Schmelling

My old roommate and good friend Mike Schmelling is featured in the latest issue (Issue 35) of Blind Spot, a magazine of fine arts photography.

It is ten years ago now that Mike was working on a series of photos in El Paso. He mailed a postcard of one shot to my family home in Connecticut. It was of a woman folding a shirt on a bed, a man in the background. My mom took one look at it in the pile of envelopes and said, “They just had an argument.” She was right, I found out later from Mike.

God knows how short a time Mike knew this couple before he was in a corner of their bedroom getting that kind of moment, but it was a short time. I always wanted to go with him when he worked, but I knew I couldn’t, that it would completely change the situation. It is there in some of his best work though; somehow he becomes invisible.

Congrats Mike.