade. And she appeared, in another form, 10 years later. And is currently helping with the nascent outline of a book (s).
As an “Old Guy” on the backend of my life on this planet, it is wonderful to be free to read and think (and cook) sans the pressure of all the stuff that younger folks are pressured by. No Mo Fomo ;-).
The post brought this book, and two others today, that will take days to digest.
I promise you, the prints are so good, you’ll look at your latest fancy, feature packed $$$$$martphone and wonder why.
His story is compelling and very human. As an artist, his discovery of theater lighting, his understanding of the mask we all wear – we are soulmates across generations. Art matters.
The Musée d’Orsay is a very favorite place – so much so, my late sweetheart tolerated me spending three consecutive days, exploring.
This 1/16th scale casting, ordered by the Sculptor Auguste Bartholdi in 1899 stunned me. It predates the inscribed poem by Emma Lazarus at the base of the full size version in New York Harbor.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris – 22 Sept 2016
Driving on errands today, I listened to Willie Nelson sing “Living in the Promiseland“. It reminded me of the poem by Ms Lazarus.
Paris is hard to explain. Atop Tour Montparnasse is, I think, a good place to begin. And the Châtelet Metro station, with “Prelude To Paris ” playing. These from 2016 & 2017. Late September is wonderful.
Click images for full size
Tour Eiffel from Tour MontparnasseTour Eiffel from Tour MontparnasseTour Eiffel from Tour MontparnasseTour Eiffel from Tour MontparnasseGare MontparnasseLouvre & Eglise Saint-SulpiceA Quarter Mile of LouvreBasilique du Sacré-Cœur de MontmartreSaint-Louis-des-Invalides CathedralNotre Dame Before The Fire
A few hours of afternoon Sun & 60’s was an irresistible lure to get outside in cold, gray, gloomy February. The Gardens at Page Walker Arts & History Center, in my home town of Cary, North Carolina were a very convenient venue for the students in the Photography Classes I taught there.
Today, they were a tonic for my Winter ennui. Click image for full size.
I’d forgotten that the 2010 EID Festival at Koka Booth Amphitheater was my first attempt at making photographs of an event for Cary Citizen . Eid al-Fitr is a holiday celebrated within Islam. Eid al-Fitr is the end of the month long, dawn to sunset fasting of Ramadan. It follows a Lunar calendar, so this year, 2025, it falls on 30 or 31 March, depending on location. Fifteen years ago, it fell on Sept. 9/10. The Town of Cary Festival was held on 9 Oct., so pretty close.
I had zero knowledge or understanding of Eid. Like nearly every community event I photographed, the children made sense of it for me. Gallery here.
Yesterday afternoon at the North Carolina Museum of Art got my creative wheels in gear. Working in theater was always magical to me. Especially with no audience to disturb and freedom to move around. I never found it work.
Cary Ballet Conservatory Rehearsal for “Cinderella” 11 June 2014
I was on the edge of digital camera technology, in December of 2010. 14+ years later, this is still in my heart. Time since, allowed me to learn how to take an image to what I saw. And it’s good to have training as a painter. Caravaggio and Edward Hopper would understand. 20″x 16″ Print on order.
Cary Ballet Company Dress Rehearsal “A Gift For The Little Match Girl” 17 Dec. 2010, Jones Auditorium at Meredith College – Raleigh, North Carolina
Post retirement (old guy) reflection on my work as a photographer, created an itch I’ve been scratching, to curate and show the result of a dozen years. Still early on and skimpy. May take a year or so: http://www.brookemeyer.com
Photographer & Clients at “Picture Days” 2016
Bravo Academy of Dance – Chapel Hill, North Carolina
A new copy of a book published in 2011, shipped from a Berkeley, California book store on Monday, arrived in North Carolina very early Wed. morning! Yes, it’s a present from me, to me.
An ad page from the April 1920 “The Ladies Home Journal”, 10.5 x 16 inches. Arrived today. My display is complete!
Not my photograph, the eBay reseller’s image. I can’t improve on this.
And yes, I’m going to make some photographs with the one I have. It may be awhile though – an upcoming 3rd Grade Christmas Choir Concert has priority. I’ll shoot that with some 100 year newer glass & digital camera. Stage lighting!
This Portrait, aka Close Up Attachment, fits my 1925 era No.2 Kodak Brownie Model F. Instead of a fixed focus distance of 8 ft. and beyond, it allows photographs at a distance of about a meter. Which suits a head and shoulders portrait.
Found it, the only one I could find, on eBay, in a vintage camera shop in the Netherlands. USPS, in cooperation with NL Post, delivered today. Original printed instructions, from 100 + years ago were in the tiny box. In French. No problem!
The luxury of age is time, without demands. Today, while still surfacing from a nasty head cold and long before my slow cooker of really good collards are ready, I played a DVD of the Cary Ballet Conservatory Recital of June 2016, “Anastasia”.
I have it because I made a courtesy head shot of the Videographer, Jeff Philips at InFocusStudios. Watching it today, reminded me of just how lucky I was to find the right place for me, as a photographer. And it dusted off my memory, remembering their stories and families. I was extraordinarily lucky.
These two will renew your faith in humanity. And danced, wonderfully!
Found on eBay in Vancouver, WA. and delivered today (seller’s photo) Purchased for parts. Had one in better condition but someone (for good reason) had swapped out the Autographic Back. Ironically, this one had it’s original back swapped for an Autographic Back. I’ve restored balance to the Cosmos!
Kodak made these from 1914 to 1924, producing about 800 thousand. This Model, with the f7.7 Anastigmat lens, was $15 (about $478 today). The good part is, 120 film is still readily available. And explains my 4 rolls of Ektar 100 in the fridge. Yep, very fine grain color film in a camera designed for orthochromatic Black & White. It could work!
An original manual, dated June 1917, confirmed the number of the optional Portrait Attachment (3), essentially a diopter lens. Add to the camera’s lens and minimum focus distance is reduced from 8 ft. to 3 1/2 ft. with the 110mm lens. So, a head and shoulders portrait, like a head shot. Found one on eBay today, in the original metal case with instructions. Bought it. In today’s dollars, I paid the same as the 1917 price of fifty cents.
Stay tuned for the test shoot results before year end!
Today, the Post Office delivered this eBay purchased, hard cover, Library Version, Twentieth Edition. Published in 1935. Tres moderne!
The Dewey Decimal (pre ISBN number) “770” was still on the spine, from the East Craftsbury, Vermont “John Woodruff Simpson” Memorial Library.
The book’s content, excepting the Kodak product pitches, isn’t very far from what I taught in my Basic Photography and Lighting Courses for the Towns of Cary & Clayton Parks & Rec..
2024 “Smartphone” users could learn from it! And “Make Good Pictures” 😉
Today, the Post Office delivered this eBay purchased, soft cover version. It is, undated. Driven by curiosity and enabled by the freedom of time, found it’s a 1912 first edition! Shown above in a 1913 Kodak Advertisement contract directive, found at Eastman.org.
Which partially explains the Kodak No.1 Portrait Attachment for my Brownie No. 2 Model F that I found and bought on eBay today from a shop in the Netherlands. Been searching for weeks!
I’m guessing it’ll arrive about the same time as the new Melody Gardot CD that I pre-ordered. Good timing on my part! Before new tariffs on European goods 🙂
Visited the Pond Loop Trail today at Yates Mill. Fall is late -Monarch Butterfly on my Viburnum yesterday, no frost yet and none forecast in the next ten days.
My Plant ID is strictly amateur. Click images for full size.
Cary Ballet Conservatory “Prix Challenge” – 6 Aug 2022
FedEx is tomorrow, delivering four 20×16 Prints on my favored Fuji Deep Matte Paper. On 3/4″ mounts, ready for the float frames I ordered. This is one that I hope I got right.
Last week, I renewed my North Carolina Museum of Art Membership. Today, I visited. And walked around the West Building where I’ve photographed both personal portraits and a few boutique commercial sessions.
Hadn’t been in years. And discovered someone had relocated a rose blossom from the adjacent garden to this decorative, black concrete wall. Apropos.
3D Jazz Project Promo Session – Feb. 2019 – Cary Ballet Conservatory
Long, long ago, I was the resident Field Tech at NASA’s Glenn Research Center (nee Lewis Research Center) for the long gone, Digital Equipment Corporation.
Pretty sure the Scientists & Engineers & Techs I worked with, would approve.
The background image is NASA’s. The foreground is mine.
The reality of my age and lack of conditioning urged me to go walking a mile or so every other day, for awhile in my new hood, before I go back to the pool. Shared the road with this bunch today.
Okay, a Nature Preserve. Where I went 16 years ago to practice and learn how to make photographs with the gear I had. Same as I did today with some new to me gear.
And try out ideas that I had no idea of the result. Knowing that a Digital Negative was just the beginning. Plus a good sweaty workout on about a mile of forest trail, humping 25 lbs of gear. A very good day.
Had some new to me gear to get used to. On a gorgeous Fall preview day at a favorite place, Bond Park in Cary. There were Moms & Dads & Kids with Ice Cream. And Sunfish Sailing Lessons. And Mallard Ducks.
The lens I wanted to use, DHL is inexplicably holding nearby after arriving from Nagoya, Japan last Friday, until next Tuesday. So I used the lens I got for portraits. Made with a Pentax 645Z & FA 645 150MM f2.8
Last time I attended was 2018, event coverage for “Cary Citizen”. Today, in gorgeous Fall preview weather, I found some old friends. And some old friends found me. Vitamins for the heart.
Selling & moving forces a lot of decisions. My mental task list for the next week is full. Meanwhile, nutrition and sleep are still required. So are the tasks necessary to complete the transaction. An upside of my age is understanding the necessity of balance.
If you landed here, surfing for any of my “Brooke Meyer” URLs, it’s not a mistake. Sunset my 14 year old event site today. It was time. The “About” page explains.
I can find any photograph that was published there, if you can tell me something about it.
It was an excuse to get outdoors on a sunny, early spring day. Like today!
A car show. I think it was Don Bulluck Chevy in Rocky Mount. And I remember making this photograph. Had taught myself to be semi-competent with Manual Exposure! Probably, 2010.
And I remember this was in a Chevy Nova II. So ridiculously overpowered. The craft and care it took to build was clear for all to see.
With some hours before the irresistible hoopla of the Super Bowl and desirous of no more examples of inhumanity in the global news, I surfed over to a camera forum dedicated to the brand I used in all my work.
A poster asked for help with the abysmal results he got from a newly purchased, expensive camera featuring the latest auto focus automation – in this case for birds (it’s always birds). It hit a nerve about a relatively recent eBay sale and the fallacious belief that automation will trump understanding and skill.
I made this 13 years ago, with #3 of 12 DSLRs I’ve used since. Hardly current technology.
The technique is straightforward. Reassign Focus from the Shutter button to a button on the back of the camera aka “Back Button Focus” – it’s free! Yes, it does require (horrors) reading a page of the manual. Or watch a You Tube video.
Set the focus function to “Continuous” (mfrs call it different names but it’s still a Rose). Leave it with a single center point . Then point at what you want in focus while holding the rear button with your thumb and track it. Mash the shutter button when you see what you want. Disclaimer: 60 to 80 K of Dancer images per year may result in a callous on your thumb.
Static subject, on a tripod? Just release the back button. Or change the focus mode to “Single”.
Back to eBay. I honestly listed a “Bargain” condition camera body with the real shutter count, some 6OK shy of the mfr. rating. A guy bought it and two hours after he picked it up, e-mailed me it was no good, couldn’t focus on birds in flight. I had set it to mfr defaults. But I’m pretty sure he didn’t read any of the manual.
I immediately refunded his purchase, realizing any explanation was pointless. He did return it. Kept it and another copy, as my retirement gear. Haven’t experienced any issues.
As for the birds, this from camera either #6 or #7 (always kept two of the same model), in 2014
Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina – 16 July 2014
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