Sakura Park, yes but not sure if I'm in Paris or Harlem. General Butterfield stands mute here in bronze, and the Emperor of Japan dedicated the cherry trees. See the lamp post again in a different mood, the cover I did for a same-named compelling poetry book mirrors this invisible niche in NYC:

This could be a family portrait, or my personal photographer-at-work cliche portrait, or yet just another inane shiny hubcap image. Said wheel belongs to the 1940's, spiffy, volunteer fire department's working parade truck. Fire station open house day.

Liliana, with her calico lab apron on, testing my brainpower enhancement device. We do goof around.

Douglas Hopkins cover photograph, American Photographer. My Black Period, a Wedding Noire.

The Bunny Master, Liliana.

Serene Elegance by Douglas Hopkins, photographer. Polaroid 35mm film. In memory of Fran Fore, cherished studio styling partner of many years. My framing and timing of her dress, dove, and location.

Oksana in my suburban Moscow hotel room, trying to locate my luggage. We had just met the day before; I wasn't thinking about luggage. My condition could fairly be called "blown away". Today is International Women's Day, a big holiday on Russia, when the usually dominant men have to run around at female bidding. What man wouldn't? Going on ten years later and I'm still blown away, happy to say.

My wife, the ex-Young Pioneer. How did the Cold War happen? On roller blades? We probably would have lost.

A visit with Dad [Cleveland Hopkins] to Ukiah in 1995 to "The White House". This is the house where he grew up, the house his father, Charles Blodgett Hopkins, built. California Modern, but likely pre-dating the modern period. It was set in walnut or orange groves and is a few hundred feet from the railroad track, hence a portion of Dad's deep interest in trains, from Lionel to the Santa Fe. What were his hopes and dreams as a teenager some 70 years earlier? It was a good day...why didn't I take notes? Was thinking "archival" this day as the camera date printer is rarely on. I never anticipated the black hole of parents passing away would be such a tusnami of love and information wiped away. Carpe diem. Dad did.

"House for Sale or Rent. Inquire Within." Found this incorporated as a panel in a box, presumably crafted by grandad Charles Blodget Hopkins, Ukiah, California, carpenter and house builder. Such unattributable ephemera clogs the imagination. I tried, not hard enough, to take my parents and a video camera around our family homebase before they died, filled as it was with personally precious artifacts of family history and accomplishment.

Now all of family is faded, just as this old message, once indelibly stencilled on wood, now erased of present significance. Video image and computer text, perpetual storage and comprehensive index, the future has a handle, holds forth to each our limitless Library of Alexandria, only bounded by user resolve.

I did get one videographed tour with Dad of our Arizona Family Home, even as he was building it, some twenty years ago. In the film he explains his plans, dreams, and desires, walking through the structure, still in the framing stage. The house was his retirement nirvana, and through Mom's contribution it became a warm centering for my prodigal, long distance visits, increasing with frequency later in life, then finally the few, recent years, a place of solace for my new family, that gemutlich refuge only grandparents can do, cloaking an imigrant wife and new baby with love. It was home as well to a magnificent telescope, Dad's superb lifetime engineering tour de force, built in its own out-building .

These evidences, shreds of past comforts in family strength, now serve to assist in letting go. Releasing from thought its ugly demise after my parents passing. Indigent greed invaded its doorstep while still warm and squatted until its former occupants left, weeping in heaven. Our 60's musician told us don't look back, and so we go.

Even the present holds ephemera. I do remember the hot lemonade Grandad Charles once made for me as a very young child, at bedtime. Had never heard of such a strange and delicious drink, but took it as natural, coming from a trusted source. I still feel and taste the freshly squeezed Califonria lemons, the sour heat. I only remember seeing him that once, he died far away when I was ten years old. I have the burial receipt. Here, on Scribd for my children.

Liliana and her bunny brood. It is true, they do multiply rapidly. Quiet as can be, though. Maybe because these are mostly orphans, fortuitously rescued in a church parking lot on a nice sunny Saturday afternoon, a class-action adoption when a kindly neighborhood lady told Lili, already lost to the world, knee-deep as she was in polyester menagerie nirvana. Hundreds of homeless stuffed creatures spread out on a 15x15 tarp. The church lady told Lili that for $2 she could have all the rabbits that would fit into a shopping bag...or two. Notwothstanding that limitation, in Lili's eyes, these little creatures are amazingly compressible, so our beloved Zi-Zi (Russian = bunny) population jumped in a blink.

I think we have a photo of the parking lot event...pre-foto-keyword. Have to look. Art collection is sawn but not seen here; hasn't made it to the "new house" walls yet. An artifact of the estate, Mom's worn chair, sits alone...perhaps happy again, couching such backend treasures.

The smashing, sparkling Joanne Colan, powerhouse Rocketboom beauty icon of the internet intelligentsia. At location Le Charlot, following Valentine's Day fragrance interview. To the direct right, my German classmate from Immanuel Kant Gymnaisum, BadOeynhausen, Dr. Dietrich Hahne, visiting NYC with family. Not to be missed overhead is fave omen biplane buzzing us with bonne fortune. Photograph by Mike, thank you, MTV/Rocketboom videographer/cameraman.

Restless souls struggle.

The Nose.

As in fragrance & rabbit, mine and its. Lili & bunny equally bemused.

* * * * *

Unabashed & long overdue for a commercial break. No free blogs!

The top fragrance aficionado site had a slow news day and interviewed me. I secretly turned it into the longest blog-clog self-immolation ever done, courtesy Dragon Dictate.

Nevertheless, the editor at Scented Salamander is a scholar of fragrance and extremely well informed, smart cookie, hard working on a labor of love. Please make the jump & pump up her site. You don't actually have to read through, but in any case do have the cup of tea she politely suggests before starting. Many thanks. No quiz today.

http://www.mimifroufrou.com/scentedsalamander/2007/12/interview_with_douglas_hopkins.html

Is this not totally cool? I am one happy dude. Baby hike, out Sedona way. The camera strap may be Kodak, but the box is Leica, Digilux 2, superb image quality. That's a Garmin Forerunner GPS on my right wrist. Should tell me in retropsect exactly where this was taken, as long as the cameras are timed to it. Sort of carrying the advertising, should have a baseball capon with "Prastara Cologne" written on it. My brand. www.PerfumeFactory.org Wife Oksana took this snap, she's soon surpassing my photography skills!

Liliana finds direction.

North of Rome, Montecatini spa. Classical architecture gets mystical. Modern never does this for me, even with favorites, such as Louis Kahn's Salk Institute (below somewhere). Trying to figure where some Doric columns can be wedged in my 1950's "modern" bunker. Have to strip the 70's siding first. What a ripoff! Nice domain pedigree: an idiot lived here. Nothing mystical on the premises except me barefoot in winter on the new radiant floor.

Always look forward to my rare Big Sur visits. Such a compelling place for photography. This is a snap, no excuses for art. Anybody know a place more photogenic than here? The resort-laden coast south of Rome has some of this potential, what it lacks in drama it makes up in classical ruins. Same dramatic highway, pottery stands instead of Big Macs. See what I can find in my files.

One trip out, spent an afternoon with Ansel Adams. He had just bought his first microwave and was running around the house with some very curled prints, happy with the time it might save! More to tell in my book, "Real.Views"...soon.

Dad's funeral. He was a co-inventor of radar and scientific manager of SAC's DEW line in Alaska. As a kid he used to take me on float plane moose hunts, 100 miles from nowhere in the middle of Alaska. I miss him, there wasn't a question he couldn't answer. Niece Casey in black and Uncle Al in beard (now 91 and still computing).

Me and my Dad. Love this picture! I think Mom made my seersucker outfit, or my Grandma MacKenzie. Nobody left to share such details.

I hereby award Dawn Gallagher an Emmy for gracious charity work. Noteworthy is her particular ability to scoop up the dough out of Wall Street tightwads, and they love her for it!

Our beloved investor took us to the International Emmy Awards. We obviously didn't have have much fun. Moreover, Brits won most of the awards. We did get to meet a gorgeous and gracious Bollywood actress.

I'll add names to the caption as the participants give me permission. My wife couldn't attend. That's Dawn Gallager in red; friend, author (Get her skincare book on Amazon.), and never-ceasing super-star model...gives most of her time to charity, such as St. Jude's. She's got everything and gives it all back. I'll try to dig in the files and find her initial teenage modelling headshots I did. Such a talented group: I confess; we had a blast that evening, although I missed my wife.

Family snaps. Cousins at the Phoenix zoo. Such excitement!

This won't mean anything to anybody but me, one of those personal snapshots with mostly hidden implication. A last image of home, the kitchen in Arizona while Mom was still alive.

I talk about this in my personal photography book, "Real Views". Photographs have layering, just like poetry. A photograph is a map, with borders; the obvious. The sometimes less apparent layers are intent and emotion.

On an Arizona roll here, sunsets, wrapping things up. Doesn't hurt to repeat, closing the day down, in all of its variations.

Another Arizona sunset aspect, not the whole thing, just a corner.

Time for a Prescott, Arizona sunset. The light before the dark. Can you geotag a sunset? It isn't there anymore.

Yacht approaching beach, Costa Smeralda, Sardinia, Italy. By helicopter.

The day drill is to head for one of dozens of remote, tiny island beaches. Be sure your yacht's cook has plenty of lunch-time, Barilla pasta.

The Emerald Coast, perhaps the most exotic resort in the world. Combines both Italy's spontaneous warmth and unparalleled sense of restrained design.

Photography by Douglas Hopkins, (c)2007.

Sharon Stone, studio portrait by Douglas Hopkins. Pre-shoot Polaroid proof. She had no name then, just a knock on the studio door, by herself. I nearby in the studio lobby at that moment and grabbed the door: this was a good number of years ago, but I still remember, as an experienced beauty photographer the explosive visual impact she had, in that very milli-second of eye contact, even before the door opened fully. Guess I learned first-hand what "dumbfounded" means. (c)2007. Ruined my vision for months.

Sharon Stone, fleeting model, before acting. Douglas Hopkins studio portrait. Of the hundreds of women I photographed, and with the rare exception of the images of those whom I both loved and photographed, Sharon is the most beautiful. Unparalleled depth of energy. From my forthcoming book, "Real Views", a gurustic manual of creative snapshooting. All rights (c)2007.

Oksana's Masterpiece T-Day Dinner...30 page script, all precisely on time. Amazing! Delicious!

The Shed. Maximum permissable size, 10x10x10. Verticle corner beams, 6x6, foundation beams 2x10, wall studs 2x6. The neighbor's boy, 10, declared it "over-built". Maybe not for the hurricaines that come through here every 60 years or so. Had expert help building it, Andrew, David, & Joe. Four concrete foundation columns, 10" x 4', were 1/8th inch in level alignment.

Liliana, left in teacher's lap, and her "Jolly Whales" at the Goddard school. A brilliant and beautiful bunch. The personalities are bursting out.

The last of an angry eruption, just before dawn.

One of my volcanoes, the famous Stomboli. Resting at dawn.

Mom and the wife in Paris.

Who wouldn't blog this! Our church wedding in Prescott, after the required government visa 3 month quick one in NYC. Anniversary eight this week.

Susan and Carole. Bahamas, Ababco Inn. Polaroid SX-70 scan.

Bahamas, Hope Cay, Ababco Inn. Maggie Han, Harvard student supreme, model, actress; lost to the Left Coast. Carole & Susan. The men know who they are. It is 20 years later now, more or less, and we're all married to others we never supposed at the time.

Trick or Treating in the hallowed grounds of the Princeton Seminary ghetto. Identifiable adults, Cady & Oksana. Lili & Lucy start the lineup. Photography by David Andrew, father of 4 of the girls.

Pleased to meet you, my name is. Bosch post-nups hotel breakfast. Mr. Hans Kageneck in green.

Paris rests alone.

Real Views: soda can with stepped tourists.

Snapz. Real Views: lake & trees, Acadia Maine.

Liliana makes a curtain call on Olya from Minsk. Her documents are in order.

Happy days with Grandma, Olya, and Sage in Prescott.

The Physics Girls. Anya, Noelle, Oksana. Three Phd's. Push away Hollywood, Hooters, and Paris Hilton.

Bosch Alpine pre-nups: toute le Monde was there. (Pardon my highschool French.)

Real Views: the tomb across from our Harlem apartment. Who's buried there? Ipaq snap.

Catching blog up on our wedding trips. Dina & Oliver Boch. Creme de la Eurocreme. Great fireworks.

Oksana in the Ysenburg castle courtyard.

Valerie's repression has a moment of release. Rome, courtyard.