Picture of the Week #118 "O Solo Mio"

Picture of the Week #118 "O Solo Mio" Venice, Italy 1969 Signed and Stamped

Forty-two years ago, way back in 1969 I was attending the Venice Film Festival where I spent most of my time walking around and taking pictures in between hawking my movies. I was under contract to a company called The Alliance Company who had a house on the Grand Canal where we stayed. The "we" being my Producer Jay Pati and Executive Producer Nick Finnerty. We had two boats at our disposal at any given time. One an elegant Speedboat and the other we used for Water Skiing. I actually received a ticket for driving the boat too fast with Jay Pati on the ski's. I also used to ride down the Canals in a gondola and this picture is of my Gondolier who sang "O Solo Mio" to me as I took in the magic of Venice. In 1976 I made a painting from this image and sold it to a real estate broker down the street from where I live in Bel Air. It hangs prominently in his house and it always brings back fond memories of a city that I cherish. Now I am off to Venice for the Carnivale and thought this would be an appropriate image to post now.

Picture of the Week #117 "Pretty Fresh Faces"

Picture of the Week #117 "Pretty Fresh Faces" Beijing / Peking, China 1980 Signed and Stamped

These school girls were actually standing on the Great Wall of China outside of Peking, now called Beijing as you see above. But recently I was working on a series of images that I had taken back then and decided to photoshop these fresh faced school girls into a field of sunflowers in the Dordogne department in France. I don't know which one I like better, so here they are, you be the judge.

Picture of the Week #116 "Banksy at the Curb"

Picture of the Week #116 "Banksy at the Curb" Santa Monica, California USA 2010 Signed and Stamped

Meeting my friend Bob Chartoff for lunch one day last May, I hopped out of my car in a great parking spot right in front of the restaurant. I looked down and there was this "Banksy" spray painting at the base of the light pole. I wasn't sure if it was the real Banksy or a knock off by Mr. Brainwash, another street artist and the subject of the wonderful documentary "Exit Through The Gift Shop". So when I got home I looked up Banksy's work online. There were other images very similar to this one. It resembled the iconic image from Esquire magazine. Now that the Academy Awards are getting near I thought it was time to post this, in hopes that "Exit Through The Gift Shop" wins.

Picture of the Week #115 "Sphinx - Shaken Splendor"

Picture of the Week #115 "Sphinx - Shaken Splendor" Giza, Egypt 1989 Signed and Stamped

Normally, I don't show political or religious images. But with all that is going on now in Egypt, I thought this image of the Sphinx at night was a fitting tribute to the turmoil of what is happening now.