What's Up in Mid-Town?
On our way across 53rd Street in Manhattan last Monday, my son, Alex, was looking down Madison Ave. in the mid afternoon glare, and he commented on how much glass was used in most of all the buildings in Manhattan; then he asked me what did New York buildings like like when I was a kid. I thought that was a good question. I replied that in the fifties, there was the Chrysler Building, the Woolworth building and the Empire State building which were all "skyscrapers". I continued that there probably a handful more that were over fifty stories, but for the most part the buildings in Manhattan back then were under thirty to thirty-five stories. He and I looked around and then gazed skywards. So much had changed in New York since I lived there full time in the early 90's, let alone since I was a kid.
Alex and I went to the Museum of Modern Art. In the photography galleries, there was an early Robert Frank black and white image of the New York skyline circa 1954. I pointed it out to Alex and reminded him of our earlier conversation. We hung out at MOMA for several hours, and then left. Right outside the door, the light was fading, and the sunlight just caught the top of one of the buildings. I had my four-thirds digital camera in my pocket, and I quickly made this capture. I really like the juxtaposition of the old brick facade on the right with all the glass and steel everywhere else.
Here's Looking at You, Barnie Newman
Last Monday, I took my son, Alex, to the Museum of Modern Art for his first visit to what he calls a "big time museum". MOMA is showing their huge collection of NY Abstract Expressionism. It is an impressive show; heavy on Jackson Pollock, Hans Hofman, Adolph Gottlieb, and Barnett Newman. My son is taking AP art at George School, and although he wasn't very familiar with abstract expressionism, he understood the concept of the "movement" and he had some interesting things to say about various pieces that we saw. In particular, he was amazed that Barnett Newman always used the same format of equally dividing space in his large canvasses.
The image I made was captured on MOMA's second floor in their bookstore, overlooking the huge atrium and the lobby downstairs. I had Alex stand with his back to me and made a capture, and then I made a capture of just the space without him. Obviously, I combined the images with Photoshop and then ran the darker blue stripe right down the middle separating the two images. This one's for you, Alex.
All Saint's Day on 23rd Street
Not only was it All Saint's Day, but it was the first cold, blustery day in NYC this fall. Everyone was bundled up against the northwest wind, I heard a lot of grumbling about the weather. Actually, it was a crisp afternoon with a cloudless blue sky. The light was just perfect as the sun was arcing over New Jersey in the late afternoon. I never was all that interested in taking quick, little images of New York buildings until recently. I had just come out of Eataly on 23rd at 5th, looked up and saw the Fuller Building also known as the Flat Iron Building. I couldn't resist. I've looked at that building for years, both in person as well as in photographs, like Alfred Stiegltiz's 1903 image of it. I've always envied those who have offices right there on the "bow" of the building. The view has to be spectacular looking across Madison Square Park, up 5th Avenue to the left and Madison Avenue to the right. And I'd really like to take a close look at the statuary sitting on the roof.
Salisbury Beach
I've been thinking about E publishing a couple of my photography books. There are a bunch of options available: i'm undecided which format etc. to use. But while I ponder that issue, I've been revisiting the books and the work in them. One is tentatively called Off Season. It is a body of photographs taken over twenty years documenting Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts during the winter months. Salisbury Beach is a small ocean town who's heyday has long passed. Left are a collection of small cottages and two story houses which rent during the summer for very reasonable rates; and during the winter, some of them house a colorful collection of temporary tenants.
During the late seventies and early eighties, I lived south of Salisbury Beach, across the Merrimac River, in Newburyport. Though it might be argued by some that knew me then, that I, how shall I put this, misappropriated my time during those years, I, in fact, spent hours and hours photographing in and around that part of New England, and then after exposing negatives, I'd spend hours and hours making prints in the darkroom. It was during that time I became a real photographer and started to become a master printer. Early on I was influenced by Minor White who started the Visual Language Workshop at M.I.T., and later, by Harry Callahan who taught at R.I.S.D. Clearly, it was Callahan who set me off on my way to making photographs in Salisbury Beach.
On winter afternoons, I'd bundle up and drive over to Salisbury Beach. I walk around for a couple of hours taking pictures until it started to get dark. Then I hop back into the car, drive across the river, and go into the darkroom to process film. The next morning I'd make contacts and work prints. I repeated this process several times a week during January and February. I looked forward to winter storms which would lash the New England coast, and would sometimes almost bury some of the small cottages at Salisbury Beach. Every afternoon would be different there.
The other subject I worked with at Salisbury were the cars. What an incredible collection of old cars were parked there, abandoned or simply left to hibernate during the winter. I look at them now in the photographs and I still smile and shake my head.
I left Massachusetts in the late eighties. But I continued to return to Salisbury Beach periodically to check in and to photograph. In the nineties I started making colored images as well as black and white. By then, I had a state of the art color lab. Just like in the old days, I couldn't wait to return from Salisbury Beach, process film and print. It's been awhile since I've stopped at Salisbury Beach: it feels like I'm overdue.
Immediately below is the dust jacket layout for Off Season.
Below that, I've included a small slideshow of images from Off Season. Simply click on the "FS" button for full screen, and then the "SL" to start the slide show. When you're finished click on the ESC key to return to my home page.
Salisbury Beach
More From My Little Friend
October light is amazing on the Eastern End of Long Island, especially on cloudless afternoons. The day before yesterday, around four o'clock in the afternoon, the sunlight was bouncing and jumping on the water outside. I walked around and captured a red spike plant against the shimmering reflection with my four thirds Panasonic Lumix and the funky little "c" mount Cooke cine lens opened wide up. I love the little green"dust" stuff on the spike leaf to the left, the squiggly light thingie at the top of the leaf,and the big white bokeh "bubbles" center top. It's almost as though you're looking up at the sun from under water.
What's Up In Alto Jalisco?
At first, when I decided to post some images from a documentary job that I shot last summer in Jalisco, Mexico, I thought the common theme would be photographs of things that I had to look up at in order to photograph them. Then I started to tone map a couple of the digital files. And then I tone mapped this one.
It was my bed room at a hacienda in Arandus, a small agricultural town in Alto Jalisco. After a busy day of photographing how you make tequila, and then how you consume tequila, how could you resist sinking into the warm (hot?) embrace of this little number. It looks like Satan's guest room. Anyway, once I decided that this would be the lead image for this post, I dropped the looking up theme and included some other images which I tone mapped. Instead of saturating my post with the images, I set them up as a simple slide show. Just click on FS for full screen, SL for the slideshow to run and ESC to return to my home page.
Alto Jalisco
Say Hello To My Little Friend
I'm just getting into four/thirds. So what's a four third? It's a digital camera format developed by Panasonic and also embraced by Olympus. I recently bought a used Panasonic G-1 with a 14mm-40mm lens on Ebay for next to nothing.It's a small interchangeable lens digital camera producing a 12 mp file. It's tiny compared to my Nikon D700. The image quality is fantastic. Four/thirds refers to the size of the sensor. Without sounding like a spokes person for Panasonic, let me say the really cool thing about this camera is its ability to use almost any existing 35mm format lens; i.e. Leica M's, Nikons AI, Canons, through the use of adapters. The thing to consider is that because the G-1 sensor is small, a regular 35mm focal length lens is twice the focal length value for the G-1. In other words a normal 35mm camera lens would be a 50mm; that lens on a G-1 becomes a telephoto 100mm. Having said that, I found a Taylor Hobson Cooke 25mm f 1.5 cine lens and mounting it on my G-1 with a "C" mount adapter, I started shaking hands with a potentially great little system.
Consider this image. The swirling bokeh effect is the Cooke lens opened all the way up. I made three different exposures, hand held, each with a 2 stop different EV. (The G-1 does this effortlessly with a quick settings adjustment.) The files were RAW file format, and after downloading them into my computer, I opened them up in PhotoMatrix and let that application work its digital magic. While I was still in PhotoMatrix, I performed some tonemapping, processed the file as a High Definition Range (HDR). Sounds like a long way to go. It's really not. (I resisted HDR for a long time as being too gimmicky: but I must admit I've fallen under its spell.)
I was in Manhattan for several days this past week, and I used my G-1 for some street shooting. The first image is a reflection in a Jim Polshek building, The Cornell Weill Medical Research building on the corner of 70th Street and York Avenue. It's a straight capture using the 14mm-40mm lens that came with the camera.
The second image is an unmanipulated capture of a standpipe. You have to love the reds against the black. I think the resolution is great. i can't wait to see where my little friend and I go.
One Favorite Rowboat Photograph
A short while ago, I was down-east Maine, up on Deer Isle in Penobscot Bay. I was tucked away in a cozy little cottage right on the rocky Maine coast. It was in early August, the sky was bright, and the weather warm. And of course, the air was briny from the breaking Atlantic ocean on the rocks near by. There was a small floating dock with this rowboat hauled up on it. I looked at it for awhile, then sat down on the bank above it, and looked at it some more. I watched the seagulls wheeling overhead, and I imagined being at sea just off the maine coast. Then I look out my Hasselblad, looked at the rowboat again, and I made one exposure. In The Day Books, Weston talks about feeling for the exposure. I've always believed in that: more than just the exposure, though. I like to imagine the image before I make the exposure or the capture.
A Photograph from an Afghan Refugee Camp in Pakistan
As I mentioned in my last post, I spent some time photographing in the Afghan refugee camps in the northwester territories of Pakistan in the 1990's. At that time, I believe there were nearly seven million displaced Afghans living in Pakistan, many were in refugee camps. Conditions varied from location to location. There were a lot of children running around in the camps who had been fathered by Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan, and then, of course, after the Soviets left, they were abandoned and ostracized along with their mothers.
The image below has always stuck in my mind. The boy's attitude and cockiness is so compelling, especially juxtaposed with the boy next to him: clearly his father wasn't Russian. I've often wondered what became of him. While reading The Kite Runner and The Bookseller of Kabul, this kid constantly popped into my head.
Stadium Spectators in Lahore
Certainly, the current American perception of Pakistan is not a particularly positive one. My experience in Pakistan was largely focused on documenting the making of high quality, hand made oriental rugs. I traveled in the Punjab, in the north, and the northwestern tribal territories. I stayed in Peshawar, I photographed in Afghan refugee camps, I went up the Khyber Pass to the Afghan border.
I was always treated with respect, and in some cases with warm, gracious hospitality. Having said that, there were some places you just didn't want to go as an American in particular and a western in general. I always wanted to travel to the extreme north in Pakistan, up past the Swat Valley, into the Karakorum (think K2 and the Hindu Kush). As it becomes more and more dangerous for Americans to be wandering around in Pakistan, it seems that ambition is on the back burner.
I made the image below one afternoon walking past a stadium in Lahore. As I've mentioned in past posts, I collect images in bodies of work: one of which is images of bicycles. What initially caught my eye were the bicycles with little pennants on the front fenders. Then I saw the white wall and the spectators. I still can't take my eye off the gentleman with the cigarette. I like the way he and the other man look right into my camera, right into my eyes.
