One of the biggest gifts that I’ve ever gotten in my life has been to also call my inspiration and mentors- friends.
As fate would have it, I would be out on a shoot today. My camera slung behind my back while I quickly checked my phone in between shoots. I saw the news that Jay Maisel passed today. He was 95.
Im just heartbroken.
Going to visit him at The Bank without my camera in hand meant that I was going to get about twenty minutes of abuse for not constantly having it on me.
“Where’s your camera, RC?”
“I left it locked in the car, Jay. I wanted to come and see you. “
“I bet it’s taking some great fucking pictures in the car. “
It was always some derivative of that.
Jay and Woodworking
But one of the things that I enjoyed talking to him about was my newfound love of woodworking. I remember at The Bank he had a room that was full of all of these really cool hand planes. He would always make it a point to pull out some from Bridge City Tools and talk about how, in addition to being amazing tools, they were just beautiful to look at. He was friends with the owner, and we spent time talking about photography from him, in between demonstrations of how to use these tools.
I liked talking to him about all sorts of random stuff. Very little about photography. I think in the 18 years that I’ve known him, I’ve probably only shown him one picture where I asked for a formal crit. I was a friend, but he was still Jay freaking Maisel.
Walking on Air
One time I went to visit him at The Bank, and we went out to lunch to an Italian place nearby.
As we sat there and talked, he looked at me and said
“Hey… do you notice anything?”
“No… what… “
“Anything?”
I was like “um.. No… “
Jay Then held his arms outstretched.. and it hit me like a bomb.
“You didn’t bring your camera with you… “
“Yeah” he replied.. “I wanted to just have some time to talk to you.. “
I walked on air for like 3 months after that….
Making a Humidor
Not too long ago, I worked up the nerve to actually try to make something for him. Man, I messed up so many times, but I finally got together a halfway decent cigar humidor that I wanted to send out for his birthday. I would call him and go try and visit to see if he got it, but never heard anything. Finally, a couple months ago, we connected, and he told me, with all of the stuff that gets sent in the house, he has to go see if it got there.
The humidor was the least of my concerns. I was just so overjoyed to hear his voice and to talk to him. A couple weeks ago, he left me a voicemail, and in it he said, “I love you.” He points a drive down from Syracuse to go see him.
We talked, and he said, “Listen, all I can do is tell you: come down. If I feel like I can see you, I’ll see you. If not, I can’t.” That’s how we left it. I was actually getting ready to make the trip on Monday to see if I can catch him, and now I feel so absolutely terrible that I didn’t.
I’ll go home today and load the most recent photo shoot and pull up one of his books. I really hope that he got to see the humidor and read the note telling him how much he meant to me.
Rest in peace, my friend.
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