In 1976, Richard Avedon went to Washington to photograph Henry Kissinger. As Avedon was leading him to his mark, Kissinger said, “Be kind to me.”

Artists have been making portraits of the mighty for centuries—from Velázquez’s Philip IV to Lucian Freud’s Elizabeth II—and the act of portrait-making can leave the royal or the tyrant, the President or the diplomat with a sudden feeling of disequilibrium, of a transfer of power. Avedon knew that Kissinger was trying to manipulate him, but what, exactly, did he want? “Did Kissinger want to look wiser, warmer, more sincere than he suspected he was?” Avedon wrote later. “Isn’t it trivializing and demeaning to make someone look wise, noble (which is easy to do), or even conventionally beautiful when the thing itself is so much more complicated, contradictory, and, therefore, fascinating?”

This past September, when nearly all the world’s leaders were in New York for a meeting of the United Nations, Platon, a staff photographer for this magazine, set up a tiny studio off the floor of the General Assembly, and tried to hustle as many of them in front of his lens as possible. For months, members of the magazine’s staff had been writing letters to various governments and embassies, but the project was a five-day-long improvisation, with Platon doing his best to lure the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chávez, and Muammar Qaddafi to his camera.

And so what did the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ask the photographer before the shutter clicked? “Platon,” he said, “make me look good.”

History is full of leaders who cannot bear the result of their sittings. Winston Churchill publicly praised a portrait of him by Graham Sutherland, but soon decided that it made him look senile. His wife, Clementine, destroyed it. Usually, it seems, politicians seek out a portrait artist at the beginning of their career. On February 27, 1860, the day he delivered his career-defining speech at Cooper Union, Abraham Lincoln walked over to Mathew Brady’s studio and had his picture taken. The greatest of American political lives had begun.

But the anxiety persists. While political theatre went on inside the General Assembly, Netanyahu kept stopping by Platon’s makeshift studio and repeated his request: “Make me look good.” ♦

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/multimedia/2009/12/07/091207_audioslideshow_platon#ixzz0YNabOpMd

its not that am crazy ,its not that am sad
its not that i lie its not that i dont fly
i fly high & i die
still i fly and i try not to die
i read erich segal i wish love was like that
i see a movie , a movie of endless wait
and i still fly , high am scared not to try
i try and die and still i try ...
i try the joy in sorrow
i try you in me
i try smile in tears
i try love in pain
i try pain in love
i sit a while , think about the movie
and again i fly , fly away in the lonely sky
in search of the lonely star .. and i fly

have you ever thought i also think

have u ever thought i also wish

have u ever thoutht i also wait

have u ever thought i also deram

do u know i miss u? do u know i wish to talk to u ?

how will u ?

or may be u do , may be u dont

may be it matter may be it does not

but u know i often see fire work on a rain night

u know no one find any one perfect

what i am to u , u are to some one else

have u ever thought

there are time when i misss u

miss u helpless . ur not dead yet

ur untouchable unreachable ,u r there but ur not

i often wonder why ? do i love u or just miss u

miss u when am out of my mind and soul

or its for ever , when i said i love u

when the autom was at our feet

u said no to it i wonder why ?

is it because its me or is it because u r like that

like a wind , like a deep blue sea , like a haunting soul

or is it just because ur a woman , woman a Phantom depth soul

or its just nothing , it all in my mind and soul

do u really exist, my woman i wonder !

i wonder , i think , i wish

but then again

have you ever thought i also think

have u ever thought i also wish

have u ever thoutht i also wait

have u ever thought i also dram

do u know i miss u? do u know i wish to talk to u ?......

i wait wait under the cloudy sky thinking it will rain ....
i waited on the 14th floor ...thinking the phone ring but it never ....
i waitedfor the sweet smile to see but we never mate ...
running behind the illusions ,i fall in to the buttefly trap ....
i see vision going blur ... is it raining far away or ....

ZONE 2 RIDE 1

do i creep for sadness?darkness reveal the truthneither i nor you knowi have passed by the same placeagain and again with a wish tosee you ,see you with out your knowledgesee you in my self , see you as u r .....afraid if u get hurt withdraw completelyfear had killed me many timebut still i couldn't save youi don't know if i lost you or got you in new wayand that's for ever , equation of my idealism going thinnernow am not afraid of loosing , i don't creep for sadnesschoose not chase illusion any more , i walk a lonely roadlonely but not left out , realization comes to me as younothing is immortal every thing has to go that's the truthand its taught to digest the truth ,truth is the eternal beautythat's for ever not you neither me ,memories meant to fadeits designed that way for a reason . reason to live reason tobreath , reason to love ,reason to hate ,reason to laugh ,reason to cry expectation brings desire and desire kills the truthi expect you to stay, who am i to expect ?can i stop the passing clouds ?can i stop the running time? but they are the truth that's realitythe gap widen in between ,my desperate soul grasp forbreath some time i doubt what is true love is it solidliquid plasma gaseous is it green red white or blackis it u or just me , is it money is it security is it physicalis it mental is it any thing at all !!the mirror laugh at me says look at you , you die for somethingwhich is never yours, i reply back what was those glorythose passionate moments are the reality or illusion ,time must saytrust worthy time let me now walk the lonely road a few penny in mypocket a empty soul and the desire to know the unknown ....will you walk beside me ......now just the loneliness and few mixed memories ....waiting for their turn to get faded awaylong wait just long wait ......what we want we want by mistake , what we get we never wantjust a wait a long wait ..........once you told me life is not a moviebut still i wish , but still i love to dreameyes open ... wide open just the lonely roadam not alone any more road ahead .....