주차장 “HRM”
Tonight is our last night of self-quarantine. Over the last fourteen days the city has become a speck seen from our window. Tomorrow its immensity will rise to meet us again.
Brave new world!
Trash
During our self-quarantine we dry all fruit peels and then freeze them. We hang on to all our trash, which will be collected on day 14 by the city and disposed of separately to that of the general population.
Two more days till freedom!
Letting go
It’s so good to see her finally let go and feel at ease.
This morning she reminded me of the woman she was when I fell in love so desperately twelve years ago. This morning she reminded me of the woman she has become and who has brought all good things into my life.
Noah’s Ark
10PM and the day is drawing to a close. Mami begins setting up another elaborate surprise for when the twins wake up the following morning.
I’m sure not even Noah’s Ark contained so many wild beasts.
Equation
Emotionally exhausted by all we’ve been through, but four negatives plus twelve more days equals freedom.
And it’s the sweetest equation I’ve ever heard.
JFK —> ICN
JFK
After much soul searching we decided to take our chances and leave New York to travel to Seoul. HRM and I felt our family was just too vulnerable in the city.
The journey here was arduous and now we begin a fourteen day self-quarantine. We have to self-diagnose daily on a government app and there are stiff fines if we don’t comply. We will be tested in three days time. But it’s all part of keeping everybody safe.
Although we will have to wait two weeks to embrace our Korean family, they made sure we have a full fridge, fresh flowers, soju and home cooked meals waiting for us. We are so happy and relieved to be here!
i3 Lectures move to Zoom
One of my favorite gigs is curating and organizing the i3 Lecture Series for the Masters in Digital Photography program at the School of Visual Arts. I’ve been doing this for ten years now and our archive of talks is well over one hundred.
Yesterday was our first online Zoom platform i3 Lecture.
We started promptly at 7PM and that was just in time for the daily neighborhood salute to essential workers: pots and pans clanging out the window, neighbors clapping and cheering their appreciation to the heroes who are battling COVID-19.
Here's a screen capture of Tommy Kha during our Q+A - looking not unlike one of his famous cut-outs of himself ;)
Tommy, thank you for a stellar lecture and for being such a good sport adapting to this new and untried format.
In Memoriam, Robert Herman
The metier of a street photographer is to traverse the city unseen, incorporeal. A gifted few, like Robert Herman rise above the role of witness to conjure and coax poetry out of light, color and form.
We live in the strangest of times when simple things like pausing to talk to a stranger, embracing a friend or sitting at a table in a coffee shop can place us at risk, or endanger others. The city, as Robert knew it, has vanished. And he is gone from it too.
Yesterday we gathered to remember and celebrate his life and legacy. It was good to come together, feel the love and shed a tear. Even if we did so at a virtual remove, which was equal parts beautiful and surreal.
Thank you Tom Ashe and MPS DP for the moving tribute you put together.
Media features
Any media feature will be fundamentally different than a long term documentary project. In essence, a media feature asks the subject to represent his or her life and compress it to fit a scripted story of a few minutes duration. After the NYT published my work on Olmedini, there was an immediate response from media outlets requesting features.
I've tagged along on a few of those shooting BTS and paying close attention to how the media chooses to represent him. Without exception, visiting crews have tried to recreate my photographs as if they were the script to follow. So that instead of looking at Olmedini directly they look at him twice removed. Furthermore, none of them have acknowledged their debt to my images and have instead treated the story as if they were breaking it for the first time.
But I will say that Victor Javier Solano of Noticiero Univision 41 was an exception to this rule. He did his homework in terms of research and drafted probing and sensitive questions for the magician. At Olmedini's request, he also interviewed me on camera. My favorite moment in their feature is when a homeless guy approaches in the subway and kisses Olmedini's hands, telling the story of how the magician had more than once fed him when he was in need.
Windows
Like poets nostalgic for the world outside their window, looking out and looking in, lost in reverie.
Smiles like pianos with a few missing keys.
Falling down laughing at jokes meant only for one another.
Waking up from a nap and rapping loudly on the bedroom door to let us know you’re up.
Flexing your index fingers and whispering “charka, charka” every time you catch sight of our cameras resting on the shelf.
Holding onto mami while you sleep, like pilgrims to their prayer.
Olin and Luca, we will always be in your debt: we gave you life and you returned it twofold.
You arrived; we became.
Alone
I always thought dating a photographer would be cosmically redundant. Then I met HRM and I realized photography could also be the glue that held us together. Our art has always taken pride of place and we support each other through thick and thin. So when HRM was invited to Blue Star Contemporary for an important exhibition of her work, there was no question in my mind that she should be there to install and open the show.
In practice, this meant that she would leave the twins for the first time in fifteen months. Left unsaid, but possibly of equal importance, was the fact that papi would take care of them on his own while she was away: feed them, bathe them, keep them happy and well. HRM cried when she left for LGA and she cried every time she saw Luca and Olin on Skype. The twins would laugh and kiss the screen of my phone when they saw her on the other end. For the most part they were perfect angels the four days she was away. Luca would ask for mami a couple of times a day and cry a bit when he realized she wasn’t there. Olin is more reserved with his emotions and mostly kept it all in. On the fourth day however, he went and stood silently by the front door, staring at it. After a while, he turned around, found my eyes and asked for her. I could see the pain in his face and I explained - again - why mami had to leave for a few days and promised she would come back that night.
HRM arrived after they had gone to sleep. We decided it would be best if they saw her in the morning. But while I was getting ready for bed, Olin cried and HRM went in to soothe him. When he realized it was her, there were tears of relief… and anger. There was confusion too, as if he was unsure if this was real or a dream. Luca woke up and soon they were both sobbing uncontrollably. Even though they wanted to be held, they averted their eyes from her and looked away. Hurt. It took us a long time to calm them down. The next morning, awake and refreshed, they bounced back. Olin ran around pointing at HRM and then at me, calling us out, over and over again, celebrating our reunion. Luca was blissful too. Last summer, when I was forced to be away for weeks at a time, it was probably hardest on me. They babies were just happy to see me again. But their sense of time has evolved and the complexity of their emotions has deepened as well. Also, it’s different when babies are separated from their primary caregiver, which in our household is HRM. They feel their trust has been broken in a fundamental way.
As I weighed all of this in my mind, I couldn’t help but think of migrant infants, not much older than Olin and Luca, separated from both their parents by cold, unfeeling beaurocrats at the border; grief-stricken children left utterly alone and hopeless. They are put in cages. The damage to their psyche seems catastrophic, incalculable to me, their wounds indelible. As a country, we have failed them, even though they are not our own.
Departure
Magifest, here we come! And I can safely say, there is no better dressed passenger than Olmedini El Mago.
The road to Magifest
I arrived in El Barrio early this morning to help Olmedini prepare for his headliner performance in this year's edition of Magifest in Ohio. This is one of the biggest stages in magic and we are thrilled to be a part of it!
https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/magic-conventions/magifest/#performers
One-on-one
Does your New Year’s resolution include becoming a better photographer or taking your practice next level up?
Aside from my own artistic practice, I dedicate a significant part of my time to being an educator. I'm on Faculty in the Masters in Digital Photography program at the School of Visual Arts and also in the One Year Conservatory in Photography at New York Film Academy. I teach workshops internationally in countries like Cuba, China, and across Latin America.
A couple years back, I started tutoring privately, one-on-one. I've had students from distant countries like Russia or Turkey come to study with me; students as young as High School or as accomplished as full-time art world professionals. Mentoring is a beautiful process because it is targeted to meet specific goals and help identify and develop individual strengths and craft strong personal visions.
Write me if you're interested and we can begin creating the course of studies which best suits your needs.
Photo by Yana Nosenko
Manhattan Menagerie
We are getting ready to welcome the New Year in our Manhattan Menagerie!
Among their Holiday gifts, Luca and Olin got a ladybug with wheels they can ride on. It’s a nicely crafted thing: minimalist and charmingly designed, upholstered in soft naugahyde, with antennae that look like black lollipops and wheels that spin 360.
At one point HRM gave the ladybug a push and rolled it over in Olin’s direction. Olin thought the ladybug had come alive and moved of its own volition. It threw him into a bit of a panic. While HRM was busy comforting him, Luca played on with the toy.
Noticing Olin’s distress, Luca took action, pushing the toy clear across the living room to the front door and then hiding it behind our stroller: out of his brother’s line of sight.
In 2020, may we learn to become better keepers of one another.
New Interview for VSI
Thank you Shlomi Ron and the Visual Storytelling Institute in Miami, I enjoyed being interviewed for your podcast series on the subject of Visual Literacy.
https://www.visualstorytell.com/blog/what-makes-a-photo-tells-a-story
Willets Point revisited (by the NYT)
Many people have written me in relation to the NYT article on Willets Point which was published yesterday. The Times assembled a talented team and the photographs are beautiful. But the images misrepresent what happened there and essentially miss the mark journalistically.
I photographed Willets Point during its heyday, back in 2009-2010, when the mechanics didn’t realize yet that the end of their epic, decades-long battle with the city was fast approaching. The work I did is collected in the book YONKEROS, published by La Fabrica Editorial, Madrid, 2013.
Little remains of the Willets Point I loved and knew so well. All of my friends are long gone from the junkyards. And the area is in a sort of twilight zone with the neighborhood renewal project stagnating for years now.
The piece in the Times revisits the few gladiators who are still there, who were too broke and shattered to leave the arena of their defeat.
Jiayang, coffee and twins
Being a father of twins means perpetually multi-tasking, like a juggler high up on a tightrope, wearing a clown costume.
On the rare occasion the kids decide to sleep in for 15 minutes you feel overwhelmed with the feeling of freedom and possibility.
Immediately, I knew what I wanted from my fifteen minutes in heaven: french press of Antigua coffee and Jiayang Fang’s New Yorker piece on Hong Kong. But first things first: I hastily washed and cut a half pint of blueberries for the twins and set up for their breakfast. I also prepared bowls of different cereals for papi and mami.
I sat down with the magazine, poured a cup of coffee and started reading; it was as brilliant as I knew it would be. For weeks, I had been following Jiayang’s Twitter dispatches from HK as she meticulously prepared her piece. Her essay opens with a riveting scene in City Hall, which most days functions as a performance space. A troupe of students is boldly putting on a play about the protests, which are simultaneously happening on the streets outside.
A page and a half in, I reached for a bowl of cereal, poured in the milk and when I went to take a spoonful realized I had taken HRM’s bowl instead of mine. My forehead crumpled in disbelief, but I was hardly surprised at myself.
Then I heard the sounds of Luca and Olin stirring awake in the bedroom.
Last look
There’s always a great sense of accomplishment when you see your work on display in an exhibition, and then a tinge of sadness and regret when it’s time for it to come down.
Although the show closes today, I knew that yesterday would be my last visit to “American Truth”. My first stop was at my framer’s to thank Christian and Jacqueline for the beautiful work they did for me. They were about to close shop and were touched that I stopped in. Christian kissed me on both cheeks when I left.
Then I had two special guests brighten things up for me. First was my friend and Curator of Photographs at the Museum of the City of NY, Sean Corcoran. I had shared my work-in-progress with Sean and it was a pleasure to discuss the project and view the finished prints with him.
A bit later Olmedini himself walked in.
It’s hard to make photographs knowing your subject will never get to see them. So I was glad when he arrived and we had the gallery all to ourselves. Arm-in-arm, we walked through the gallery. I described every photograph in detail, and the meaning each one holds for me personally. We recalled the early days when we were first getting to know each other and setting out on this amazing journey together.
Why have exhibitions in the first place? For me, it’s quite simply to have moments and conversations like these.
“American Truth” closing tomorrow
Tomorrow is the last day to see “American Truth” at SVA’s Visual Arts Gallery. Here’s a great interview with curator Jasmine Wahi on Buzz Feed!