Sunday, August 26, 2007

summer fruit



there is nothing so lovely as a tree.

on an overcast day, with the sky and the ground both shades of grey, these vibrant purple plums provide the signs of life.



Friday, August 17, 2007

yes, punk is 30



i've been dropping the hint for a couple years!

but i still get excited when photo researchers and editors find me...like one from a MAJOR publication did today.

today (well, technically yesterday) was the anniversary of elvis's death. the king is dead; long live the king kind of thing.

google tells me that iggy pop is the king of punk rock. well, that certainly is a good thing and i do not disagree.

iggy pop 77

but did any royalty you know every look that good?

Monday, August 06, 2007

water, sort of...


the street offers a panoply of beautiful images. i love the manhole covers and other forged (as in foundry forging, of course) metal coverings.

i knew i couldn't be the only one who was into this. while living in nyc and working in brooklyn, i took a different route each day, and noticed that all the manhole covers said "city of new york, made in china," or "made in india" and started photographing them. they looked like tribal tattoos.

then on my travels, i went expressly looking for manhole covers of interest, and found they were everywhere!

drains23

it wasn't until i saw this grate warning me to "dump no waste" in cleveland that i was aware any city had taken so much consideration! in los angeles, such warnings are painted.

saint20
perhaps this is the reason why cleveland was so pro-active in protecting its water supply!

Dracula's hiding place

across the street from carnegie hall, dracula could slip quietly from the symphony into the gutter and hide from the sunlight. that would be a gotham dracula, of course.


drip-color

Friday, August 03, 2007

Pedestrianation


its a word i made up. a noun with verb qualities.

"i go out walking after midnight..." and i go out walking at sunrise too. to catch the light.

i've been collecting images from my walks. its just odd stuff. but i like it.

it was in 1973 or so when my friend bill heiden, a wonderful photographer, and friend told me that you only needed a single roll of film to get all the great shots at a concert. well - we were teenagers then, and it was one of those grand statements that you make out of nowhere. a fact you made up because you could. but the idea of limitations and self-imposed restrictions rings true for me to this day.

available light is all i use. there was a time i used the flash - for actual photojournalism assignments or hopeful placements (and i was successful at this). but as you know, using a flash results in a flat image more often than not. i'm not talking about controlled lighting - i'm talking about that thing on your hotshoe.

available light on the other hand makes the game exciting.
here are some shots from twilight time... dawn and dusk.

sunrise yuccas 2
daybreak over my backyard

birdhouses
bird houses at daybreak plus 5 minutes

these beautiful birdhouses are no longer there. the man who owns that house tore down his fence and covered the drive way with a wide swath of cement, making me think he's bought a boat and made a parking space for it. he still has those and dozens more brightly colored bird houses hanging on the wall in his garage. dare i ask him if i can photograph that wall?


3 calla lilies

flowers have long been a favorite subject for me. this was shot at daybreak as well and the photo looks so much better to me than the flowers, which were oozing with snail trails.

the whole purpose of my 6AM walking adventure was to photograph the union 76 ball before it was taken down.

76 ball vertical

that is gone now, too. where would our memories be without photographs?
there are more images from my 6AM photo adventure at pedestrianation.