Berlin, 1989 (4×5 film) I read this morning in the New York Times that former East German spymaster Markus Wolf died yesterday, 17 years to the day of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Wolf epitomized the romantic image of the Cold War spy, especially as portrayed in John Le Carré’s novels. While the Cold […]

Brooklyn Bridge, 1983 (4×5 film) We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers […]

Pulling down statue of King George III, New York City, July 9, 1776 I posted this on the 4th of July earlier this year. Here it is again. The following song is loosely based on the Declaration of Indpendence. Lines taken or adapted from the original text are highlighted. The recording was done straight to […]

Barentszplein near our apartment It’s been gloomy here the past few days, and despite finally shaking my jetlag I remain listless and unmotivated. I walked my son to school this morning, and I passed the store window above. Mmm… Nah. I just have to make it through to Wednesday when, hopefully, my home country will […]

The Ij Flew back to Amsterdam after a productive two and half weeks in New York. The apartment here, the view–unfortunately the Netherlands has not offered much work or spiritual sustenance for me–and soon we may be moving to New York full time. Since I’ve been back the weather has been tempestuous with wind, rain, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Finally beginning to print the portfolio images that I scanned some time ago: New York, Amsterdam, Berlin. The basic size for carrying around is 20×24 inches, but some will be much larger at 40×50. The picture above shows one of the big ones from the Amsterdam series. Printing at Color Space Imaging For those interested, […]

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 […]

View southwest toward the rose window (4×5 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 […]

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 […]

CBGB, The Bowery and Bleecker Street, 2005 (4×5 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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]