Jacob Riis Park (Queens, NY)

Geo Magazine - October 2007

Last night, I was sitting in the ICP library, flipping through books, and killing time before meeting up with a friend, when I happened to glance over at the magazine rack. There, nestled comfortably among all the back-issues of PDN and Aperture, was the October issue of Geo Magazine, staring back at me seductively. A look inside the issue reveals a 12-page feature that was the result of a one-week assignment, a return trip, and (on my end) a few years' worth of occasional visits before that, as part of a long-term project that I've been working on. (The picture above is an outtake from the assignment.) For this feature, I had the great fortune to work with a highly intelligent staff writer (Gabriele Riedle), and I also relied heavily on the tremendous expertise and guidance of two photo editors that I greatly admire, Nadja Masri and Tina Ahrens. It's my most impressive tearsheet by far, and I still can't believe that it all worked out so amazingly well.

And, on a side note, Chris Marker's new book Staring Back is both incredibly powerful and highly relevant. That may be surprising to hear from a "purist" like myself, since Marker digitally manipulates his images. What I like is that he alters his photographs in ways that challenge our assumptions about documentary work--and in such a purposefully obvious manner that one cannot fail to notice it, even at first glance. It's the rare photo book where the way in which the photos are presented becomes one of the main themes of the book. (And it's also the real reason why I was running so late last night. Thank you, ICP library.)

Found Photographs

I'm taking a break tonight from working on the archival restoration of old snapshots that chronicle the 40-year history of a small rural community in Virginia. Most are scratched and dusty, the colors have shifted in some of them, and a few are even covered in mold. Needless to say, I've got my work cut out for me. But I'm putting away the anti-static cloth and the isopropyl alcohol for the night, in order to showcase two others who are also dedicated to the cause.

1) Paco Gomez, a member of the Spanish photographer's collective NoPhoto, has a project called “The Modlins” that focuses on a family of American expatriates who relocated (on the advice of Henry Miller) to Madrid. Gomez found the photographs and other memorabilia in trash bags discarded outside what had once been the Modlins' apartment building, and his curiosity was sparked by this random discovery. The family’s unusual history is reconstructed through these vintage artifacts, which Gomez has preserved and restored, and augmented with meticulous research. He's also posted an interesting excerpt from an old home video on YouTube.

2) Found Magazine defies description, as do many of the found objects contained therein. Submit your own "find of the day" (photos, drawings, etc), and while you're at it, join their Flickr group (or one of the other similar groups that are also dedicated to celebrating random glimpses into other people's lives).

Francesca, Greenmarket

I ran into Francesca Magnani last weekend in Union Square, while photographing for Time Out New York's Sight's and Blights issue. If you look really closely, she's in the far distance in a couple of the pictures, in a "where's Waldo" kind of way (a face in the crowd walking past Katz's delicatessen, casually perusing Wilt Chamberlain's autobiography in the dollar book section outside the Strand, etc), but this is the picture that we were crossing our fingers and hoping they would use. They didn't, and considering it would have been the only picture featuring a person prominently, the decision definitely makes sense. But in a perfect world....

Barack Obama Rally in Washington Square Park