#visumconsto

An in-memoriam set of portraits of the uncomparable Mathias Oppersdorff, with whom I had the pleasure of sabbaticals from the Metropolis of NYC, with a Land Camera and a uniquely, odd but elegant man in the magic that is, lifelong Rhode Island’s South County- where he was a native and resident. 

He is a photographer I posed for a few times and in tiny moments could learn volumes. 

We ate simply- I remember often heading back to NYC and grabbing the first slice I could get my hands on, but for tiny moments in time I could feel the chill of the old home, if not feel the echoes of the Family who had been raised there, and a little Mathias running through the fields, shooting rabbits and the like. As an adult he had set up his own rifle range on-site to continue his family’s joy of the sport. 

 The first photos are in the house he was raised and lived most of his adult life in, when not travelling. In the first photo- he is surrounded by 4+ generations of his family in photographs. 

I can imagine he was ‘quite a looker’ in his day- he always had such a magical way of staring down my camera. A charm, no doubt, that lead to his success in co-mingling with a long list of ‘characters’ in his personal, book-work. 

He worked for Gourmet Magazine for over 18 years! His three books of photography, all published by Syracuse University Press, include, Adirondack Faces, People of the Road: The Irish Travelers (a chronicle of Mr. Oppersdorff’s 26 year involvement with the "gypsy" group in Ireland known as the Travelers), and Under the Spell of Arabia (images from the photographer’s 14 months of travel in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East in the early 1970's).

A friend of Mathias’ had written some lovely things, after Mathias’s passing: 

http://markelpower.tumblr.com/post/43007079270/mo-oppersdorff