New York/LES

A few posts back I wrote about photographing the 6th and B Garden, a lush tangle of trees and flowers on the corner of East 6th Street and Avenue B. A paradox of these community gardens sprinkled all over the Lower East Side--but particularly between Avenue A and D where the worst abandonment in the neighborhood was--is that most of them are dense thickets of vegetetation, not really open spaces at all. In a sense, they echo the forest of richly decorated tenements around them, though not the regimentation of the rows of buildings. Aesthetically, they are chaotic, however lovingly tended, and express the civilized anarchy that brought them into being in the first place.


Urban wilderness at East 6th and Avenue B

The most striking thing about the 6th and B Garden is the tall wooden structure festooned with various found objects. I couldn't find the name of the person responsible for this famous folly, but a photograph on the garden's website referred to it as "Eddie's sculpture."

New York

Last nght there was heavy rain and wind, my ceiling leaked (an ongoing saga), and when I went out this morning I came across a half-block long sidewalk shed that had been blown down probably as the result of an advertising banner acting as a sail. As I posted further down, we should be issued hard hats in this neighborhood there is so much construction.


Temple Emanu-El and 4x5 camera

The weather brightened as the day wore on, and I dashed uptown to do a last photo for my Temple Emanu-El assignment. I stood on the corner of 65th and 5th Avenue for an hour waiting for traffic and sun. It's a busy corner because 65th is one of the few streets that crosses Central Park. Clouds swooshed across the sky, and the best moments were probably when weak sunlight filtered through the clouds. At this time of the year, the sun is low, and the trees in Central Park are still relatively full. So, direct sunlight is patchy and never illuminates the whole building. I then walked to the Apple store down the street and purchased a Wacom tablet, a versatile replacement for a mouse when working in Photoshop.


Dr. Strangelove on Mulberry Street

I snapped this on the way home from the subway.

New York/The Bowery

The Bowery (for my friend Art)

Everyday when I leave my apartment just off the Bowery on Stanton Street I have to navigate through the construction chaos of the New Museum. I've photographed this before with my digital camera, the red painted plywood and the blue netting. There's so much construction in the neighborhood that the city should issue hard hats to the residents. You pick your way through this red and blue tunnel as steel beams are hoisted overhead during the day and Bowery street denizens weave and slumber at night. PEDESTRIANS THIS WAY. So, you follow and suddenly find yourself confronted by Christy Turlington in red--it's the Bono campaign to raise money for AIDS--sitting in the lotus position, oblivious to the clang of steel and shouted epithets of the iron workers, oblivious to the huddled figures, the last of the Bowery bums, soon to be outnumbered by the bright shiny people come to see new art at the New Museum. And confronted yet again by a photograph by Annie Leibovitz, the most famous iconographer in the world.

New York/Lab

Finally beginning to print the portfolio images that I scanned some time ago: New York, Amsterdam, Berlin. The basic size for carrying around is 20x24 inches, but some will be much larger at 40x50. The picture above shows one of the big ones from the Amsterdam series.


Printing at Color Space Imaging

For those interested, most of the scans were done on an Imacon--a high end scanner--but I am now working with an inexpensive Epson V700 with stunning results. The 40x50 above was made from one of the Epson scans.

New York/Temple Emanu-El

Temple Emanu-El

I spent two days photographing the Temple Emanu-El on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Although the main sanctuary of Temple Emanu-El is impressive because of the sheer volume of uninterrupted space, highly detailed mosaics and intricately patterned ceiling painting compete with the large architectural gestures.


Chapel ark and mosaics

Adjacent to the sanctuary is a smaller chapel featuring Moorish arches and columns. The gem-studded ark, mosaic arch, and Tiffany window above, are spectacular.


Chapel from organ loft

I climbed up to the organist's loft and framed a shot of the chapel's chandeliers through one of the cuttouts in the wall. It's my "Casablanca" shot I told the architect from Beyer Blinder Belle, the firm that led the restoration of the temple. The main sanctuary is open to the public, and tours of the synagogue are also available.

Official temple website
nyc-architecture.com

New York/Temple Emanu-El

View southwest toward the rose window (4x5 film)

Last week I photographed the Temple Emanu-El on the Upper East Side. Two long days of shooting. It's an extraordinary building completed in 1929 displaying a dizzying mix of architectural styles including Gothic, Romanesque, Moorish, and Byzantine. But above all, it is an Art Deco building constructed at the height of that movement in New York. In its theatricality, the temple can even be compared to Radio City Music Hall finished just three years later in 1932, though its Moderne aspects are more subdued and partly obscured by other historical references.


View east toward the ark (4x5 film)

The building was largely intact when restoration was begun, but years of dirt and grime were removed to reveal the cacophany of color and pattern on the ceiling and the mosaic arches surrounding the arks in the main temple sanctuary and the smaller adjacent chapel. More photographs to come.

New York/Taxi

Been busy the last few days photographing Temple Emanu-El on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The largest synagogue in the world, so I hear. Pictures coming.

I spend a great deal of time navigating about town by subway and on foot, which is often the speediest way to go--but one is exposed to all the frenetic chaos of the city in the process. One of the quintessential New York experiences is the relative solitude of sitting alone in the back of a taxi cab watching the world go by. It's particularly evocative at night. Here are a few random snapshots from my cab, yesterday, heading uptown.


Midtown, New York City


Midtown, New York City


Midtown, New York City

New York/CBGB

CBGB, The Bowery and Bleecker Street, 2005 (4x5 film)

Last night I walked by CBGB, the final night of the club that helped launch punk rock and bands like Television (a favorite of mine), Talking Heads, the Ramones, and poet/performer Patti Smith. Just last year the Bottom Line, another legendary music club on E4th Street, closed its doors. Fortunately, there are still clubs and cafés on the Lower East Side and over in Brooklyn, but one wonders how long Manhattan will continue to function as an incubator for new art made on a shoestring by those living at the margins of society. It will, of course, remain the focus of those who have already arrived with its many theaters, concert halls, and museums.

I have my own story about coming to Manhattan to go to art school, finding an apartment in the East Village for $50 a month, and discovering the various underground scenes that sustained those of us pursuing art and music. Much was possible because of the cheapness of living spaces. Even the wild west frontier of vacant lots, abandoned buildings, and the real danger of crime offered inspiration or motive for a lot of creativity. I guess I am a bit more sanguine about these things than some of my friends who see the changes as evidence of the decline of western civilization.The Lower East Side is still an amazingly vibrant place, though cleaner, more expensive, less wide open. I count myself lucky to be here, just two blocks from the now-closed CBGB.

New York/LES

Back to work photographing the Lower East Side. I spent several hours late yesterday walking around the East Village. For many people, especially newcomers, the Lower East Side is a relatively small area between Houston and East Broadway excluding Chinatown. But historically, the LES was/is much larger. The tendency in New York, which is obviously driven by the real estate industry, is to parcel the city into smaller and smaller districts with catchy names. It all began with Soho, of course, (south of Houston), and there was an effort--not altogether successful---to call Hell's Kitchen Clinton. My apartment at Stanton and the Bowery is on the edge of Nolita, (north Little Italy). And so on. For the purpose of my project, the Lower East Side extends from 14th Street to the Brooklyn Bridge, and its western boundary is the Bowery/3rd Avenue. The East River, naturally defines the eastern boundary.


Houston and Avenue B

It was late, and the sun was setting, so I walked along Houston Street, which opens up more to the sky. I photographed the corner of Houston and Avenue B--not for the first time--where a new apartment building is almost finished. Next to it is a tenement with a windowless wall, created decades ago when Houston was widened, which nowadays serves as advertising space.

I continued up Avenue B and did several photographs of the 6th and B community garden noteworthy for the tall sculptural construction towering over it. I've tried a couple of times to photograph the garden, but either it's been closed, or the light wasn't right, whatever. This evening there was still a warm glow of light bouncing around, and I managed to shoot several views with the view camera. It was difficult moving around the narrow paths through the lush vegetation.


Joe Strummer memorial, 7th and Avenue A

Around the corner at 7th and A I arrived at the painted memorial to Joe Strummer, the great rock and roll genius of The Clash. The mural, by Zephyr and Dr. Revolt, is on a north facing wall, which in Manhattan means in shade except for summer mornings. So I'd been planning on photographing it on a cloudy day or in the evening, like now. The painting of the mural was the basis for a video of Strummer's version of Redemption Song, written by Bob Marley. Here is the video on YouTube:



From there I walked across East 7th to 2nd Avenue where I paused to make a photograph of Gem Spa, the newsstand and soda fountain that has been a fixture of the East Village since I moved to the neighborhood in 1977. Having run out of 4x5 film, I headed back down 2nd Avenue to my apartment. Along the way, I photographed this storefront psychic between 4th and 5th Streets with my digital camera.


Second Avenue between 4th and 5th

The future is unwritten.
--Joe Strummer

New York

After a few days in Amsterdam I am back in New York with work to do--photographing a newly restored synagogue and doing more Lower East Side photographs. Driving into Manhattan by taxi I heard that a plane had crashed into a building on the Upper East Side, which sent a momentary shiver of deja vue through me. It turned out to be a minor, though dramatic, accident with two deaths, one of them a pitcher for the New York Yankees. I've been up in helicopters around Manhattan four times to take photographs, and I've seen the level of traffic and lack of space. One has to wonder whether private planes should be allowed to fly freely in this area.


This morning I did my usual breakfast around the corner and snapped a picture of the construction of the New Museum at Prince and the Bowery.

Olomouc/Prague/Amsterdam

Olomouc, the Czech Republic

Olomouc is a city of only 100,000, and about 20,000 are students at the local university. So, while the city is small it is a relatively lively place, and the university helps make cultural events, like the documentary film festival I attended, possible. We didn't have much time for sightseeing, but my wife Renée and I walked the old city for about three hours, and poked into a few churches and courtyards. Although the history of Olomouc goes back centuries, the Baroque period is most evident, especially the fountains and statues found in the principal town squares.


Model of Olomouc historic center


Astronomical clock, city hall, 1953


Communist era architecture across from Gothic church


Titty Twister skateboard shop

The Communist period did some damage to the fabric of the old city, but the most obvious legacy of that time is found outside the center where large spread-out housing blocks were contructed. Since then, shopping centers with western chain stores have siphoned off some of the commercial vitality from the center. There is a curious mixture of new and old--cheap, unfashionable clothing and trendy casual wear--traditional arts and crafts shops vs. skateboards and sneakers. A MacDonalds has landed on the main square in front of the city hall.


Exhibit poster for my show


Wall with film festival/Vega concert poster--the orange ones

The most amazing thing we saw was the Archdiocese Museum in the Olomouc Castle. The castle is actually a collection of structures spanning the entire history of the city. The museum opened earlier this year. It is an ultra modern insertion into the historic architecture with ramps and passageways leading down to the ancient foundations of the castle. The contrast between modern and ancient is brilliantly handled by the architects. The museum contains the most important treasures of the city including a gilded coach (formerly used by the bishop), religious relics, paintings, and a spinnet which was used by Mozart while staying in Olomouc in the 18th century. The cathedral adjoining the museum is actually neo-gothic, largely built in the 19th century, though pieces of the earlier church building remain.


Archdiocese Museum


Archdiocese Museum grounds and St. Wenceslas Cathedral

From Olomouc we drove the four hours back to Prague where Suzanne again performed in a wonderful small theater seating about 300. The event was a book launch by our host David Hrbek who has been interviewing prominent Czech personalities for a number of years. The next day Renée and I walked through Prague for a few hours before flying back to Amsterdam.


Jan Palach memorial, Wenceslas Square, Prague

Olomouc, Czech Republic/Film Festival

Blogging from the Czech Repubic. I moderated a discussion with Suzanne Vega and filmmaker Chris Seufert about the process of making a documentary. In this case Chris making a film about Suzanne. A couple of clips from the film, still a work in progress, were shown, and then we talked for about an hour. The discussion was part of the International Film Festival in Olomouc.


Chris Seufert and Suzanne Vega in Olomouc in the Czech Republic

Last night Suzanne performed Tom's Diner for former Czech president Vaclav Havel via a live video link on the occasion of his birthday.


Suzanne Vega and Vaclav Havel (on screen)

Suzanne and I were guests at the closing party for my exhibition of photographs taken of her in 1980 and 1990. Unlike a typical New York gallery opening where one stands around with a wine glass making small talk, we were greeted by a barrage of cameras. Lots of video cameras this being a documentary film festival. The gallery was in the café of the Olomouc Museum of Art. The director of the museum gave a speech, and then Suzanne and I talked a bit about when and how the photographs were made. We then sat at a table signing autographs on exhibition brochures or copies of the festival newsletter. I never did get my glass of wine.


Standing in front of my photographs of Suzanne Vega


Signing autographs


Entrance to the museum café and gallery

More from Olomouc to come...

Amsterdam/9/11 Photo

There has been a lot of discussion about a photograph by Thomas Hoepker taken after the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11. The picture below is from a book called Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11 by David Friend. I haven't seen the book yet, so I will only address the Hoepker picture, which has been widely disseminated. Hoepker, apparently aware that his photograph might generate misunderstandings, waited more than four years before publishing it.


Photo by Thomas Hoepker

Frank Rich wrote in his weekly New York Times column:

Seen from the perspective of 9/11's fifth anniversary, Mr. Hoepker's photo is prescient as well as important—a snapshot of history soon to come. What he caught was this: Traumatic as the attack on America was, 9/11 would recede quickly for many. This is a country that likes to move on, and fast. The young people in Mr. Hoepker's photo aren't necessarily callous. They're just American. In the five years since the attacks, the ability of Americans to dust themselves off and keep going explains both what's gone right and what's gone wrong on our path to the divided and dispirited state the nation finds itself in today.

Many have taken issue with Rich's assertion that the photograph illustrates America quickly moving on. Two of the people shown in the photograph have come forward to say that contrary to their casual appearance they were deeply shocked by what was going on. One of them criticized Hoepker for making a picture so open to misinterpretation in advancement of his own career.

The other said:

I am also a professional photographer and did not touch a camera that day. Why? For many reasons including a now-obvious one: This somewhat cynical expression of an assumed reality printed in the New York Times proves a good reason. (Shame on Mr. Rich and Mr. Hoepker—one should never assume.) But most of all to keep both hands free, just in case there was actually something I could do to alter this day or affect a life, to experience every nanosecond in every molecule of my body, rather than place a lens between myself and the moment. (Sounds pretty "callous," huh?) I also have a strict policy of never taking a photograph of a person without their permission or knowledge of my intent.

***

As a photographer who usually deals with "real" situations, I am always aware of the "fiction" of the image. This dichotomy of the real and the fictional is what photography is about--what makes it powerful--and what makes it disturbing.

Moreover, the experience of an event does not necessarily unfold visually like Hollywood movies with heightened action and dramatized points of view. There are an infinite number of perspectives in time and space of an event. Many photographers seek to control meaning by creating images that confirm certain cultural habits of seeing and framing the world. I prefer to work against that way of seeing, though I know I can never truly escape it. Viewers of photographs bring those same cultural references to bear, often uncritically.

Photography is by definition a predatory act. One is always stealing, appropriating, and intruding. I have, or so I feel, a careful sense of ethical responsibility, but in the end I know that the images I take are not in themselves "humane" or "compassionate." They are what they are, take 'em or leave 'em.

With regard to the Hoepker image, it's interesting to have the photographer and two of the people depicted weigh in, but ultimately, the picture provides a simple narrative: that most of us witnessed the horror of this event from afar, passively--like it or not--in the uniform of the moment--appropriate or not--on a beautiful summer day. For me, that distance, with its aura of disengagement, makes the image all the more poignant and lasting.

***

BAGnewsNotes
Blog discussion of news images

David Friend
Website for the book