Warm Water II

Warm Water

Holidays are a good time to escape freezing San Francisco. Here's someplace a little bit warmer that we like to frequent...

Enjoy,

m + j

Hawai'i Ne

Encore?

More from Nick's portfolio. . .

Enjoy.

m + j

Finale

Alright. Last one. For real. Just had to keep going... maybe it's coping? Who the hell knows.

Below is an email from Nick. It's from when Jasmine and I had first moved up to San Francisco... We were super scared, and had no idea what to expect. We were starting to get a few jobs, but life was still pretty depressing overall (as it can be with no $$). Nick always helped keep us on our feet, and we'd often time look forward to his emails and phone calls to cheer us up. Most of them would be too personal for this venue, but this one isn't too bad, and sorta sums up how Nick saw things later on in his life. It's classic Dekker humor, with a hard hitting ending. Needless to say, it was even a tear jerker back then. Now it's just too much.

Enjoy.


"HEY PICKLEBOY!! what's this i hear you are talking the talk about my bro "Boss Hog"
we don't do that kind of shi_ here in the hood. SO WELCOME TO MY WORLD BIG BOY
"CANDY MAN" "forever young" we will always be!
I will get back with you
Hugs to your woman, don't let her come on down to the hood, I own this place, forever!!

I look at this photo, and i just want to walk right up there and jump on in, and stay there forever, I am lonesome for a time in my life
that i was on top of the world, and didn't even know it. Just walk on down that street in the background and fade away into my memories.

be cool up there in the North, and remember to be patient, it takes time to build an empire.
Love
N."

Correction

Nick was 64, not 62. Could never remember if he was a year younger or older than my mother...

More on Dekker

Forgot to mention a couple things in the last post. Firstly, the portrait of Nick below was taken by Chris Orwig. Definitely the best portrait of him from his last few years. Shot on a 4x5 w/ Type 55 Polaroid. Sick. Secondly, Nick was also responsible for Jasmine and I hitting it off, and our subsequent romance. Without him there'd be no us. There. That's it. No more... sorta.

Here are a couple of pictures we took the afternoon of Nick's death (iPhone fotos for now, real fotos to come). Nick was always into the "God Rays." We would always bask in the glory of a good ray of light, and would get extra excited when Mother Nature would strut her stuff on film. As we were taking these shots, and before we'd learned of Nick's passing, I was thinking about Dekker, and how much he'd dig the rays of light. Totally his scene. Little did we know that it was him in those rays, shining down through tree limbs... They didn't call him the Son of Mother Nature for nothing.

We love you, Nick! We'll miss you forever, and with every snap of our shutter you'll be with us.

We'll Miss You, Nick Dekker

Today arrived sooner than anyone imagined. Just got the terrible news that our great friend, mentor, and inspiration, Nicholas Dekker, passed away yesterday. Suffice to say, for those that know him, that Nick went way before his time. At 62, anyone would probably agree.

Nick was more than just a teacher to Jasmine and I. Quite more. And sure, he taught us-- a lot. But it was his friendship that we treasured the most. We both had him for introductory undergraduate classes at Brooks Institute (more than just 1), Jasmine was his Teacher's Assistant for an eon, and he taught me his beloved, and extraordinary, alternative printing process, Platinum Printing. But it didn't stop there. Jasmine would cook for him on a weekly (and sometimes daily) occurance, packing in extra love to the food that I would deliver before our sessions together. We passed long hours in his office amongst the enlargers, passing time in between exposing plates or while waiting for our prints to wash, laughing hard, and learning "everything [we] know, but not everything I know." Nick would often join us for dinner, and was there with the rest of the family the night that Jasmine graduated from school. We would stay at his house on visits back to Santa Barbara. We would talk on the phone often. We will miss you, Nick.

Career Education Corporation, the company that purchased Brooks Institute awhile back and has systematically changed the way in which the school is run, fired Nick Dekker last year from the school he helped grow for over 30 years. The reason why Nick was fired? Because he was seen as a cost due to his medical bills. So the school fired him, and then hired him back on to teach 1 class a session. 30 years of your life and love given to a school, only for a corporation to come in and kick you out. Hardly the thanks that "Ol Saint Nick" deserved.

Needless to say we're both taken back, and slightly angered by all of this. It's never easy to lose a close friend. It's even harder to think about the end of his life, where he was tossed to the curb like an old car. If Nick taught us anything, it was to love all things old and new, and see the beauty in these things through our lenses-- especially old cars.

Goodbye, Facebook.

Not long ago we both cancelled our Facebook accounts. Let's face it, Facebook is worse than cable. We don't have time for that, either.

Walls are better.

Holy Freezing.

Mark Twain once said "the coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco." Well, apparently he wasn't around last night, when the temperatures dipped down into the 30's here in the city. Not bad for December, eh Mark?

It's been cold here. Really effing cold. And call it what you want. A mini El Niño. A big North Pac front. A San Franciscan summer-- It's hard to escape, and it's hard to set foot outside.

All this isn't so bad when it's time to retouch a ton of work, tho. Lots of hot coffee. Lots of hot tea. Jazz music. And some polaroids-- taken from the safe, warm confines of a vehicle, of course.

Enjoy... and stay warm.

More iPhone Abuse

Some recent shots from the new polaroid.