Thursday, May 12, 2011

07 april 2009: petersen

petersen playing the drums is as much, if not more, of a visual experience as it is an audio experience.
p.s. if you don't click on the photo to see it enlarged, you're not really seeing it...

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

monday, 06 april 2009: ann scobie

be a dear and click on the image to enlarge!

ah. when i see this image i wring my hands. i wring my hands because this picture was taken the last time i saw ann and that's too long ago and there is no reason. even when we didn't see each other often, we still sent birthday cards. but even that has trickled off and i just wring my hands at the way life sometimes drifts people apart.

i met ann fourteen years ago on a catering job in philadelphia. we'd been bused down there like cattle and stood in line with water pitchers in a sweltering tent, waiting to pour drinks for rich people. ann turned what would be a miserable situation into a standup routine, keeping all of us laughing and smiling. she continued to salvage many tough work situations, leaving bananas and sweet notes on my desk at the us open when she knew i was pulling all-nighters, sharing support hose secrets with me--always reminding me to take care of myself rather than get too swallowed up in the heartless corporate work machine that tried to chew us up and spit out zombies.

ann went on to become a very successful voice over artist, pictured here, through the glass window of her in-home recording booth.

people bristle over the apparent saccharinity of this scene. i wring my hands over that too, as this moment was a fleeting one, a wave hello to her boyfriend, who had just walked in the door and passed behind me.

yet even that misconception is okay. perhaps the saccharinity works. what a strange world we live in, ann, the voice of the martha stewart show and the oxygen network. that soothing or authoritative voice that transitions you from show to commercial, commercial to show, coming out of a 10 square foot soundproofed box within an apartment on the upper west side of manhattan.

they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes, perhaps the wrong ones come through. photographers are generally terrible at editing their own images because they become too emotionally attached to each one. this is very true about me. i stubbornly chose this one for the series. think what you will.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

fire escape sky garden, take four!


mother's day seems like a good day for planting. i was about to qualify that statement, but i think you're probably smart enough to figure it out. let's see how we do this year?

Friday, May 6, 2011

05 april 2009: kevin lips


click on image to enlarge
one of my favorite portraits

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

saturday, 04 april 2009 t-bone


click on image to enlarge

sometimes there are so many words that there are actually none good enough to choose. therefore the margins remained blank. i think this was tbone's first show as 'hellbent hooker'. for a first show, the divey greenpoint bar was packed full. fresh from cuba, jade and i were still fuzzy, starry eyed and drinking cubalibres. hellbent hooker went on to thrill the crowd and possibly horrify the queens museum of art with their opener to 'those about to die salute you'




HELLBENT HOOKER - Long Black Train from Ben Chace on Vimeo.