REMEMBERING JEFF LAMB PHOTOGRAPHER

There are just a few days at this time of the year when the late afternoon sun blasts through my kitchen door with such might that I'm confronted or startled by my shadow.  It seems lit from behind by a nuclear thing, which of course Ol Sol is.  But it's particularly fierce, lasts a few days at that arc, and moves on. This time last year, when I saw this firey sky, I knew it had to go straight to my friend and Facebook mentor Jeff Lamb, the American musicologist and photographer.  I sent it with a joke about being blasted into kingdom come. 

I had no idea he was dying of brain disease. Jeff got sick quick. Our repartee was only bright, desperate and humourous.  But suddenly he was very very sick, then he was gone. His canon of photography, particularly of the lost architecture of New Orleans and Detroit, is unmatched and forensic. You can begin to explore this astonishing work here. 

I urge you to plunge in here, and head up into the incredible backwaters of Jeff's record.  I don't know of anybody who's done anything like this.

Thanks to the stalwart Queen Leyla for the photograph of Jeff in the bar.  You must miss him something shocking. Best love from Australia. 

And every year at this time, when that sun blasts in from just this angle, I will put everything down and look afresh at his astonishing archive. Of course I don't presume to be  a photographer of Jeff's league, but I believe the fiery furnace which lights my impulsive snap was the supernova blast of him leaving the ship. He had wired me; I was chipped to click at this instant. Ha! Play Little Anthony and The Imperials. Drink.  Lamb's work stays. And Leyla. And Sonny Boy.  How lucky are we. Thanks Anna for the top one.