Photographers say if you wish to capture the soul of a person, take the photo in black and white. I’m not sure why this is true, but I think it is true. And I don’t really know why. We visited Mary Kellogg the other day – Maria, me and Jackie Thorne, a poet who admires Mary greatly.

Mary is working on her fourth book of poetry, as yet untitled, and we hope to publish it by the October Open House. Maria and I are both close to Maria, she was with us from the beginning of our relationship and we are important to each other. She lives alone on the top of her mountain, on a 30-acre farm she still cares for mostly by herself. She has some help from family members who visit her often. She is 88, the lines in her faced etched more deeply, her smile as radiant as ever.

Mary was an easy subject to photograph, I think, I was seated directly across from her, I had my monochrome camera with a used Zeiss portrait lens, and Mary was sitting in the light. I was struck by her grace, that ready smile and warmth that is so natural to her.

Some Native Americans fear photography  because they believe it steals the soul, but I like it because I think the photographers are correct, if you lucky and have the right subject you can capture the soul.