This is just a brief note of love to the first digital camera I owned.

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I purchased my first digital camera as a little attachment to my Palm Pilot. Ben and I had purchased a second hand computer to share and I later acquired the PP as a place to have a private thoughts or what not. I remember I did learn how to write the PP shorthand and as a very precursor to the iphone I was able to read the very abbreviated NYTimes on the subway to and from work.
Sadly, the camera was not supported after one brief software upgrade and lived a very short season in my life. It was so much fun to take it everywhere, even if the output was an insanely low res jpeg that now looks like a postage stamp. Also I must comment on the distortion factor. At first the distorted effects were quite fun, but after awhile I really just wanted to document what I was seeing.

Here is our trip to San Francisco, that looks like I ran the entire episode through the Gaussian blur filter in Photoshop.

Before this I think I spent a lot of money on those disposable cameras, and one silly purchase of a very mini Polaroid. Oh the sadness of using that on our trip to Spain, miniature photos that are now a faded and gummed up mess.

Sunday Workshop

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What was that old adage, the more you know, the less you know what you think.

It’s been a long time since I’ve sat in a classroom talking about image making.

A humbling experience to say the least.

Coney Island 2002

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There is a series of photos I took in May of 2002, that I would like to revisit.
Clearly the subject matter stands on it’s own, I was just there to witness it one afternoon.
I used to spend hours walking around New York on my lunch hour and during the weekends, just exploring.
Coney Island at that time still had the exotic seediness that was starting to creep out of other parts of the city, and I loved going there.
I haven’t been back since that day unfortunately.
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First batch of Pickles

First Batch of Pickles

Ben asked me yesterday about what kind of photos I am interested in taking. The first word that came to mind was domestic, which sounds incredibly banal when you attempt to explain it. What I meant was interior landscapes. Small things. Everyday life.

This is my test workshop and the above photo is one from the first test batch after putting the camera together yesterday. It’s exciting to have something to chase after, something where there is so much to learn.

I found this morning in my internet travels a photographer who makes the kind of work I am interested in viewing and thinking about.

Barbara Bosworth

From the Peabody Exxex site:

Over the last 20 years, renowned Boston artist Barbara Bosworth has made photographs of her family around her childhood home in Novelty, Ohio, and at other locations significant to her family. Be among the first to see these touching images that explore the joy of youth and the wistfulness of aging, memory and the passage of time. Also on view, delicate natural objects collected by Bosworth’s family show a continuity of interest in nature across generations.

Here is more of Bosworth at the Smithsonian.

Domestic food for thought.

August 21, 2001

remnants of the Brooklyn Giglio Festival

August 20, 2001

Wayne Thiebaud: A Paintings Retropective Whitney Museum

I like Wayne Thiebaud. I thought this was going to be my summer painting show. But somehow, something in the work did not entirely engage me. He is a beautiful painter, but his style leans toward the academic. With the exception of his mid-sixties food series(which he is still best known for)his subject matter is too reminiscent of others from that era. I saw shades of Jim Dine and lots of Richard Diebenkorn (especially in his San Francisco street landscapes).

I felt a little sad, because I respect his work immensely. I just didn’t have any epiphanies as I did when I saw the Diebenkorn  retrospective a few years ago, or my mild obsession last summer when I saw Alice Neel’s work numerous times. Not really a disappointment, but it somehow just didn’t resonate beyond the door.

Another thing that didn’t make it out the door were photos of the Mies van der Rohe architecture exhibit. Upon entering the Mies chamber, there was a strange feeling of being in a Wings Of Desire sub plot. Lots of low level lighting, immense black and white photos and a strange hush in the room. I was busted almost immediately for trying to take photos. Photos I might add would not have come out anyway with the lighting situation. All the same it put a damper on my evening and I decided to come back and see more of Mies some other time.

*[please note: Thiebaud has a beautiful palette of color that he works with, and the poor reproductions I have put up here really don’t do justice to his work, just thought I would mention that it is my ill handy work, not his].

August 1, 2001

Another Random Dinnertime Parade

Occasionally on our block you can be woken out of the daze you are in by the sound of heralding trumpets and a bugle core,announcing the arrival of another neighborhood parade.

These little events, which last as long as it takes a group of 30 or so people to walk the stretch of Union, Metropolitan and then Lorimor are always police escorted and sure to bring traffic to a dead crawl.

The girl who cuts my hair grew up here. I asked her the secret meaning behind all the shenanigans. “Hell if I know”, she replied.
She said she never really figured it out, and frankly after being around for almost 30 years she was pretty much over them. I guess if you were not Italian American, who could blame you at that point.

All the same, I still get a kick of these occasional displays trumpeting the “Saint of the Day”, breaking the monotony of the rumbling semi-truck traffic and showcasing what a festive bunch live around these here parts.

July 17, 2001

7/15/01

Implosion of the Brooklyn Union Gas Tanks

I am convinced my neighborhood is going to be one of the most documented industrial wastelands in this country. I guess that’s what the advent of affordable technology and a high density of creative types will do for you.

The day before these tanks were to be blown up I suddenly found myself possessed to get on my bicycle to get one last look,and take a few snaps. Unknowingly, I was to be joined by a whole flock of people doing the same thing including a documentary film crew. You can’t count out human curiosity.

The tanks I am disappointed to see go. With their checkerboard loudness they have served as the one landmark in the neighborhood recognizable from a distance,a point towards home. Now the landscape will all fade into the rest of Brooklyn and be just another blur from the highway.

By the time I touched down at the actual site of the tanks (which is truly industrial) about 5pm in the evening, the Police crews were rounding themselves up and getting ready to evacuate the area. Stacks of barricades made the business seem official.

The documentary film crew, making a blotter about the tanks, (working title: Implode!) were giving interviews to a handful of media types and selling T-shirts to fund/commemorate their project.

Tomorrow when I step out the door and walk a few blocks North to the park, I am sure it will be odd that gaping hole, giving way to a little more skyline and a little less comfort.

The tanks are scheduled to be blow up at 7:AM Sunday, July 15 2001. RIP.

July 15, 2001

Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Paulinus of Nola

Williamsburg, Brooklyn July 2001

These photos are representative of the almost 3 hour process that finds 100+ men parading the statue to St. Paulinus through the crowd filled,sausage eating and cheering throngs of Brooklyn’s Italian American section of Williamsburg.

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go here for the Official Giglio Feast Page!

If you are in the NYC area this mid July, you still have a chance to see some of the fun- other
Our Lady of Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Parish
sponsored events include:
Tuesday July 10th 8pm Caribe Night- Steel Band
Friday July 13th 8pm Live entertainment- Italian Night
Saturday July 14th 6pm Children’s Giglio
**Sunday July 15th 2pm Dancing of the Giglio 8pm Live entertainment- Latin Night: Bobby Rodriguez y Su Orquestra. Midnight Mass in honor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.
(12:01am July 16th morning)

and you might want to ask for Monday off:
Monday July 16th
Feast Day of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel 10am Festive Mass in honor of Our Lady of Mt Carmel
11am Procession with statue 11:15am Mass in Italian with Choir
12:15pm Mass in English with Cantor 4pm Procession with statue
6pm Polish Mass 7:30pm Creole Mass 8pm
8:30pm Spanish Mass 9:30pm Closing Ceremonies of the Feast 10pm Drawing of the Raffles on Church Steps

July 1, 2001

sun dappled lunch

sun dappled skin cancer

eating congealed lunch

of cheesy pizza and

crowded sidewalks

In the library

only a whir of fingertips

at the microfiche

and in the stacks

What’s new?

June 3, 2001

Travel from Points East…

The sea turns into the country turns into the city.

May 4, 2001

The Beauty Bar is one of those places that used to be a frequent haunt, but time has slid by and I hadn’t been there for awhile.

En route for Guided By Voices we stopped in for a few.

Beauty Bar /Irving Plaza /CBGB’s

More Susan, more Brad and more Guided. We’re not starting any photography revolutions here,but it was entertaining.

 

March 22, 2001

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*This made me laugh today.

(via an email I received today)-

Horrors of the Cubicle:

“I got called into the office two days ago, I came within a whisker of getting fired. They kept saying “what’s going on” over and over again. My production is supposed to be 100% and it’s at 30%. Then they said “are you on the internet all day?”, and “do you leave early every day?”, and “do you sleep at your desk?”. I looked them straight in the eye and denied everything. Then I told them I suffer from migraine headaches and massive ennui, but I would try to focus and work harder. Surprisingly, I did not get written up or receive any warnings to fly right, but I know the evil eye is staring at me 24-7″

-anonymously posted to save the guilty