Dmitri Kasterine: January 2018

Saturday, January 20, 2018

Ballet Student, Newburgh, NY

No need to make this into black and white. Took a little yellow out and... no this blog is not going to become a technical bore. Sometimes I don't know what to say about a picture so I am tempted to write something technical.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

An armful at Botanica, Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY

A waitress at Botanica, Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY, our favourite bar. We haven't been there for ages only because it is a trek from Garrison, NY. Is it still as wonderful? With the owner (still?), Daniel Preston involved with manufacturing drones for commercial use, and distilling chocolate and cacao-laced rum and liqueurs, does he find time to see that it runs like it did when he was there every night? We must visit again although I know we shall miss his shining mind if he is not there.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Couple on Liberty St , Newburgh, NY

There are times when I can't look at another color photograph. We are at this moment drowning in color photography. Here was another and I thought God save us from it. God did—via the Photoshop life jacket. I feel like converting everything to B&W, even corny old sepia would be alright. This lovely couple deserve not to be the center of a rant about the horrors of present day color photography but gorgeous color is stifling us and we have forgotten the importance of the subject. Look at Lewis Hine, look at Clifford Coffin.

From the photographer

I started this blog in December 2008. At the time I did not know if I would enjoy it or not, and whether I would get any response to it. I am enjoying it and people have responded. I made a silent pledge at the outset not to say much about my artistic intentions or the composition of the photograph. I would just talk about what led up to taking the picture and what it was like doing it.

The discipline is actually not a strain for me, because I do not desire, and really have never been capable of discussing my intentions, artistic or otherwise. My wanting to take a photograph appears as fast as a bolt and without warning when I spot the subject. I then take it or not, depending on how brave, awake, or fumbling I am with the camera. I enjoy exploring, looking for things that stop me, or frighten me. To fear to take a picture usually means you want to take it.

dmitri@kasterine.com

Biography

Born in England in 1932, I started out as a properly brought up young gentleman with an English mother and White Russian father. He fought wars all his adult life and died in a car accident in the North of England at the age of forty-seven.

Photography came to me at aged eleven, photographing birds at the bird feeder my mother put up outside the kitchen window. After the acute disappointment of the birds being minute specs in the picture, I did cows in the fields around us in Kent.

After the wine trade, Lloyd’s, racing cars, selling cars and flying aeroplanes to Australia, I became a photographer. I photographed my friend’s engagements and their weddings. I worked for magazines and advertising agencies.

I was sent to Los Angeles to photograph Mick Jagger, returned to England via New York where I met Salvador Dali in the elevator at the St. Regis Hotel. Thence started my interest in living here. Three or four years later I moved to America, remarried and lived happily ever after.

Dmitri Kasterine