Smile!

You may have noticed something new about Letter From Elba today.  Underneath my signature cartoon of Napoleon setting foot on his island of exile, it’s your very own blogger.

And if you click on the “about me” button at the top of this page, you’ll see a new photo as well.

Both of these pics were taken by the very gifted Joe Tighe a Chicago photographer who made me look good.  This wasn’t an accident.  I had seen him in action on a shoot before I hired him and I knew I would be in talented hands.

Before my photo session I remarked to my son Nick that I hadn’t had my picture done professionally in twenty years and that I was counting on the wonders of Joe’s post-production airbrushing- and other special effects- to make me look pretty.

My son eyed me critically up and down and said, “Yeah, they have lots of techniques nowadays, but you’ve got to give them something to work with.  There’s only so much they can do.  Take it from me.  I’ve done photo sessions with my band.  Junk in, junk out, Dude.”

I laughed.  And I promised him that on the day, I would “bring it.”

Hopefully you agree and you like the new pics, too.

I decided to take the Kodak plunge and reveal myself because, well, it’s time.  A year ago, when I started this blog, I didn’t need any pictures.  My first readers were friends and family.  And they knew, only too well, what I looked like.

And, as the blog grew, I made a conscious decision not to run a photo.  I wanted readers to picture me looking any way and any age (as long as it was about thirty) that they imagined me to be.

(I can remember my own bitter disappointment when I first saw Margaret Mitchell- and she did not look like Scarlett O’Hara.  And imagine my surprise when I found out that Harper Lee was a grown-up woman who was not eight years old and dressed in dungarees.)

But now that I have many readers that I do not know, I thought it was about time to give them a peek.  And hopefully you all won’t be too upset to find that I am not the combination of Ali Macgraw and Natalie Wood that I always see in my mirror.

Joe was a real pro and we had fun on the shoot.  And being in his studio at the Lill Street Art Center reminded me of another photographer named Joe that I was lucky enough to know.

The late great Joe LaBella.

He died in 2004 at the age of seventy-seven.  At that time, he lived in Ashton, Maryland and had a winter home in Pompano Beach, Florida.

Joe was a friend of my dad’s.  They had met in the Navy when Joe was just seventeen.  Joe hailed from New York- another city slicker like his Chicago buddy- and the new recruits hit it off right away.

According to my dad- seventy-one years later- Joe was a handsome Italian kid.  A clever guy who could do anything with his hands.  (As opposed to my father.  Who could do nothing with his.)  He was an artist who could fix anything and create beauty out of junk. (Again, my father could do just the opposite.)

Joe and Ben were both radarmen on the USS Shangri– Là, and when the war was over and they were discharged, my dad went to visit him in New York.

And thus a sixty year friendship was born.

I got to know Joe later in his life.  He had come to Chicago to visit and we got together. And in the late 90’s, when I went to Washington D.C. to visit Natasha- then a teacher at the National Cathedral’s Beauvoir School- we all joined up again for dinner in Georgetown.

He was a terrific guy.  If I had originally met him because he was an old Navy buddy of my dad’s, soon he and I were friends on our own footing.  He was interesting and funny. Down-to-earth and practical.

And he was a photographer who knew how to work any kind of camera- from the newest state-of-the-art equipment to the oldest speed Graphic and Rolleiflex.

It was this skill with old equipment that brought him a very good gig.  One night, as Joe was taking pictures at a wedding in New York, he was stopped by one of the guests.

“I really like the way you’re doing your job,” complimented the wedding guest.  “Can you handle an old Speed Graphic?  Like one from the forties?”

“No problem,” said my friend Joe.  “I used them all the time.”

“Be here,” said the guest as he handed him a card.  “I’m going to need you for a one week job.”

The one week photography job turned out to take months.  The wedding guest turned out to be legendary movie producer, Al Ruddy.

And the gig?  It turned out to be the set piece wedding scene that opens The Godfather.

You may watch that film and marvel at all the magnificent performances and famous lines that abound in it.

I see only Joe.

Artfully wielding his old Speed Graphic as he deftly shepherds Connie and Vito and Michael and Kay into group pictures while the tarantella plays on.

And I smile.

Addio, caro mio.

And thank you, my two Joes.

Ciao!