Everything has come together beautifully on this trip. Yesterday I went a saw La Maison Europeene De La Photographie Ville D Paris (Museum of European Photography) that was astonishing and mind-boggling. It is one the finest and most beautiful photography museums I have ever seen in the world. The gallery space is laid out over many levels of a beautiful large house with some of the most extraordinary spaces. The black and white images of Xaxier Lambour (celebrity and political portraits) in the basement were some of the best black and white images I have scene printed, shot with a square medium format Hasselblad. The depth and tone where vibrant and rich. Obviously shot on film before the digital era. I have never seen such blacks printed so richly before. These were portraits of men. When I first began printing I was always afraid to take my blacks so deep for fear of them becoming too ruddy. I will have a lot to experiment with when I get home. My images contain softness in many of their tones, but it has become my style and part of my signature of printing. I will bring a new use of light and exposure for my images that will become intensified as I begin to draw deeper into the image. One of the other artists featured in many of the galleries was a photographer from NY who came to Paris and photographed for 7 years named Jane Evelyn Atwood. Each gallery seem to feature a different subject: an intense look into photographing the first man to go public who was dying of AIDS, Prostitution in the Montmartra area, and women in prisons from all over the world. From an inside perspective-seeing people stripped of humanity and dignity, stark, haunting, riveting. The final exhibit on the top floor was about L’ombre de la Guerre (Shadow of War): 70 images collected from all over the world dealing with war. Many of these I have seen in the Pulitzers Prize Photo Collection last year in Montana. So many of these images are disturbing and haunting. I was so moved by all these collections that it impacted me the remainder of the afternoon. I began to go out and photograph people around me in the street hoping some of the greatness I had seen would be inspired and inform my photography. It’s like suddenly you begin to pay attention to things that you may not have noticed before. I moved slowly and often stood in one place to observe study and focus on what was happing around me.

Paris has turned into a good source of inspiration; everyone I have met during this trip has given me new insight into what I do best. I am seeing the importance of my work and reconnected with the power of photography as an art. There is such a vast difference between what we see on a screen and what is printed and displayed. I hope that somehow we will not lose our insight into this perspective. It feels like in the United States, we vary rarely get out and see extraordinary things. We have become a culture that is mostly reliant on our media devises and this unfortunately is the only way we see the world.

Paris is a difficult city to get to know. It seems everywhere you go there is something new and interesting, especially on the side streets that sometimes feel deserted. As I wander, it’s making me feel sad and missing my home. I visited a Museum of eroticism near the Moulin Rouge yesterday up in an area called Montmartre. Spent about 2 hours looking at the many level of erotic artifacts, painting, sketching and photography. One floor was dedicated to prostitution in the area and had amazing photographs from 1920’s through the 1950’s. It touched a nerve with me. My mother’s mother was caught in this sort of world. This was her area and from the stories I have heard from my mother this was the sort of life she lived. I could not look at these images and not see her, the beautiful skin, and extraordinarily light. She was always a woman who lived on the edge of her time, as I am a man who lives on the edge of mine. Though I vaguely remember a kindness as a small child, she eventually shot herself and died from desperation. Being a gay man I have always felt a kinship toward her and have longed to have met and talked she died younger than I am now at the age of 43.

My host Fred had some guests over for dinner this evening. Though they mostly spoke in French I could understand some of what they were saying. One works as a translator and filled me in on what was being said that I did not understand. The other was a photographer who has published several books on his home land of Martinique, a beautiful book on old family photographs. I did drag my portfolio out and gave them a look through it. They were quite astonished by the tactile sensation of looking at images, something that is real that is held in the palm of your hand. I sensed from their expressions there was a mysterious connection to the images. They have suggested several photographic places I must visit while I am here. A great deal of the conversation seems to be about the recession and how hard both sides of the ocean are being hit; even big cities like Paris. There is great fear of it getting worse as they see how devastated we are becoming by it influence. Our government has become too large and is growing beyond becoming sustainable. We are having to cut back on anything of luxury, tighten our belts, and make our lives simpler, more in touch with the sustainable earth. My photographer friend with longing of becoming a farmer or returning to a simpler time. So far I have weathered this storm, but it is a combination of all that I do that keeps me above water. In a sense the slowness of the times have given me the opportunity of this year to explore this Naked Man Project. I know so many people at home who are without jobs and struggling and it feels like it is all about to collapse.

To have my dream of art during such uncertain times is a blessing and a curse. It gives me opportunity to explore, but there seems to be no current market. As I wondered the streets of Montmartre I thought of so many of the artists that have filled these streets the past century and a half, of little means, oppressed from the time, but finding a gathering place with mutual commonality. It was the gathering ground of so many that would become brilliant artists to share their concepts, concerns, and humility in this mountaintop filled with small bars, restaurants, and cafe. That past has long vanished, now it is mostly filled with tourists as the ambience has either died or vanished. And I am left with an empty loneliness as I wonder the throng of passing strangers.

It is a difficult time to be in Paris because so many people are on holiday. I spent the day visiting galleries that were open, but many of them are closed. It is changing my perception of how photographic art is presented and sold. Many of the galleries here only feature the artist who runs the gallery, so it becomes merely a showcase of their work. Then there seems to be galleries that show many artists, but you must really look for what you like. I am also seeing an assortment of presentation styles. I am falling in love with the large prints, with glossy finish, mounted on a stiff board. It certainly makes the artwork pop out on the wall. I can very easily visualize what the pieces would look like in living spaces and what gives them such a classic feel. Some of my own images I can see in this way and others I can’t. It has got me questioning what is the target of my work. Who would want to display it and where? I have worked more from the perception of how to create and not enough toward presentation. My focus has mostly been for the internet, because it has been my only means of displaying work. I am now excited to return home to begin to research these ideas and possibilities. Though I have been focusing on the nude male this year, I see so much of my other images more suited to this sort of presentation. The Rodeo and western pictures would go over very well. Even a lot of my old experimental still life and landscape images seem more intriguing to revisit. I realize now one of the first things I must do is create a web presence for myself once I return. It seems to become the essential calling card to showcase the images. It was my goal early on but somehow I have become sidetracked and with all the work to maintain Red Bubble and The Naked Man Project, much of my time is still set on promotion and not enough on the creation. I must find a balance to find both. I wish I was stable enough at this point to hire an assistant that could focus on the details of putting web things together and I could just focus on images. I now see that I have been dabbling for to long and if I want to make it happen, the rest of the year must be in pursuit of this goal.

I also spent the day as a tourist and taking pictures of the city. It seems everywhere you can point your camera there is great interest, form, color and composition. I am finding that I love to photograph people without their awareness that I am shooting: a handsome waiter, standing on the corner taking a smoke break, boys in the park, sleeping. A beautiful girl in the garden drinking coffee with her mother… The city is filled with such beauty, extraordinary moments. I need to just sit and shoot. There is so much passion here.

It was a day of travel. It seems that travel days somehow seem to engulf the entire day. It began from my hotel in Berlin, walking a block to the subway station at Wittenbergplatz with my suitcase on its rollers, backpack on, and carrying my camera bag. I go one stop on the subway to the Zoologischer Garten station, then come out of the ground onto the street to find the bus X90 going to Telgar Airport. It is a 20-minute wait for the next bus. The ride is very beautiful along the side streets and we are to the Airport very quickly. There are very long lines at the Airport for Paris and though I have used the automated check in and got my boarding pass, I still have to wait for a long time to check my bag. I still have an hour before boarding so I find a coffee shop and begin to write. The time is suddenly gone and I about miss my boarding call. The check trough at the airports is much simpler for screening than in the US and I am quickly boarding the transport to the airplane. It is a very long ride. We board the plane from the ground and I am near the front. The flight from Berlin to Paris is only 1:25 and in the air, I finish my writing for the day. I try to lay back and sleep, but then we begin the decent. The Paris Airport is very large, one of the largest I have ever seen. It seems we land many miles from the airport and it takes a very long time to taxi before deboarding. Again on the ground to another bus transport into the airport. I get to the baggage, it seems there are three flights using the same conveyer, and it is very crowded. Once I have gathered everything I find a quiet place to sit and finish my writing, cleaning through it and correcting because I know it is morning in the US where I will send to have it posted. The airport gives you 15 minutes of free wifi and I need to get it out because it is getting so late. It is now 4 in the afternoon. I work my way though the airport to the transit system, buy my ticket into Paris, 9.20E and head down to the train. It is a very long wait on the train before it leaves, but I must have time to trace the route of my plan and where I need to go. The train is sweltering hot, Pairs is very humid today, and everyone is drenched in beads of sweat. An older woman across from me dabs her brow with a cloth, looking very uncomfortable. The Paris train has a strange hum to it that is both loud and penetrating. The sound creates a nervous energy; almost like a tone one would hear in a sci-fi movie to heighten suspense. The train is filled with people with blank stares in their eyes and will take 30 minutes to get to Gare du Nord, where I must change to the number 5. The train begins to fill more with each stop. There are so many people with luggage that take up the seating. I move all my luggage to the upper racks to offer an elderly woman a seat, she is grateful and thanks me in French, I tell her she is welcome, the French now rolling naturally from my lips. Gard the Nord is a huge and complex train station and it takes me about 20 minutes to cross through the maze of tunnels, up and down, many stairs to reach the number 5 platform. There are many people with suitcases, with far more than what I carry working to different trains. Once on the 5 and now have to go seven stops to get off at the Bastille station. The heat is overwhelming at times, but occasionally you will get a very cold blast from the open windows on the platform side of the train. Luckily, I have hit a time of the day when it is not too busy, because I have seen the train so full that you are all on top of each other. The French have little regard for personal space like we do in the US. At Bastille I work my way though another maze of those tunnels and come up on the waterfront from where the next train departs. This station is built right over the river. It is cooler here and I find relief. I must now ride the number 1 to the very last stop at the Château de Vincennes. It was the original home of the Royal family and where the city of Paris began. I am staying with a writer who has offered me hospitality for several days and it takes me just a few moments to get to his door. It is a beautiful place, exactly what I expect from Paris, old with lots of charm, at least here I can hear the birds sing outside the window. It is now 18:00 and I try to unwind.

My host is amazing, and offers such gracious hospitality. He fixes dinner and we have many drinks, listening to both English and French singers. Some of the old classics from the seventies and eighties and modern French stuff. He has an affinity for beautiful voices and songs of sadness with lots of sentiment. I begin to look at some of those songs of Dionne Warwick form a different perspective now. My host’s English is good, but he still has trouble understanding as we blend my French with his English, the world of this apartment grows with enchantment as the window billows an old lace curtain at the window. It becomes an extraordinary evening filled with beauty and wonder, food, drink, drink, extraordinary music, looking at photo books, the merging of my cowboy western world with the city of Paris, as we come to an understanding of each other lives. This is the connection I have longed for and I am very thankful.

The best evening in Berlin yet. I was able to go meet Franz Werner and Dragan Simicevic. We met at a café where Dragan currently has a show. He is an artist I have been following for quite some time. Though he is gay he does not shoot gay. His images and models are filled with a deep mystery and his images draw the viewer deeper into the subject. He has a very strong connection to the models and the images are captivating. On so many levels, our process and approach are very similar in the way viewers are pulled into each of our works. I see so much of myself in his work and he is one of the reasons I wanted to come to Berlin. We sat on the street from 7:00 until the evening turned to blackness. Franz on the other hand, though he is not an artist, is a strong supporter of gay artists and was at one time active in showcasing gay art. He seems to be well connected to the Berlin artist scene, knows all the galleries, and has put together many, many shows and knows most of the artists similar to my style throughout the world. From conversations I have had with him, his vision is clear and precise. He is also one of the reasons I came to Berlin. Dragan’s friend, Stephan, also joined us.

We all instantly bonded and it was such an honor to spend a remarkable evening in the presence of amazing talent, and to know that I have joined the ranks of such extraordinary artists of my time. There was warmth, depth of passion, and inspiration flowing amongst my friends and we talked about our processes, approaches, and difficulties we overcome to create. The passions of our hearts flooded the street at a table on the sidewalk as be drank coffee, beer, and coca cola and ate chocolate. This was suddenly a space filled with a magic glow as our worlds untied. I am sorry now that I did not plan more time here in Berlin and that I must head back to Paris the next morning. I would so love to have spent the weekend and watched Dragan work on a shoot he had scheduled this weekend. But not knowing ahead of time, it was difficult to plan.

I learned from this process and now see a host of possibilities of where it will take me. I suddenly crossed the line for a shy humbly cowboy from Montana to a man who is larger then he ever imagined possible. I have found my home and somehow all else no longer matters. I have breached the isolation and of my mountain studio and have stepped into a world of acceptance and wonder. Tonight feels like it has become one of the most important nights of my life. It is a passing into a new realm of possibly. I now see what I do is far larger than I as a person will ever become. I now know for certain that this is my time and it is time to for me to cease and own what I have become and what I create. I now take home some new visions and approaches to what my work will become. I am no longer afraid as I see the laughter and smile and warmth of my friends on this remarkable summer night here in Berlin. I managed the bus ride back to my hotel, though it felt like I was floating across this dark city that so intimidated me in the beginning. I now see that my life has to change, and I know the work and steps I need to take to get where I want to go, for the most part I am already there. But it is now time to grow without losing sight of the core of what initiates the impulse. Dragan lives the life of his imagery and become the art. I become the art, but do not live the life. I am confused and trapped by a world that surrounds me, and that confinement becomes overbearing and constrictive. I began this project by asking, “Was an artist born or created?” I believe now that to become an artist is a destiny. We are born with an inherent need to create, but it is what we do with and how we cultivate it that becomes important. To be an artist and not to just say I want to be an artist. It is felt and experienced. It becomes the culmination of being willing to step outside, beyond yourself, to follow a passion, and to believe in what you do and not be influenced or swayed away from the sight or vision. We live in a world of distraction. The Internet, family, relationships, needing to make a living… All of this eats away at various elements of our ability or desire to create. The more we become secure with the conception of what it is we perceive we want to become the easier it is to safe guard and protect it. I am at a tipping point now and I can feel the balance of that weight beginning to shift. The once sacred now feels ordinary as I pass into a different realm of possibility, without in trepidation, intimidation or fear. Many years ago, with my father, we climbed to the top of the highest peak in our small world of Mineral County. Together we sat and looked as far as the eye could see. That day I saw the mountains kiss the sky and I saw a passion in my father that I had never recognized before. This was his universe, what he understood. Today I am able to step beyond the boundaries, beyond a world that is only limited by the distance I can see. It now lives in my heart. Tears fill my eyes as I am on crowded airplane midair between Berlin and Paris because I am so over come by my emotions. I try to discreetly wipe away the tears. It does not hide my feelings and I realize I am still ruled by the home from which I felt as a boy. Here, I am a cowboy, amongst a world of strangers, behaving contrary to what my mythic form would suggest. Cowboys are stoic and strong, I realize the walls have fallen and I am lucky to have been given this gift.