this is the what

As one of the world’s great natural harbors, New York Harbor has been used extensively over the years as a transfer point for shipping between the US interior and the rest of the world.  Since the advent of jumbo jets and the subsequent decreased cost of air transportation in the 1970′s, shipping at the port of NY/NJ has declined – especially on the east side of the Hudson where an inefficient ground transportation structure exists.  Because of the heavy shipping and industrial use, the bodies of water surrounding New York City are some of the most polluted in the world – with many superfund sites.  With these photographs, I’m questioning the idea that industry produces pollution, as well as the apparent dichotomy between man and nature, and water and land.  What happens when pollution becomes beautiful?  Don’t waves crash onto land and wash it away?  And water recedes?  Isn’t man a part of nature and vice versa?  These photos are all from Newtown Creek, which has recently become a superfund site, and is the site of the 3rd largest oil spill in US history. – Chris Davis

Newton Creek, Brooklyn – Chris Davis

What initially drew you to Newton Creek, and then to the Gowanus Canal?

I was actually drawn to the Gowanus Canal before Newtown Creek, but logistics found me completing the portion on Newtown Creek first.  In December of 2010 I move to Cobble Hill after living in the same apartment in the east village for nearly 10 years.  At first I was completely out of sorts – having lived in the same place for such a long time, I knew where everything was, knew what the good restaurants were, knew what bars I liked, etc.  After a few months of feeling like a tourist in my own neighborhood, I decided something needed to change, so I started spending afternoons out riding my bike seeing what was around me.  It was on one of these trips where I first discovered the Gowanus Canal.  I knew that the canal was a superfund site, but nothing could have prepared me for the stench that day as I had gone during low tide.  Even with the smell, I rode my bike around the canal for hours, looking from each bridge, and every street I could find that dead ends into the canal marveling at all the contradictions that are present in and around the canal.  

I had always had it in mind that I would photograph Newtown Creek, so when a friend approached me about shooting it for an online magazine she was starting(which unfortunately fell apart before the first issue), I jumped at the opportunity.  

Long Island City, Queens – Chris Davis

Chris Davis

When did you first start working on this series?

I first started thinking about this series in the spring of 2011, but it took a few months before I was ready to shoot.  I shot the Newtown Creek portion last fall and into the winter.  

Chris Davis

Chris Davis

Where do you see this project going?

I’m not sure exactly where the project will go, but I’m interested in continuing to photograph New York Harbor section by section.  I’m interested in the changes that are taking place as more and more waterfront space gets turned over to the public.

(Chris is based in New York. See more of his work, here)

Was sent a link to this series by Robin Schwartz and I’m not sure how I hadn’t seen it before. Stunning. Its so fantastical yet its not and it just makes you want to be this little girl, or at least watch her, or at the very least see what the watcher watches..

“My photographs are drawn from real journeys undertaken with my daughter, Amelia. I am driven to depict relationships with animals but the photographs are not documents; they are evidence of the invented worlds that we explore and the fables we enact together. Photography gives us the opportunity to access our dreams, to discover the extraordinary. Animals and interspecies relationships have always been an important part of my work. Animals in my photographs are not represented as beastly or noble, or as props to illustrate human life but as part of our everyday world. My daughter and I share an affinity with the animal kingdom and we play out our fantasies and explore our eccentricities by creating a cultural space where animals not only co-exist with humans, but also interact as full partners. The animals in the photographs are living creatures, participants in the dramas that the photographs capture. The world that my daughter and I explore is one where the line between human and animal overlaps or is blurred, where animals are part of our world and humans are part of theirs. – Robin Schwartz” (from Robin Schwartz’s website)

Also check out this interview on NPR about the series, here.

(Thank you, Reed)

Some of my favorites from the series. See more, here.

Robin Schwartz

Robin Schwartz

Robin Schwartz

Robin Schwartz

Robin Schwartz

Robin Schwartz

Robin Schwartz

Robin Schwartz

Robin Schwartz

Ah I love this! Thank you Pete Brook!

 

“For this project I went to a lot of bars and I literally threw myself at men who I didn’t know. I used my body as a projectile, hurling myself toward strong, vulnerable men who were waiting to catch me. Poised in a perpetual state of social awkwardness and in full possession of the ability to subvert stereotypical gender roles, the photographs pose questions concerning relationships, social connection, sex, gender, and the desire to form relationships quickly that are both intense and long lasting. The project initially started after I placed ads on Craigslist.org looking for men who would meet me blind date style in bars and allow me to throw myself at them. This project comes from a place where the desire to make a positive connection with another person is coupled with the knowledge that a connection might not be possible, that the person might not catch me.” – Lilly McElroy

Statement on the project, I Throw Myself at Men

 

See more of Lilly McElroy’s work and the rest of the series, here.

 

 

Lilly McElroy - from her website

Lilly McElroy - from her website

Lilly McElroy - from her website

Lilly McElroy - from her website

(via Wired)

If you follow this blog at all (and I mean that loosely, it could be once every few months)..  you might be sick of me going on about looking through the contact sheets as a wee Magnum intern many moons ago.

Still.. it was pretty fucking amazing to see. Not only that yes, my favorite photographers took crappy pictures, too, but the editing process; the grease pencil marks, the decisions that were made so that now we remember that one image instead of the one next to it. I believe seeing those markings, seeing how many shots it could take to get to the one, recognizing how objective an edit is, got me into being a photo editor in the first place. If you are only seeing one image from a shoot, it better be good.

I received Magnum Contact Sheets as a gift over six months ago and I have been too distracted by it to mention it here. Edited by Kristen Lubben (dream job) its fantastic. A few of my favorite pages, including of course the extreme close-ups of the brave Joan Crawford shot by Eve Arnold..

HACKNEY

A Tale of Two Cities

By Zed Nelson

A 16 year-old schoolgirl was recently killed by a gunshot fired through the window of a fast food restaurant in Hackney. The, gunman, riding a bicycle, was trying to scare a rival youth gang. On the same day an 18-year-old was shot in the leg in a street gun battle.

Hackney, though crime-ridden, poor and dilapidated, is also now London’s trendiest neighbourhood, and home to the forthcoming 2012 Olympics. Down the road from the shootings, contemporary design studios and modernist apartment blocks pepper the landscape, like out-of-place totems of middle-class gentrification.

The social landscape for an under-privileged teenager growing up in Hackney, one of London’s poorest boroughs, is a million light-years away from the new urban hipsters who frequent the cool bars and expensive cappuccino café’s springing up in the same streets. These worlds co-exist side-by-side but entirely separate, creating bizarre juxtapositions of wealth and poverty, aspiration and hopelessness.

As was seen in the riots that took place in London last year, an under-class generation with seemingly limited horizons and ambitions are increasingly dislocated from progressive society. As Hackney’s over-stretched police force attempt to combat gun and knife crime in the area – mainly the result of petty turf-wars between young gangs – this series reflects on the extraordinary contemporary social situation in the borough, where fashionable young hipsters, yuppie developments and organic café’s co-exist awkwardly with Hackney’s most under-privileged.

Zed Nelson has lived in Hackney all his life. It was here he went to school, learnt to ride a bicycle, lost his virginity and took his first drugs. In his twenties Hackney represented a place to get away from. But today, Nelson has fallen back in love with the area. This series, a work in progress, meditates on the confusion of cultures, clash of identities and the beauty and ugliness that co-exist in the borough today.

Zed Nelson - A couple kiss in a rented boat on the canal, close to the olympic stadium. London.

Zed Nelson - Youths hang out next to the River Lea, Hackney. London

Mourners leave flowers and cards at the murder scene of Agnes Sina-Inakoju, who was killed by a gunshot fired through the window of a fast food restaurant in Hackney. The gunman, 21 years old and riding a bicycle, was trying to scare a rival youth gang. - Zed Nelson

Zed Nelson

Orthodox Jews in Stoken Newington, Hackney. London. - Zed Nelson

The fashionable 'Towpath Café', on the Regent's Park canal. Hackney, London. - Zed Nelson

Punk in London Fields, Hackney. Attending the annual 'Punks Picnic' in London Fields. - Zed Nelson

Fallen berries. Hackney, London. - Zed Nelson

Girl, Kingsland Road, Hackney, London. - Zed Nelson

Youths in London Fields, Hackney, London. Nov 2011. Zed Nelson

Diseased fallen tree in Hackney, London. - Zed Nelson

Swan on nest, Hackney Marshes. Hackney, London. - Zed Nelson

Young man, Kingsland Road, Hackney. London. - Zed Nelson

‘Hackney – A Tale of Two Cities’
Will be exhibited at the London Festival of Photography
In a group show; The Great British Public
June 1 – June 24, 2012
Dog Eared Gallery

(Zed is based in London. See more of his work, here)