Stop. Before you continue reading, please read the photograph above.

Thank you.

It punched me in the gut the first time I read it. 

I sat staring at it for a long time - and then re-read it. And re-read it. Lost in the nostalgia of my own vulnerable relationship with my father. Unraveling the layers of good, bad, happy, sad. And everything in between.

Do all sons have the same inner-longing to know how their father feels about them? A deep instinctual need to hear the words from LE PÈRE himself.

That was the beginning of my fascination for, and friendship with, the master storyteller and visionary photographer Duane Michals. His talent for evoking the core of our human experiences through simple, yet profoundly complex photos is extraordinary. 

This series of handwritten notes around the edges of his photos that he produced in the 60's, 70's and 80's, while hanging out with Andy Warhol and photographing the iconic faces of that era are some of my favorites.