© Jaime Permuth, 2025
When I opened my eyes this morning, I found Luca asleep next to me. All the fears, doubts and second guessing that daily run through my mind and burden my heart dissipated and left me with one shinning truth: fatherhood is the most beautiful gift life has ever given me.
And I will continue to do everything I possibly can to protect, educate, entertain, inspire and care for these boys. To deserve the joy they’ve brought to me.
After completing high school in Guatemala, I enrolled at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where I studied Psychology and English Literature. My next move was to relocate to NYC to attend the School of Visual Arts’ MFA in Photography and Related Media. I graduated in 1994 and began assisting and printing books and exhibitions for photographers I deeply admired. Fifteen years went by. My artistic practice became well established. In 2008, I returned to SVA once again; this time as a student in the Masters in Digital Photography Program, where I would go on to serve as Faculty for ten incredible years.
All this goes to saying that I cherish my long history with my Alma Mater. And I will forever be in the debt of incredible teachers and mentors like Charlie Traub, Marvin Heiferman, Katrin Eismann and Tom Ashe.
But without a doubt, it was meeting HRM when we were both students in Digital Photo that really changed my life forever. A true SVA love story.
This is why yesterday we felt so elated celebrating the 75th Anniversary of SVA’s foundation with a remarkable group of fellow grads in Seoul, Korea.
Night out with artist friends. I look more than a bit Korean in this quick sketch by Wongeun Kim :)
La barba un poco lampiña, los ojos más rasgados y la nariz más ancha me quedan bien?
In many ways, our recent trip to NYC was a textbook example of how not to visit the city: we didn’t attend any of the art and culture venues, we didn’t indulge in any of our favorite restaurants, don’t even mention shopping for new threads or staying out late nights listening to music and sipping whiskey.
But what we did manage to do was remedy an omission in our lives. We made the city Luca and Olin were born in - but had only read about in books during the long Covid sheltering - come alive before their eyes. They gaped at the Empire State Building towering over us, squinted their eyes at the sun glancing off the silver pinnacle of the Chrysler, saluted Lady Liberty as we sailed past on the Staten Island Ferry, climbed the stairs of the New York Public Library, crossed the Brooklyn Bridge in a yellow cab and lined up on the street for the freshest bagels on a chilly October morning.
Was it all a dream?
Olin outside the New York Public Library.
Being New York toddlers in the time of Covid, he had only read about it in books until this trip.
Walking into that magnificent temple of knowledge, I told the twins about how a very pregnant HRM and I spent hours in those reading rooms doing research and compiling lists of possible names for them.
To me, this visit to the NYPL felt like a true homecoming.
Goseong Choi has a new and remarkable exhibition of photography and video “Inhale, Exhale and the Space in Between” at Art Space Eonju Round in Seoul.
The works are a stirring meditation on the nature of confinement: the tides of desire, solitude, yearning, fear and hope that break over our souls. In a darkened room, the story is told by the subtle changes of light playing on human skin, the shifting skies outside the window and the cryptic oracle of fortune telling beads.
Neither my words - nor my photographs of the installation - could do the work justice. But here’s a portrait of Goseong taken today at the gallery.
Is there such a thing as photography without William Klein? Hard to fathom… as it always is when we loose one of the greats.
I had the pleasure of hearing him speak on a Sunday night at SVA some seven years ago. What a great artist and raconteur he was. I remember thinking: I wish we could continue this conversation in a bar somewhere and sip whiskey all night.
Rest in peace, maestro 💐
A portrait of me by my wife, Hye-Ryoung Min.
밝고 빛나는 날
Olmedini left me a message today saying how he would like to come and visit me in Korea. Not this year, but next year when Luca and Olin turn five. So that he could entertain them and their friends with a magic show.
Never mind that he earns a living performing in the subway and money is always scarce; a round trip air ticket to Korea would mean a small fortune to him.
When he calls he never fails to ask about them. In fact it’s how our conversations always begin. And he knows their birthday by heart, and keeps track of their progress and education.
Like family.
That’s me today, celebrating Photolucida’s Critical Mass, four-year-old style.
But I’ll be breaking out some good bourbon later tonight, once we put the twins to bed.
I’m honored to be a Finalist in this year’s edition of @photolucida Critical Mass for my series “Olmedini el Mago”. And proud to be listed alongside some dear friends and admired colleagues.
Last night, just before bedtime, HRM and Olin started working on a drawing of the planets in the solar system. Around 6AM, I opened my eyes and noticed Olin was not asleep in his bed.
So I went looking for him.
I’ll have a Trek on the rocks with a splash of soda!
Missed riding like crazy and it’s so good to be back 💥
Photography starts to get interesting when you realize the visible world appears one way but feels another when it’s framed.
It’s coming up on four weeks since I took a tumble on my bike. The splint is gone next week and then I’ll start PT for the thumb and index fingers on my right hand.
Not sure when the doctor will give me a green light to ride again… but I don’t think I can hold out much longer.
Going a bit stir-crazy without my bike, Antigua.
After waiting for days for the rain to clear out, the forecast for last Saturday was bright and sunny. So I suited up and started out on a ride early AM. About an hour in, I wiped out on the still wet pavement and landed in the ER. Thankfully what I thought was a broken right thumb was only dislocated. My body was a bit roughed up in places but otherwise oK.
It’s been a week already. I have a splint on my right arm, which slows me down quite a bit. It’s strange to suddenly be a lefty in my fifties. And I mean, how do you even eat without chopsticks in a city like Seoul?
A week ago, when I got on my bike before sunrise, the Han River was shrouded in the heaviest mist. The landscape was like a dream unfolding in front of me. And as I picked up speed, I felt myself leaving the ground, taking flight over the still sleeping city. And that’s what I’ve missed so much these past seven days: the song in the heart, the intoxication of beauty in the eyes.
I’ll be out of circulation for a month. I’m sure the weeks will pass eventually. In the meantime, I’m gonna walk until I ride!
A week from today we hit the road on the first leg of our Seoul - Busan cross-country trip. I’ve been training in earnest for this since last fall. Start to finish it’s 633 kms; we gave ourselves four days to do it. Grueling, punishing, exhilarating all rolled into one!
It takes a special kind of chutzpah to think I can put my fifty four year old body through this, but my mind says yes and my heart is sworn to it.
Over the last ten months, my greatest teacher has been pain. If you can get to the other side of pain, understand it and overcome it, you always come out tougher and stronger, always a better rider.
Hurt is ignorance; knowledge is healing.
Wether I make it all the way - or not - remains to be seen. But no doubt it will be an unforgettable journey.
