flashback: june 30, 2007

this actually is still on the 40 image slim edit of eldridge street. gosh, i have to go through a reedit.

earth celebrations

i wish i could have such quick turn around times on the mermaid parade. shoot saturday, post monday. most people on the blog-o-sphere post the same evening. alas this is not the mermaid parade but the hudson river pageant i shot in early may.

years ago, earth celebrations would parade through the community gardens around the lower east side and east village in an event called the rites of spring. there were puppets, people where in face paint, and it was set in mid spring to revel in the oncoming warmer weather. it would also give publicity to the need to save the community gardens of the neighborhood. i photographed it three times, the best part is they would costume up the photographers as well.

the event went into hiatus for the last five years becauase of funding. this year, they transformed it into the hudson river pageant. so i felt and obligation to bring the cameras out for it. it was nice to see some of the old puppets out and about again.

loosey goosey edit here.

is there still a coney island?

most people i know are fair weather photographers. they will take the camera out the skies are blue and a gentle summer breeze is in the air.

it's been raining almost non-stop since may here in new york. and today proved not much different. this morning the forecast was solid rain.

what better than to head to the mermaid parade in coney island. i've been looking for something slightly different to shoot.

foul weather festivals are great because there's just not as much competition from other photographers. the lighting is consistent. it's easier to get access. and everyone there really wants to be there.

so i put on the waterproof jacket, the tevas and luchador mask and headed on the d train. a beer, two dogs, six rolls off film later i hopped back on the d train back to the city.

one of the initiatives was to "fix the plan" to stop a 27 story hotel complex from being built on coney east, the same area of the wonder wheel and nathans.

pictures to come, maybe -- two more weeks of printing ethiopia.

no more virgins

today was the last day at virgin megastore. i had a feeling last september, but didn't think it would really happen.

everything was 90% off, though there really wasn't much to pick out for. during the past few weeks. i picked up what may be the last set of cds that will buy. everything from 30% off to 70% off. lee ann womack -- crazy; once soundtrack; i'm not there sound track; allison krauss/robert plant -- raising sand; amaia montero; snow patrol -- final straw. i wish i knew more music to pick up.

virgin used to be close at midnight and provided a logical stop between icp and home. aircon in the summer time, a bit of heating in the winter time.

there were so many other options only a few years ago. i could drop by half a dozen different places to listen to a complete cd. besides the two virgins there was barnes and nobles, the wiz, tower records. i would even be able to sit aorund in magazine shops til past midnight reading. the only things to do past 10pm now is going to a bar or a club.

so much for the city that never seeps.

oh, i also bought half a dozen cameras.

the last picture show

this is my final evening of television. so now i'm going through the choices of...

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2 WCBS Comics Unleashed With Byron Allen
4 WNBC Last Call With Carson Daly
5 WNYW King of the Hill
7 WABC Oprah Winfrey
9 WWOR Malcolm in the Middle
11 WPIX Frasier
13 WNET The Natural History of the Chicken
21 WLIW Victor Borge: 100 Years of Music & Laughter!
25 WNYE Africa Trek
31 WPXN Swivel Sweeper
41 WXTV Contra Viento y Marea
47 WNJU Universal Church
50 WNJN The Mother Road
68 WFUT Así Es la Vida

tomorrow, the analog broadcast signal dies. it is likely i will buy a digital tv in the coming months, too bad they don't make a 5" black and white one like what i am using now.

incidently, the natural history of chicken isn't really on. channel 13 really has a traffic/mass transit/transportion program on.

i'm going to miss being able to tune in and tune out.

stache

j-139eldridge busted me with an iphone.

i have to start writing iphone apps -- but first a shave.

flashback: june 9, 2004

innesheer, ireland.

it's not even a good photo by any means. but i was amused at the sign posting on the small island off the western coast of ireland.

the entire trip was played by ear.

a week earlier i had gotten a gig ch. i found out k-cork had an extra ticket to a chili peppers/pixie concert the following week. only catch -- it was in phoenix park, dublin.

so, i booked a ticket. new york to dublin, dublin back to new york.

i had to go to one more meeting with ch. it was coerced to be four hours before my red-eye flight.

flying to dublin there was a stop over in shannon. 20 minutes before landing on irish soil i decided to get off the plane there. ended up in ennis for breakfast and decided to base myself in doolin for the few days. hike around the cliffs of moher, the burrens and the arran islands.

i don't remember 9th, too much. log entry looks like:

another day, another hike. legs a bit beat. hopefully bounce back by tomorrow fanere -> blackhead and around. might want to photo copy those pages.

today was quiet, a 9.15 wake up too late really, but the boat was at 10 and there really isn't too much to do in town -- except drink. not the best of bases maybe i should stay in finore tomorrow.

still have to get a phone card to call k-cork, have to do that tonight. hopefully hit dublin by midday friday. squeeze in a nap and a museum before dinner, but we'll leave that for another day.

for the weekend i would make it to dublin to stay with k&a-cork and catch a concert with them.

(side note story...)

my flight was the day after, it was bloomsday. between getting up lazily and traffic, i missed my flight. i would have to start at ch the next morning.

i calmly went to the counter. "so, when's the next flight to new york?" "tomorrow." "tommorrow?!" "yes."

i looked up at the big board.

"is the flight to boston full?" "let's see... no, but you'll have to hurry through the gates to board" "i'll take it."

landed in logan, t to chinatown, chinatown bus to new york. turns out would get home before i would have by taking my original flight which had a stopover in shannon.

i figure i will only get lucky like that once every five years.

flashback: june 2, 1997

people often wonder how can traditional newspapers take on the beasts that are craigslist and google.

one of the solutions thought of is why don't the newspapers just join forces to become a huge consortium. they have the market, the writers, and some of the infrastructure.

little do most people know, they tried. in the late '90s. new century networks (ncn) was formed by nine major news conglomerates -- the new york times, cox, gannet, hearst, knight ridder, tribune, times-mirror, advance and washinton post. there goal was to bounce content off of each other, sell advertising in a broad yet targeted way.

in early '98, the company folded. the large papers were afraid that the smaller papers would take away readership. the smaller papers were afraid that the larger papers always got say into what the direction of the group should go into.

the day marks the first day into salaried workforce. i worked for ncn as a network engineer and quickly became a website programmer. the people were good, and there were a handful of dotcom startups that spawned from the relationships of ncn. i missed the chance at my millions not joining c-mail afterwards.

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it was a beautiful weekend in the city.

unfortunately i spent the entire time underground, assisting a class. i also made about 30 work prints, from good friday in ethiopia. didn't get much sleep because mm-drc was in town and i was "obliged" to take a drink or two with the slew of ex-peacecorpers.

i am pooped.

all i wanted to do was get home and veg out in front of "now" on pbs. unfortunately, it's pledge drive time, yet again. it seems like theres is a pledge drive every months now.

i'm all for pbs asking for money, but they play the worst super nostalgic music all the time during pledge drive that drive me insane. tonight, is brit rock -- clapton and windword, it is just a small step over the remember the 50s drives.

17 more days of televison for me. and i probably have to spend the duration watching pledge drives. *oye*

two months behind

b-icp asked do you normally print up things a month or so behind because you edit better at that time. i responded, no i'm just consistantly that far behind all the time.

i finished printing up my new york palm sunday stuff a week ago. it takes me another week to scan and upload them.

so flash back to two months ago, new york.

new york is my home. so, unlike all my other holy week venues, i have the advantage of going for exactly want i am looking for. i could also plan out where the light would be at what time and work out how long or short to stay at each location. the past palm sunday i wanted a gritty feel. i wanted to make the palms the star of the shoot and have the backdrop always as the city.

reconstructing the past

over the trip to ethiopia, both my web server and back up servers crashed. over the past month, i've slowly started putting back the pieces. in addition, i got some new hardware upgrades that only put my 5 years behind the curve (instead of ten). but the end is in sight.

the major hurdle and fear that what i would lose is my email history of everything i sent and received for the past fifteen years. there not much in it for any one else, but i is a quick pointer for me back to the past. it helps me flashback.

i still need a better backup solution to solve both computers going down at the same time.

flashback: may 12, 2007

adam purple

when i was a kid there were series of purple footprints that were painted all over the city. i would wonder where they were coming from and where they were going. more so i wondered who put them there.

it wasn't until i started my eldridge street project that i discovered adam purple. in the late 70s and early 80s, adam squated in the lower east side creating a community garden on eldridge between stanton and rivington -- "the garden of eden." with his then girlfriend, "eve" of course, they created a huge garden that spanned the block. it was setup into concentric patterns surrounding a ying-yang pattern. from pictures it was quite impressive.

in 1985, the city -- guliani, city attorney general at the time -- got was fed up with these community squating projects and decided to bulldoze the gardens to put up the low income housing units that stand today. in protest, adam laid down the purple foot print that went around the city starting at the site of the garden of eden, and ending in city hall.

two years ago i finally got to guts to meet up an talk to adam purple. he showed me one of the trees in the 'l.e.s Infil' projects that was planted during the garden of eden period and allowed me to take one picture of him -- "because cameras corrupt". (new server; old ip; yippee, now to setup the rest of the server.)

slim

flying home, i looked at my seat and commented to my neighbor, "these seats must be getting thinner because i'm clearly not getting any bigger."

link

catching up on my news and i found that. i'm generally not much for posting links but in a follow-up to my blog post from last year flying to rome. maybe fewer passengers will overflow into my area while i'm flying.

combatting jetlag

there is no easy answer to combatting jetlag. sometimes methods work, sometimes they don't. i try to shock my body back into local time.

i just flew back home a few hours ago. took the #62 local bus out of the airport (twice, went in the wrong direction the first time). got a good hot shower, in all of the four weeks away, not one hotel room had a consistant shower for more than two days. and ate some chinese food.

that lasted me until about 6pm local time.

for my plan to work i have to stay up until midnight.

my last real sleep ended at 7.30am monday morning addis time. (12.30a, new york time). sure i drifted in and out of sleep (at the museum, at the airport, after the horrible movies of the first flight, at the other airport, before the horrible movies of the second flight, after those horrible movies of the second flight) but i haven't been horizontal in so long.

the plan. fix my server. over the time away both my servers crashed and i have to figure out why and what i have to rebuild. i hope to get the email up, webserver (if you are seeing this i've succeeded), spam filters and scheduled services up. sleep devrivation may win or i may have to redo everything i did.

what were the movies? the reader -- put together well, but eh; twilight -- i want my 2 hours back for that; inkheart -- i don't care what e-guydrive says brendan frasier is terrible; he's just really not into you -- with that many stars, you think it would have been something done better.

palm sunday, round 2

orthdox palm sunday here in lalibela.

i walked to the sunken rock hewned churches with the other parishioners at 5.30 in the morning well the dawn just breaking. the locals were shrouded in white.

four hours, eleven rolls of film and a cup of coffee later, i'm tired.

i was rewarded with a palm ring by the guy selling bootleg ethiopian chanting music outside the church. my hope is that one day he sells dvd bootlegs of my book.

i'll try to repeat it again tomorrow -- except i'll try to arrive to the church even earlier.

p.s. i forgot to bring my address book and my server is still down, so i have no ones info. so if you desire a postcard email me your address.

palm sunday in the city

four churches, two processions, five services. reading from the gospel of mark all over the place. i think 14 rolls of film. i'm pooped, but i might try to process the film tonight.

filipino reprints

san fernando, pampangas, philippines

for the past few years, before i go away for my holy week trip, i reprint images from the holy week four years prior. the main reason is my printing skills have become better. i would like to think i've become a better editor and can catch images that i missed.

a good two-thirds of my reprints overlap the original edit. it gives some validation to the images i selected the first time around.

above is from four years ago in the philippines. i had lots of whipping shots. but originally i didn't notice to two figure on either side. so this was one of the images that made it into this group of edits.

(Printed in 2005; Just printed)

even though it caught my eye this time, it might not make my complete project edit. that is down to about 50 images over the last seven years of work. ultimately, i have stronger images from that day that just fit more easily in the series.

it is nice to know it is there.

this routine may prove to be a problem next year as i have over 150 work prints from seville in 2006.

timor aid

i got this in the mail this morning.

this is absolutely the most moving postcard front i have ever received. it is by the australian photographer jon lewis and it goes towards the OMT women's organisation of east timor. k-livealittle sent it to me on a recent weekend there.

i should shoot for ngos.

flashback: march 24, 1998

san jose, costa rica

eleven years ago today was a landmark day, i truly opened my eyes that day. it was the first time that i had traveled abroad. the dot-com newspaper conglolmerate disbanded the company i was working for and i had a little break in work from the other dot-com start-up i was working for.

at the same time, g-thefamilyc had submitted his resignation to bvideo, along with his worker manifesto.

we decided to touch down to costa rica. he had heard great things about it. i was still wet under the ears and had never flown internationally in my adult live.

at that time, g-thefamilyc was already a seasoned traveler. spanning only one week long, the memories filled up my head to the point of near explosion. i still can close my eyes and imagine the rainforest and the beaches.

it got me hooked unto the travel. i still travel for the feeling of coming home to close my eyes and get carried away. eleven years later, i've been to six continents, forty-five countries and countless airports. it seems ever three to four months i'm away.

the above picture doesn't look like much. it just a street in san jose near our hotel, but it was one of the first i took abroad. then i packed just two disposable 35mm cameras. in someways i envy that past.

in two weeks, i go away again. and i have to decide whether to bring a medium format slr with 2 lenses with a 35mm rangefinder 2 more lenses and a point & shoot; or four 35mm cameras (2 rangefinders, one slr, one point & shoot) with 5 lenses. either case i will be packing about 120 rolls of film.

photography gives me a chance to not be that jaded traveler and keep my eyes open towards enlightenment.

flashback: march 17, 2008

segasta, sicily, italy.

a year ago, k-livealittle texted me. "it's saint patricks day, listen to your favorite u2 song." being in italy for a month i had forgotten about it, i put my earphones on and played 'one' on my audio recorder. i then texted k-cork a happy saint paddies day.

this day was the calm within the storm. the previous day i spent in marsala photographing a palm sunday procession. i followed that up by returning to trapani visiting churches getting ready for the rest of holy week. from tuesday on, i would not have a full night of sleep until easter sunday night.

e-bazan stopped by with his holy week workshop students. i had met him four months earlier in oaxaca mexico during day of the dead. for the rest of the week, i would be running into his class all the time.

segasta was pretty. the spring flowers were in bloom. instead of taking the two euro bus up to the ruins, i hiked it. i got to breath in the fresh air.

now my thoughts go to ethiopia. the time between palm sunday and holy thursday may be spent hiking through the countryside with an ngo.