Big City, Small City

January 2010

Amadu stopped me in the street one day in January, and began talking to me. After a few minutes, I realized that he is a local celebrity. He talks with half the people that pass him by, and works all over the neighborhood. Even though I have left Chinatown, I try to come by and hang out with Amadu for a little while each time I'm around. It is beginning to become ritual, to talk about how nobody else helps to keep the street clean, the neighborhood, work, change. Amadu also poses for tourists as the Statue of Liberty. I took a picture of him 14 months ago, before we became friends. I was stunned when I realized this, since New York City can seem so big sometimes, and then again so small.

Small, yet personal relationships are beginning to have an impact on my photography. Usually I take the "grab and go" approach to taking photographs of people on the street, avoiding all personal interaction. It has been a new experience for me to make a connection before I bring out the camera, that establishment of trust that takes the right moment to ask for a picture. It wouldn't matter if Amadu had said no, but in fact I couldn't get him to just be natural and not pose! His interaction with the camera was almost mechanical for him. Striking peace signs, sweeping at half speed, and making sure we were in good light for the portrait.

The end of summer, last of the street festivals

It was a sausage fest

 "It was basically a sausage fest," my brother, Nicholas later said.  And that was true.  It was one of the better days I have had in a long time.  I always do enjoy when all of us men get together, for my brothers are at least starting to look like men, and somehow we often manage an adventure out of each afternoon.  Gene, my father, was given a rude awakening when the police asked him to toss his open container.  "Aahh, the old days are gone," he said, or something to that effect.  I use to remember walking around the prospect park area with him, beer in paper bag. I think he enjoyed a cold one out in the park.

The Parade

These pictures are from a few weeks ago, but hey, sometimes I get to them right away, and sometimes I don't.

In the San Genarro Festival, you can see that many things change, while others stay the same.  Little Italy is not what it use to be.  I live in an apartment that was at one time an Italian neighborhood.  This tenement building, well south of Canal, has long been a predominantly Chinese neighborhood.  At San Genarro they did extend the festival from Canal to just short of Houston on Mulberry, but normally Little Italy is much more compact in its reach.  It was a great day, walking from the dumpling festival, through the Lower East Side, and then back again to Mulberry.  The warmth felt like an extension of summer.  There is no better way to end the season of the street fairs by having Zeppolis, Sausage, Dumplings, Belgian fries, Empanadas, and sliders in your stomach all at once, and a long walk to burn the food off!

Local

Making new friends

We should always be asking ourselves, "how do we get better"?  I am crossing a threshold where it is becoming more and more important to approach my subject, and get to know them.  My new friends, Lola and Co., would not have appreciated if I had stolen a snapshot of them.  My experience talking with them was valuable and also fulfilling to have established a connection.  Maybe I would have gotten one good shot, but I am certainly glad to make their acquaintance instead, and maybe become friends in the future.

Certainly the result is something more that I was able to take away not only in the photograph, but an experience that was shared with my subjects.  I sat up in my office, thinking about them for most of the day as I typed, googled, e-mailed, and ate lunch...

Colored pig flesh

Decided I wanted to think about these in color more than I wanted to see them in black and white. Lisa saw them before the conversion to black and white, and wanted to see the skin tones of the pigs to show through. Might be realizing I'm not much of a black and white photographer.

Open Wide

The first couple weeks of being back have been a transition, as I said. Step out the door, and I am hit with the familiar, but powerful smells of the neighborhood. It was almost choking down under the Manhattan Bridge. During the winter, the transition of living here into the spring and then beginning of summer, I had time to acclimate to the sounds and smells on the streets. Thrown back into it, I am struggling to keep my balance.



I may move in the coming months, but what will I do when my favorite subject is no longer also the place that I live? Living the transition, I will lightly weather back to the usual smells of the New York City streets. I miss walking out the door to a "normal" set of smells and sights, less garbage maybe. What is the overall price we pay to live here, clustered, stacked on one another? I love New York.

Back in New York City

How else does one return to NYC than a trip to Coney Island? I could think of no better reintroduction to the subways, the culture, or to connect present with past.


Photographing didn't make it that far, only to take pictures with some kids from the Bronx who made the long trip across the entire city to reach the beach. At each station, they would race to a car up the train, seeing how many cars they could pass before the doors close.


It was pointed out to me that it is a different kind of relationship between photographer and subject when the subject is aware of being photographed. These kids at first yelled at me for taking their photo, but I was able to show them a few of the shots, making them more comfortable with me. Afterward, their role was performer, and I the recorder.


The only question for me is, does the viewer know any difference, between when the subjects are aware of the photographer, and when they were not? More often, engaging the subject, to ask or find out otherwise how to allow for the relationship to begin, is the hardest part.