Coney

titleSomewhere in my infinite Tumblr browsing I stumbled (or tumbld) across a beautiful set of long exposure images. They were black and white shots of carnival rides, with exposures just long enough to blur the lights (but not too long where everything goes psychedelic.) Those images stuck with me, and I decided to see what I could pull off at New York’s finest amusement park…Coney Island. With Winter looming and my window shrinking, I set out late one Sunday night to see what I could find.

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Contact | William

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Meet William, the very first subject I sent a copy of my photo too. He was walking around Washington Square Park with a beautiful Pentax 67 (complete with wooden grip!) and it was the first time that I had ever seen the camera in person. At this point I wasn’t as comfortable taking portraits of strangers, but I had it in my head that I would take photos of people with cool cameras (the theory being that they were photographers, so they would be less inclined to say no). So I circled the park a couple times, gathering up the nerve to ask. He couldn’t have been nicer, and later I realized HE also walked around the city taking portraits. In fact his Flickr account, especially his older stuff, turned out to be a big reason why I started taking the Hasselblad out onto the streets. I hadn’t seen that “look” before, and I fell in love. Anyway, he was also the first person to respond to my image, and the resulting conversation is worth the read.

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Contact | Ronne

contact2RonnieWhen I take someone’s photograph, I make a point to stop and chat with them. This wasn’t always the case. I started very much in the “run and gun” mindset, steal the photo with as little interaction as possible. But I realized that if I took the time to ask permission and introduce myself , I could get the exact photo I wanted while learning a little about the person in it. Whenever possible, I take down the subjects’ contact information so that I can share the results  with them. Though it may take days, weeks or even months, I love sending out images and waiting for a response. Most times it’s radio silence, I’m not sure if people don’t know how to respond or if they simply hate the photo, but every once and a while somebody writes back. CONTACT is a new segment on the blog dedicated to those rare responses…

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Tribute In Light

Scan-130915-0010It started with a email from Sarah asking if I wanted to partake in a “mini photo expedition,” with the goal of photographing the 9/11 Tribute in Lights. Of course I was in, who did she take me for? Getting excited, I reminded her about my attempt last year, and cautioned against trying to photograph the lights with the Brooklyn Bridge in the foreground by crossing ON the Brooklyn Bridge…that wasn’t my smartest gameplan ever.

Her response was perfect “I don’t want the shot everyone gets. I want something different.”

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