There is a lovely path next to the river in Riverside on the west side of the Des Plaines.  I walk my dog there just about every day.  There are always fishermen there fishing and one of the most recognizable is this guy, Jonathan “Goldy” Goldyn.  Goldy cuts an imposing figure.  He’s 6’2″ but seems taller.  He has an amazing beard, a fantastic assortment of wildly inappropriate T-shirts with fishing innuendos on them (“Playing with my Worm All Day Long” and “Master baiter” are two of my favs) and he manages to catch fish at an alarming rate of speed (even though he was only pretending to fish for our photo, he STILL managed to catch a large fish in the first four minutes of shooting).

When I decided to shoot someone fishing for my Riverside at One Hundred Fifty series, I knew that it had to be Goldy.  Goldy was my only choice.  I bumped into him one day, exchanged emails with him, sent him an email and didn’t hear anything back.  I looked for him out and about and never saw him.  One day while out walking, I bumped into another man, Johnny Simonetta and, for some reason, mentioned that I was hoping to shoot with Goldy, but couldn’t find him.  I didn’t think anything of it.  It was just normal conversation.  When I got back to my place, I had a voicemail waiting for me from Goldy.  Johnny had called someone who called someone who called Goldy… who then called me.  Stories like this are how you know a project is working!  I am truly indebted to Johnny for this.

The most notable aspect of the actual shoot was how far away I was from Goldy while we were shooting.  I ended up bringing my bike to set so that I could ride back and forth between where Goldy was (on the west side of the river) and where I was shooting (on the east side of the river).  I estimated it as a three block ride.  As such, all of my instructions on lighting and posing were relayed to my assistant across the river.  I did a pretty good job of hiding my lights, but, if you look carefully, you will be able to see some of their reflections in the water.  Should I die and go to hell, my days will be filled attempting to Photoshop out light reflections in water.  It is an effort in true futility.  Thus, some of their reflections remain in the water.