© Jaime Permuth, 2025
They’re nineteen months old today. I never dreamt that I would become the father of twin boys at age fifty. But here we are and I could not ask for a lovelier family.
We celebrated with an outing to a small farm that has a mini petting zoo and a modest collection of exotic animals.
Well I learnt about hometowns and seafood - just because - plus a whole bunch of vocabulary and a long laundry list of grammatical rules and their exceptions and so much more and now I’m up one level from Foundation to Beginner 2!
That was one marathon of a week and why they call it “immersion”.
Almost two years ago, I began documenting the life of Olmedo Renteria - better known as Olmedini El Mago. Our project continues, despite being interrupted and put on hold by the pandemic. Many people have enquired as to how he is doing. We talk on the phone every week! Olmedini is quite simply a force of nature. He is holding strong despite the frustration and pain of having to shelter at home for the past several months and being unable to do what he loves best: earn a living performing his magic on the moving stage of the New York subway.
Many beautiful things have happened as a result of our collaboration. One of my favorites is this in-depth feature on NPR’s Radio Ambulante, which is lovingly put together and truly adds to the magician’s legacy. The original conversation is in Spanish but it is also available translated into English.
Next stop Honduras, este jueves en La Galería conversando con Vicente Colindres mi proyecto más reciente “Olmedini El Mago”.
Entrada gratuita, via FB live. Bienvenidxs!
“Ewin” and “Cuca” (what they call each other) park their vehicles at the mall.
The mother of my children is also my wife is also a gifted artist. It can’t be easy to be the bearer of so many gifts, especially in a time of masks and blossoms. Happy Mother’s Day, HRM!
The glow of late afternoon lit the toilet like a chapel; as I zipped up my fly I almost whispered “Amen”.
Live por Facebook! Cordialmente invitad@s!
We took so much for granted. No more. The simplest things in life are endlessly beautiful.
주차장 “HRM”
Tonight is our last night of self-quarantine. Over the last fourteen days the city has become a speck seen from our window. Tomorrow its immensity will rise to meet us again.
Brave new world!
During our self-quarantine we dry all fruit peels and then freeze them. We hang on to all our trash, which will be collected on day 14 by the city and disposed of separately to that of the general population.
Two more days till freedom!
It’s so good to see her finally let go and feel at ease.
This morning she reminded me of the woman she was when I fell in love so desperately twelve years ago. This morning she reminded me of the woman she has become and who has brought all good things into my life.
10PM and the day is drawing to a close. Mami begins setting up another elaborate surprise for when the twins wake up the following morning.
I’m sure not even Noah’s Ark contained so many wild beasts.
Emotionally exhausted by all we’ve been through, but four negatives plus twelve more days equals freedom.
And it’s the sweetest equation I’ve ever heard.
JFK
After much soul searching we decided to take our chances and leave New York to travel to Seoul. HRM and I felt our family was just too vulnerable in the city.
The journey here was arduous and now we begin a fourteen day self-quarantine. We have to self-diagnose daily on a government app and there are stiff fines if we don’t comply. We will be tested in three days time. But it’s all part of keeping everybody safe.
Although we will have to wait two weeks to embrace our Korean family, they made sure we have a full fridge, fresh flowers, soju and home cooked meals waiting for us. We are so happy and relieved to be here!
One of my favorite gigs is curating and organizing the i3 Lecture Series for the Masters in Digital Photography program at the School of Visual Arts. I’ve been doing this for ten years now and our archive of talks is well over one hundred.
Yesterday was our first online Zoom platform i3 Lecture.
We started promptly at 7PM and that was just in time for the daily neighborhood salute to essential workers: pots and pans clanging out the window, neighbors clapping and cheering their appreciation to the heroes who are battling COVID-19.
Here's a screen capture of Tommy Kha during our Q+A - looking not unlike one of his famous cut-outs of himself ;)
Tommy, thank you for a stellar lecture and for being such a good sport adapting to this new and untried format.
The metier of a street photographer is to traverse the city unseen, incorporeal. A gifted few, like Robert Herman rise above the role of witness to conjure and coax poetry out of light, color and form.
We live in the strangest of times when simple things like pausing to talk to a stranger, embracing a friend or sitting at a table in a coffee shop can place us at risk, or endanger others. The city, as Robert knew it, has vanished. And he is gone from it too.
Yesterday we gathered to remember and celebrate his life and legacy. It was good to come together, feel the love and shed a tear. Even if we did so at a virtual remove, which was equal parts beautiful and surreal.
Thank you Tom Ashe and MPS DP for the moving tribute you put together.
Any media feature will be fundamentally different than a long term documentary project. In essence, a media feature asks the subject to represent his or her life and compress it to fit a scripted story of a few minutes duration. After the NYT published my work on Olmedini, there was an immediate response from media outlets requesting features.
I've tagged along on a few of those shooting BTS and paying close attention to how the media chooses to represent him. Without exception, visiting crews have tried to recreate my photographs as if they were the script to follow. So that instead of looking at Olmedini directly they look at him twice removed. Furthermore, none of them have acknowledged their debt to my images and have instead treated the story as if they were breaking it for the first time.
But I will say that Victor Javier Solano of Noticiero Univision 41 was an exception to this rule. He did his homework in terms of research and drafted probing and sensitive questions for the magician. At Olmedini's request, he also interviewed me on camera. My favorite moment in their feature is when a homeless guy approaches in the subway and kisses Olmedini's hands, telling the story of how the magician had more than once fed him when he was in need.
Like poets nostalgic for the world outside their window, looking out and looking in, lost in reverie.
Smiles like pianos with a few missing keys.
Falling down laughing at jokes meant only for one another.
Waking up from a nap and rapping loudly on the bedroom door to let us know you’re up.
Flexing your index fingers and whispering “charka, charka” every time you catch sight of our cameras resting on the shelf.
Holding onto mami while you sleep, like pilgrims to their prayer.
Olin and Luca, we will always be in your debt: we gave you life and you returned it twofold.
You arrived; we became.
I always thought dating a photographer would be cosmically redundant. Then I met HRM and I realized photography could also be the glue that held us together. Our art has always taken pride of place and we support each other through thick and thin. So when HRM was invited to Blue Star Contemporary for an important exhibition of her work, there was no question in my mind that she should be there to install and open the show.
In practice, this meant that she would leave the twins for the first time in fifteen months. Left unsaid, but possibly of equal importance, was the fact that papi would take care of them on his own while she was away: feed them, bathe them, keep them happy and well. HRM cried when she left for LGA and she cried every time she saw Luca and Olin on Skype. The twins would laugh and kiss the screen of my phone when they saw her on the other end. For the most part they were perfect angels the four days she was away. Luca would ask for mami a couple of times a day and cry a bit when he realized she wasn’t there. Olin is more reserved with his emotions and mostly kept it all in. On the fourth day however, he went and stood silently by the front door, staring at it. After a while, he turned around, found my eyes and asked for her. I could see the pain in his face and I explained - again - why mami had to leave for a few days and promised she would come back that night.
HRM arrived after they had gone to sleep. We decided it would be best if they saw her in the morning. But while I was getting ready for bed, Olin cried and HRM went in to soothe him. When he realized it was her, there were tears of relief… and anger. There was confusion too, as if he was unsure if this was real or a dream. Luca woke up and soon they were both sobbing uncontrollably. Even though they wanted to be held, they averted their eyes from her and looked away. Hurt. It took us a long time to calm them down. The next morning, awake and refreshed, they bounced back. Olin ran around pointing at HRM and then at me, calling us out, over and over again, celebrating our reunion. Luca was blissful too. Last summer, when I was forced to be away for weeks at a time, it was probably hardest on me. They babies were just happy to see me again. But their sense of time has evolved and the complexity of their emotions has deepened as well. Also, it’s different when babies are separated from their primary caregiver, which in our household is HRM. They feel their trust has been broken in a fundamental way.
As I weighed all of this in my mind, I couldn’t help but think of migrant infants, not much older than Olin and Luca, separated from both their parents by cold, unfeeling beaurocrats at the border; grief-stricken children left utterly alone and hopeless. They are put in cages. The damage to their psyche seems catastrophic, incalculable to me, their wounds indelible. As a country, we have failed them, even though they are not our own.
