"The stories we hold up are the people we become..."

Attended the Lucie Awards last night. An interesting event honoring icons in the photo industry as well as recent work from emerging masters. A highlight was seeing Brent Stirton -- it's been a while since we last crossed paths when we were with the US Army in Fort Hood Texas during a very very hot August a few years back. He's of the most dedicated and disciplined photographers I've ever met. His recent accomplishments honor that commitment. Also ran into GK Reid who has accomplished so much as well as a stylist to the fashion elite. His Moustache rules. I attended the event with Michael Costuros the founder of livebooks and photographed him with Andrew Hetherington (both pictured above) who blogged about the whole event on his site. I throughly enjoyed the acceptance speech by Sara Terry of the Aftermath Project who stated that "The stories we hold up are the people we become" [and that] "Aftermath [Project] is about telling us the story of what it is to be human." absolutely concrete words - her final statement was "I believe in who we are [as humans], though we might have to look through the darkness to find it."

Poignant, given the times.

Other highlights were Tony Bennett as a presenter celebrating the Jazz photographs of Herman Leonard which were absolutely stunning. Check out the Lucie site to see the other winners and honorees.