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I shot this today while working on an assignment here in California…..and tonight I wrote this reply to an email I received out of the blue ……. it is to a guy I have never met… but I feel a definite link with…… cos I know he was great friend of Bob…….I was also great friend of Bob at a different time……. the picture and the mail got kinda linked in my mind:

Nick sadly he seems to have disappeared……Im sorry I thought I replied to you……. maybe I only thought I did…… i remember writing it ?……may be I couldn’t send it?…. er ….. i think i was on a shoot in Brazil/Argentina when i got your message…… or maybe I sent it and it never arrived………. anyway vvvsorry not to have made contact back….. anyway yeah, I do distinctly remember getting your mail…… partly because I’ve been thinking myself about tryin to be in contact with Bob for some time…….. just cos I miss him……… But all the numbers and email I had for him seem to be non functioning………… I told a good friend of ours Neil T who used to work with us in London i would really like to contact Bob myself and told him about your mail……. but he was not able to make contact……..I also spoke to Scott G who was a good mutual friend who had, in the past, his own non ‘photography world’ contacts and friendship with Bob…… but to no avail…… You probably know Bob fell out of love with the world of professional photography well over 10 years ago now……… in the end he declared himself bankrupt and packed it all in……I always felt I might have stopped that chain of events and maybe altered his characteristic crazy decisions of that time….. if my brother had not died around that same time……… but as it was, I was so done in myself I just didn’t have the capacity to help fortify Bob against the problems of making a living in photography……….. anyway I really missed him after his departure from his role as my double act partner and absolutely closest buddy in photography……. with him having turned his back on that our shared life of photographs and picture-desks; agents and assignments; processing labs and exhibitions……. it was hard for us to socialize outside of that world…….. as of course, for him, I totally personified that former life……. I knew he really wasn’t keen to be in touch or see me at all in that phase…….I think now, he was then really having a breakdown of some description and reinventing himself over a period ……… as both a a writer and non photographer type…….. not living with Lel and the kids…………. and returning to being a ‘an out gay man’…… I think…. to do it all he needed to cut himself off from his old life as a photographer and all friends from that time………. it only really occurred to me later he must have done something very similar to allow himself to invent Bob as Photographer……….. as distinct from his previous life in music? Anyway I had little snippets of contact with him …….. I remember taking my little girl to see him when she was about two. We had a lovely time at his place……… he was just amazed and delighted to see my little girl (I had no child when I had last spoken to him )and we had a new connection nothing to do with photography as he raved about having children, and anyway he was, by then, comfortable with his new self…. I guess………. but even after then….. contact was sporadic…….. I went through a phase of communicating a lot with him by email just after I moved out here to New York City in the USA about 5 years ago……… but I proposed a couple of times I should come and see him when I was in London but he would never reply in time……..we emailed for a bit but we never did meet up………. then he stopped mailing……. he was ill at the time of my last contacts………… with a lung complaint : sarcoma (sp?). People have since said this illness is sometimes part of a suite of HIV/AIDS related illnesses these days……. but Bob did not say this………. and it didn’t seem that drastic in his communications………but sometimes this long radio silence makes me fear the worst……… er…….. this could be complete alarmist rubbish……..he is probably fit as a fiddle and is no doubt cracking his crazy jokes somewhere at this moment…….. but right now I have no idea where! I will continue to try and find out where he has got too ………… if you have any luck with any other routes…… or have any thoughts or requests……… please let me know……… Cheers mate thanx for your kind words about my pictures online. Jez XXX