City Frames

New York frames its own art.

She Will Carry Them All

Wood Writ

Birch trees have short fibers, making the bark easily usable as paper. Some Gandharan Buddhist texts from the first century were written on birch bark. In Russia we've found fragments of birch bark with an archaic dialect of Karelian written on it, unspoken for hundreds of years.The Ojibwa people of North America used the tree's bark to record their rituals, their families and the motion of the stars.

It's a tree with special significance to writers, so it's only fitting to shoot Sara on one. A writer and a poet with a real ability to conjure up feelings in people, Sara's been a real inspiration over the past week.

She oozes ideas, and we haven't properly sat down to plan a shoot yet. At least not very far in advance. Everything's been straight up improvised and off the cuff based on the location and light that was available, in addition to some wardrobe pilfering. She took to being in front of the camera really easily, like she was made for it.

I can't wait to try some more experimental things. I want to bring some lights on our next shoot and see what can be done with them - this series was a little limited by the setting sun. We moved indoors to the D'Angelo Center to continue, but I'd like to return to that location again with some more equipment.

So excited.

More to come.

How's the Earth Fare?

It's Earth Day today, and as good a time as any to show off some pictures from the Earth Fair that was held at St. John's University this week before Easter break. They had a bunch of cool pieces of art on display that incorporated bits of trash and repurposed it to make it into something beautiful. Tin can lanterns and chains of milk jugs hung from posts, making a kind of drum music on the Great Lawn. This piece above, a globe with painted bottles affixed to it, really caught my eye. I suggested they have an auction to raise funds for charity with these pieces, mostly because I really wanted to own that bottle sculpture.

There weren't a lot of people milling through the fair due to the rain, even though they had speakers and announcements going through a bullhorn all around campus. Emily toughed out the weather to talk to people about the importance of pollinators. She chatted about bee extinctions and cocaine addicted bats excitedly despite the cold drizzle.

Erin was handing out basil, marjoram and chive plants in halved cans for people to take home for free. She agreed to pose with my newly liberated basil plant which I've named John Cleese.

Face It

Hes been here before, but I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned how consistently awesome Tom looks in front of a camera. It's not even that he pulls faces - although he can definitely pull some great ones - hes expressive all the time. Some people just have faces that hold interesting feelings and have lines that always work. You can train yourself to be like this, spend a lot of time looking in a mirror and seeing what your face can do, trying to look expressive in conversation. It's a skill that can definitely be acquired, but some people just do it naturally. I like to think of these people all being in the same club: The Cool Face Club.

Tom is definitely in the Cool Face Club.

Here is a sequence of faces he made Skype-ing to a friend:

Len(d)s

Went on an adventure to Brooklyn last week to hand off an old lens to an old friend. Was pretty cool, seeing Roxanne in her new digs. Got to see Pratt and the surrounding sketch area. It's the sort of place you hear stuff about but don't see very often - hipster central. Bastions of craft and care next to untended lots and packed apartments. It's the kind of thing I'd rather show than tell, which means I'll probably be taking a trip back sometime soon.

Besides art, the real reason I want to go back is because of some biscuits I had while there. Roxanne took me to a place called Maggie Browne, and before we even got there the biscuits had been talked of with a kind of holy reverence. When they finally arrived, I almost didn't want to eat them because that would mean I could no longer smell them. I got over it though, and they disappeared before any pictures could be taken. I forget the rest of the meal - I think I had a fried fish po boy and Roxanne had some fried egg jalapeño on top of grits thing that I wound up finishing.

But those biscuits..

Rabbit Run!

Had a blast at Chinese New Years Parade this past Sunday. First time going to it at all, and I was amazed at how many people pack into the tiny streets. Streets that, frankly, are hard to navigate with a normal amount of foot traffic.



Packed ten deep on streets, a lot of times all I could do was hold my camera straight up and hope it caught something worthwhile. It worked well enough here I think.



This group on the fire escape had the best view of the whole parade. As it went past them, they'd let off the screw-operated confetti guns onto the cheering people below.

The dragon dance follows circuitous paths, reminiscent of a winding river. It's so fluid it makes you forget that it's ten people hoisting poles underneath some canvas and not a real dragon.

The best bits were the people, especially the children, dressed in their best and cheering in celebration.