Patricia Fiorent lives on 500 acres of woods and pasture just outside Cooperstown. Her house is her studio where she paints portraits and produces children's books. There is a large barn where her many animals live, including varieties of exotic chickens. We were at this lovely place on a perishing morning slipping and sliding looking for a spot to take a picture of Patricia. After I had done the photograph we sat inside and had a sandwich generously made by our friend Marla who had come to help if needed. Patricia suggested that we light a fire. “Oh no we won’t,” Marla’s husband Tom said, “not with that Christmas tree in the corner. The house has already burnt down once, we don’t want it to happen again and with all those needles lying around it might well catch fire.” The large tree looked as though it had been there a couple of years.

I sent Patricia five or six pictures that I had done of her and she wrote back and asked if I had taken any smiling ones because that was what she wanted. I explained that I only took smiling pictures if the portrait had been commissioned and this had not been commissioned. I had written to ask if I might do it for series of people who live in Central New York State. A couple of weeks later I received another note from her exclaiming how much she loved one of the photographs that she had just discovered in the package and she was going to frame it. She had indeed a slight smile in this one. She told me that originally she had not seen there was more than one photograph in the package. Most odd, I thought, and wrote back that I would, in the future, enclose a list of contents in my packages. I like the first one posted here.