About These Cards

Each year, from 1992 to 2004, making my holiday cards was my artistic endeavor for the year. From idea to execution was one phase, and then I printed each photograph individually in a darkroom (there were no digital cameras then! it was all film, baby!!). Using black and white film, I then hand-colored each photo. This was labor intensive and often resulted in someone getting their card in March, sometimes even July (there's always a holiday about to happen!). Once the prints were made, the hand-coloring was a slow and painstaking process. I brought the cards to color wherever I went - one year I colored them in April in Tortola when visiting Murray and Gail Bruce, one year I colored them in the Adirondacks when visiting Loring (that was the July year), and often I conscripted whoever was with me to hand-color too. If you helped me out any of those years, I thank you deeply!!

​

As of 2022, I’ve joined the digital age for my card-making – no longer photographing on black and white film and then developing the photos in the darkroom myself  – I now have digital images in need of a printer. It took me numerous attempts last year before I finally found someone to work with me to print the photos, to my liking.  I found that person in Jack at Quick Color Custom Photo Lab  in New York City. He helped me turn the color digital photos into black and white, optimize the images for printing, and then make all the prints. They specialize in printing actors’ and musicians headshots. And then there’s this.

 

Last year, I suspect that Jack didn’t know what to make of me and this project. When I’d keep coming back to him asking for more prints – in February, March, even April – yet professing that this was a holiday card, he was confused. Jack: “What are you doing with these?” Me: “I’m just sending them to friends and family.” Jack: “You must have a huge family!”  This year, he was right there with me again – though less confused. He got that this is really my artistic and creative expression and he was right there along with me for the ride. With these black and white prints in hand, I am still hand-coloring each one. You are holding an original creation in your hand!!

 

Since starting making these cards in 1992, my tradition had also been to use a rubber stamp for the message inside the card. There used to be a tiny rubber stamp store on Hudson and West 12th Street that I’d go to each year to find a stamp that was on-theme for that year’s card. That store has long been closed. Luckily, last year, I found John Casey who owns Casey Rubber Stamps in the East Village. Walking into this store, feels like walking back in time, with floor to ceiling old-timey rubber stamps on display, a cat roaming around on the countertops, and two workers bustling about with rubber plates and molds. He still uses the same method and machinery from the 1940s and still uses real rubber. And he’ll make custom stamps. Not only did I find he can make a rubber stamp QR code (that actually works!) for last year’s card, he also made the construction-themed rubber stamps for this year’s card.

​

My co-conspirator all these years is my good friend and photographer Geoffrey Croft (for every year except 1996, when Rachel Elkind stepped in to fill his shoes). He was there to help me capture my initial NYC-inspired holiday-card vision back in 1992 and has continued to be there to do the same year after year since then. He likes to show up, shoot quickly, and be done. I like to sink into it, try different options, and make sure we have more choices later. He says "we've got it." I say, "let's keep shooting," It's a dance we've danced now for over 30 years and I'm so grateful for his artistic eye, his photographic expertise, his support, his friendship and his good humor all these years.

​

This year, after photographing at the construction site, we went to lunch afterwards and Geoff said to me, “Wow, you’re so chill. What’s happening?” That’s because from 1992-2004, EVERY year, after we’d taken the photographs and gotten the film developed, I’d look at the contact sheets, and I’d call Geoff in tears and say, “It’s no good. We have to reshoot.”

 

He’d make some joke about it and I’d say, “I’m serious” and we’d go back and forth until I knew he wasn’t going to reshoot with me and I’d have to find another photographer or live with the images as they were.

 

This happened every year without fail and one year I finally realized it’s because I’d have in my mind what I wanted the finished product to be and the reality was always different. It would take time for me to stop comparing the images I got to my initial vision and just see the final image as a standalone. With time, I would come to love the photo with as much intensity as I’d initially rejected it.

 

As much as it pained me not to be making the cards from 2005-2021, the benefit of having such a long-lapse and coming back to it after all these years is that I was able to see that the past images held up over time. Even though at the time I may have been critical of them, in retrospect, I could see that each image was just something other than what I’d initially imagined and that something else was pretty great too.

 

So here we were at lunch after photographing the construction site scene and since the photos are digital now, I’ve seen them already. There’s no more dropping the roll of film off at Duggal, waiting days for the roll to be developed, looking at the contact sheet with a loupe and then calling Geoff crying and requesting a re-shoot.  All of that is compressed into seconds and I’ve seen the images and I’m not freaking out. Geoff is not used to this. He’s wondering what is happening.

 

Of course, I am freaking out a little bit inside and, at the same time, I also understand that I just have to go through my adjustment period (however long that turns out to be) where I will eventually be able to see the final photo as a stand-alone and comparing it to what I thought it might have been.  By reminding myself of this and knowing how much I now treasure each of my past cards, I understand this is just part of my process and it’s reassuring. Is that maturity? Growth? Wisdom? Acceptance? Surrender? Maybe, just maybe it’s all of the above. Does it mean I’ve stopped scouting construction sites for the eventual re-shoot in my mind? Never.

​

​