Hey, Hot Shot!

Have A Nice Day, 85th St., Hollis, Queens, 2008

I have been shooting Queens for almost three years now and since my most recent project is finally at a stage where I feel comfortable showing it to people and more tightly edited than it was in the past - I decided it was time try to make it a little more visible. While there are signs it is getting better, the current economy sometimes dissuades me from submitting work to competitions - that and the fact that I don't exactly have a lot of cash anyway, to spend on this sort of thing. However, since I really like what they are doing over there at Jen Bekman Gallery with 20x200 and other means of helping emerging photographers reach more people, I chose to enter this round of Hey, Hot Shot! And much to my surprise, there was a nice little write up of my work on their blog today!

Take a look at their post here

The iPad was finally released this past Saturday (April 3) and I can gladly say my website is in fact fully functional on the newest Apple product. My images actually look pretty darn good on the thing too - but I still have to ask myself, is an iPad really necessary? I know that I will not be getting one any time soon, nor feel the need to own one. However, after being bombarded with posts from several different websites asking, "Is your website iPad ready?", I had to check it out...Not that I would have put making my site operational on it at the top of my to-do list.

Off Topic

I am very excited to hear that one of my favorite hometown bands, The Ponys, who seemed to have disappeared after their 2007 album, "Turn The Lights Out", are releasing some new material. Their new EP "Deathbed + 4" will be out later this month in digital format and May 25th on vinyl. They will even be playing some shows!

More info, tour dates, and a listen here.

Article on their disappearance here.

Glad to be back in the darkroom today! The negatives should be scanned shortly for real online viewing...

Updated

College Point, Queens, 2009

My website is now updated with more Queens images and a side project based in Floral Park. More to come soon! Check it out!

NJ Numbers

Tonnelle Ave, North Bergen, NJ, 2006

Another one from the archives.

Woodside, Queens, 2009

The good ole website should be updated with some new(ish) Queens images in the next week or so. I will also be adding location titles, so they are not literally just "somewhere in Queens"... and maybe some work from new projects if I am not too nervous to share.

From the Archives

Oh, Illinois

Main Street, Chadwick, Illinois 2006 © Dave Jordano

When I checked my email today, I was greeted with my subscription from Culturehall. The current feature, Inside Out, curated by Tema Stauffer includes Juliana Beasley, Wayne Liu, Heather Musto, and Dave Jordano. While I have seen his photos before, I was struck by Jordano’s work this morning. I am pretty sure it has to do with the fact that I am originally from Chicago and his project, Prarieland, focuses on rural Illinois. While I lived in the city itself, I have traveled the roads and highways of rural Illinois quite a bit – as a child with my parents, road trips with friends, and photographing as an adult. Not that upstate New York can’t provide me with nature and give me a break from the always hectic city - Jordano’s images made me a bit homesick. Rural America often tends to have a similar feel, but there is just something about the Midwest that cannot be replicated, for me at least.

This also sparked a lot of thought about photography and things I have been reading over the past couple of weeks. Recently there has been a lot of discussion (on blogs and in person) on similar photographs/projects, etc. A good read on this topic is over on Conscientious, Jorg Colberg’s blog. I actually have no problem what-so-ever with similar work (within reason). There is obviously a line that should not be crossed, which to me is common sense – but I don’t really want to talk about copyright infringement and people copying other people’s work and so on. Instead, I have been thinking about various artists doing projects on similar, if not the same places, in similar styles, etc. I have heard people say, “Does the world really need another Stephen Shore?” or so and so place has already been covered by so and so photographer. But does this really matter? In my opinion, a different artist usually brings something new to the work and it is not the same as Shore’s or Sternfeld’s or whoever, because it is shot today, not in 1970 - whatever. Heck, I have been shooting Queens since I moved to New York a number of years ago only to find out a year and a half into shooting, that Queens College commissioned photography greats, Joel Sternfeld and Frank Gohlke to shoot the borough. Does this bother me? No. Did I ever think I would be the only one to shoot Queens? No. However, I feel the work is different enough, because I am seeing the landscape in a totally different way, as a newcomer, resident – culture shock from moving here from Chicago, etc. etc. At any rate, I think that it is somewhat selfish to limit the things/places we photograph (not that people do... and again, within reason) because there is a greater audience out there other than the photo/art world (that sees things completely differently and has way more exposure to different artists and work than the average person). What is overkill to one person is loved by another. But we already knew this.

Anyway, I don't usually write this much and I am rambling at this point, so I will stop. I hope all that makes sense. Until next time...

Post Valentine's Day

(iPhone)

© Bryan Lear


© Carl Wooley


Amherst, Massachusetts, Thanksgiving, 2008

I found the first two images while meandering around the Internet. I do not know either of the two photographers, but their work definitely deserves a look. I love that the images are all basically of the same thing, yet different, and it's interesting that each of us saw something compelling in what is otherwise just a generic grass island. The last image is a rough scan from a side project I have been working on rather slowly. Only time will tell where it will go.

"Similar houses of a 'cookie cutter' suburban Queens neighborhood in New York City."
1935 LIFE Magazine

via Gothamist

Kodak Film Grant Recipients Announced

Things have been quite hectic as of late (and not really in the good way). What I thought to be a brief break from posting suddenly turned into a two month hiatus. I have a lot of new things happening at once, including a new apartment which is the main reason for my lack of web presence. However, now that life has begun to calm down a bit and I am plugged back in - I should be able to run a tighter ship!

A while back I posted about the Too Much Chocolate / Kodak film grant. While the aforementioned busyness prevented me from making the deadline to enter the competition, it looks like the recipients (which were announced earlier this month) are a great group of artists and will make great use of the grant. The work of two photographers particularly caught my eye, possibly because I am a sucker for seeing images of places I have never been through the eyes and lenses of someone else.

Anna Beeke of Brooklyn, documents Amsterdam, NY.

"Anna’s project, Amsterdam, New York, is a photographic document of a town in decline, and the life that continues there. It is part topography, part emotional response, and part “portrait of a town” in the classic sense of the photo essay. Much of the project is about physical spaces, occupied and unoccupied: Beeke explores the contrast between Amsterdam’s living and dead spaces, how its residents relate to the physical space of the city, and how their lives are informed by the landscape in which they carry out their daily rituals."


© Anna Beeke

Susan Worsham's, (of Richmond, VA) project, By the Grace of God, "is a series about Worsham’s home, the South, that takes her beyond her backyard, following a southern road, and documents places and characters that she uncovers."


© Susan Worsham

I am excited to see more images from both of these women.

And then there is also Murray Ballard's (of Brighton UK) look at cryonics, which is a fascinating subject in and of itself.


© Murray Ballard

The complete list of recipients as well as more info on the whole thing can be found on the Too Much Chocolate website, or more specifically, here. Be sure to check it out!

Philadelphia, PA

Some last minute plans took me to Philadelphia this weekend to see the viewing for the Modern & Contemporary Art sale at Freeman's auctioneers. Not really going to these types of things all that often since I am in no position to buy; it was really interesting see the great deal of work that goes into making it happen and how much things are selling for in the current market. The sale included work from the Lehman Brothers Collection as well as some beautiful Berenice Abbott prints which were roughly 8x10 inches each, sold as a set of 10 for $12,000.


© Berenice Abbott

To make the most of my short time in Philly I also stopped by a few shows on the great recommendations of Justin James Reed. One of the shows I particularly enjoyed was Personal Views: Contemporary Photographic Portraiture in Philadelphia, at Gallery 339. If you know me, it may not sound like a show I would like since my own work doesn't include people most of the time. I am frequently asked why that is and it really has nothing to do with me liking portraiture or not. I guess I would say that my interests seem to subconsciously shift toward the marks people make and the presence of people, rather than people themselves. However, some projects that are currently in the early stages (ie in my head) do include some people. So we will see how that plays out.

Personal Views runs through November 14 at Gallery 339, which has the friendliest staff that I think I have ever seen by the way - so check it out if you have the chance.


© Nadine Rovner


© Rita Bernstein


© Zoe Strauss

Interesting story of photographer Vivian Maier, from Chicago. While not all of her photographs were taken in the Chicago, her images are particularly compelling to me since I am originally from the city. This one shows the former Woods Theatre on the corner of Randolph and Dearborn.

found on Barry Stone's blog