Tonight Mona took me to a lecture at the Art Institute by Emmett Gowin. It got out about 5 hours ago. It's already gone. I had the feeling when we were in it that the aura of grace would be smashed as soon as we stepped out of the lecture hall. Sort of like when you see Rivers and Tides and you leave the theater and you know you have to talk about it with the people you came with but for a second you wish you could just be alone and unpolluted by the world.

Emmett started off talking about his relationship to his mentors Frederick Sommer and Harry Callahan And this part of lecture was the most touching. His voice was wavering and seemed to be loaded with emotion as he openly shared his love for Harry and Frederick. It made me long for that kind of powerful older figure in my life.

I couldn't see his slide show very well and I was only vaguely familiar with his work, mostly having seen his pupil Sally Mann. The guy wowed me but here I am writing some dry account of it. I'm tired and frustrated with life now because we tried to go to the Adobe show and it was over and then we went to an incredibly lame party south of Market that we had to PAY for. Coming out of the Art Institue, I was ready to take the best photos I've ever taken. I swore that I'm not going to Photoshop up another mediocre snapshot just to have something to post on my website. This is inspiration. Thank god. But the strange part is I can't remember anything he said. That kind of sucks but at least I believe in photography more than ever and Emmett made me proud to be a part of it.

This little interview has much of the same huge Joseph Campbellish stuff he was slinging.