Quiet man

This is Ivan, brother of Jason Ross. He arrived late on that day in Brooklyn when Jason and Natasha found subjects for me. He sat down and hardly spoke. Yet, later when I photographed him, he was the paragon of politeness and consideration.

1965 to 2012

Jason Ross asked me to come and spend the day photographing anyone in his building in Red Hook that would like their picture taken. Here are six of the pictures including Jason himself seen here with Natasha Chekoudjian.

At one moment Jason disappeared into his bedroom and came back wearing a Michael Fish shirt and a French Velvet jacket. "They belonged to my father. He bought them when he lived in London in the 1960s." Natasha Chekoudjian is wearing a dress from her own collection with a belt and jewelry designed by Jason.

Scarlet and plaid

Todd Bachenheimer, shirt designer for Brooks Brothers and his friend Christine. At lunch with Jason and Natasha, Christine wandered around with a plastic beaker. It contained a yellowy, clay colored liquid. We asked, "What is it?" 


"Cleanser," she replied. I thought, what more of a cleanser could you want than our lunch: raw carrots, raw celery, chicken sandwich and slices of blood orange with mint leaves.

Two pairs of blue eyes

At first it was difficult to stop them kissing. When they did stop, they were perfect hosts. They put back the blind that had fallen off a window where the sun was pouring in and spoiling my shot, they moved a table to give me more room and they cleared a background of clutter.

She travels to Africa to work, tending to those in need. He is an art director and designer here in New York.

Dancer

Sometimes the camera sees something in a face that merely looking does not reveal.

A steady gaze

Here's something for the New Year—the steady gaze of a child.

Joy Setton at Fort Defiant Café

This is a photograph of a stranger, but with the help of the staff at Fort Defiant Café in Red Hook, Brooklyn, I discovered that it is the writer Joy Setton. I took the picture a couple of summers ago and have since read her articles in Taki's Magazine. One that particularly struck me was about money in the art world from fifteenth century Florence to today. Amongst other aspects of banking then and today, she writes about usury, the origins of bankruptcy, letters of credit, how much gold a woman could wear, and, "Bankers in fifteenth-century Florence were so wealthy that even rulers envied them."
Click here for article in Taki's Magazine

College friends

Having sworn I would never photograph any more people against the unrelenting green of the Hudson Valley summer landscape, I yesterday drove around and found a no longer used car wash at the local gas station. It had good light, a neutral background and a manager who was delighted that it was going to be of some use to somebody.

Caroline was with our dog Louis frog hunting at the waterfall the day before, when one of the three or four young people splashing around in the pond hailed her. It was the girl on the right in the picture. Caroline remembered her as a child of ten. The other girl in the picture, also cooling at the waterfall, is her friend of five years with whom she shares an apartment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Words couple

They were sitting on a bench on Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. I wanted to snap them as they were. She was massaging his temples tenderly but the background was a car with disturbing color and contrast. I asked them if I could photograph them in the shade of a tree close by. He replied first, "I would love that." She said, "Awesome." Later they told us that he got headaches and she got rid of them for him. They both love words. She works for a literary agent and he for a magazine about infrastructure. I asked him if he studied engineering at school. "No, comparative literature." "What is that?" Caroline asked. "It's not anything," he replied. They loved Crown Heights and later we saw them again as we headed towards Breukelen Coffee House, a haunt they too like.

Israeli student

Today the sun was out and it was almost warm. The pictures I took were in the shade of buildings, in this case the Brooklyn Public Library, with sun bouncing off the light paving in front of it, to produce a perfectly even light.

She was brought up on a Kibbutz, still lives in Israel on a Kibbutz, but a different one. She is visiting Brooklyn and will stay as long as she is allowed by her visa. I asked her if she would have to return to Israel to do national service. She said yes. "Meanwhile I have my sister's army jacket to keep me warm."

She was delighted when Caroline asked her if I could photograph her. Yet she was modest and a little shy.

Young woman with hands clasped

Some times I just want to post the picture and say nothing.

1920's wedding

Forty five years after my brief sojourn photographing weddings in England, I find myself at City Hall, New York City, with the daughter of a friend and her husband to be. They want a picture on the Brooklyn Bridge. I did that later, after the legal conditions were met. Here they are standing in front of the Justice of the Peace, just as the groom is being told, that now they are married, he may kiss his wife. He obeyed. In many ways this was one of the best weddings I have ever been to, or photographed. The father of the bride collected Caroline and me in his comfortable car, drove us to the city with the bride and groom, gave us a wonderful lunch and drove us back to Garrison.

Seven-year-old writer

On the cheese counter line at Fairway in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a father and his seven year-old daughter waited their turn. Caroline, who was behind them, was taken by their warm relationship and the little girl's liveliness and good looks. They began to talk to each other. He was English, and by chance, lived as a child in the street adjoining mine in London. Caroline told him that she thought I would like to photograph his daughter.

And so it was that last Saturday we met for a sandwich at The Hope and Anchor and to take a photograph. The place was packed, but a slim, quiet and polite young man immediately took care of us and showed us into the back room. As soon as we were settled the girl took a notebook from her satchel and started work with a pencil. "I'm writing a book," she said. "Actually, at the moment, I am working on The Table of Contents." Then she read us the first paragraph of the book: "The dark crept into a light corner where Judy was sleeping. No-one could hear the loud moans of the dog. When a piece of the sun popped out of the air it bounced off clouds in a fast speed. It landed with a thump. It was a glowing ball as bright as a star but more. It started to grow into a flower. Everything was dark. The flower was sucked into the ground. Judy and her 2 brothers started to wake up."

She ordered pancakes and bacon and as she ate, she chatted and wrote. I looked around and saw behind me an empty table in good light which the management warmly welcomed me to have my subject sit at, whenever I was ready to take the picture. The light came from a glass door into the street and a mixture of coloured and regular tungsten lights from the room.

The girl suddenly said, "I thought we were here to have my photograph taken and all we have done is talk, talk." She had talked as much as any of us and had also been busy devouring the extra bacon that she ordered with her pancakes.

I was ready, and without any fuss she sat where I asked her to and she sat how I asked her to. The other customers looked and smiled as I am sure everybody does when they see this radiant, high-spirited girl.

Hood and scarf

They were sitting in the farthest and darkest corner of Park Slope's al di là Trattoria. I had my back to them, but Caroline said I should photograph them. As they rose to leave she was up and asking them. I saw their strikingly pale and unblemished complexions, one in a hood and the other bare-headed, but wrapped several times in a scarf, like an inflatable ring worn by those in the water who cannot swim. They stood outside against the window of the restaurant lit by the veiled winter sun of the late afternoon.

Couple by street light

I'd like to know more about these two. Sometimes I'm only interested in the shape or expression of people I photograph. But with these two, I would like to know more, because she is dressed differently from him, more formally and with a bag and scarf, and he is in just a thin sweater. Also she spoke not a word to me, yet he was warm and forthcoming about having the picture taken, but as it was nearing eleven o'clock and they had not eaten, I could not keep them any longer. I had already dragged them out from their table that they had just settled into.

Ryan again

As his café (it will be his in the middle of January) is the best in Cobble Hill for oatmeal, coffee and lightening polite service, we are swept there by a current of past memories. And you only have to glimpse him and something about his appearance causes you to grope for your camera. Last week it was the red and black hat.

Two elbows, one bottle

In order for a digital camera to see to focus in low light it has to be assisted by a spotlight built into the camera that shines without your asking when the subject is too dim for the automatic focus too cope. This is very irritating and can ruin the shot. Here the subjects were so absorbed in each other that if you had shone a search light at them they would not have noticed.

The photograph was taken at Marlow and Sons in Williamsburg, a place where they understand the romance of candlelight (the whole room is more or less lit by candlelight), the right music, making people feel welcome, and service.

Surprise

You seldom know what people are talking about or feeling when you are observing them. Before I took this picture, I had been watching the couple and I thought from their expressions that they didn't know each other well. They were being polite and careful. After this show of aggressive surprise, I am not sure.

Young man with skateboard

I heard the rattle of skateboards as we crossed the road on Lorraine Street in Red Hook and turned to see three teenagers on their boards in the middle of the street. There was one tall, thin rider that caught my eye. I did not see his face but I shouted and waved "Hello." They stopped. I asked one of them, "Do you like dogs, he's friendly." as Caroline and Louis caught up with us. They stopped and they all liked Louis. I went up to the tall thin rider. He agreed to be photographed. He had grown up with dogs. This was their favourite street to skate on. Not very much traffic and a wide long stretch, so you could see it coming, the said.

Myrtle and Broadway

We climbed the iron steps to the station of the elevated tracks of the J, M and Z line at Broadway and Myrtle Avenue. The couple disappeared through the brown swing doors into the subway entrance. I thought I had lost them in the free-for-all of shoppers returning home with their bags. But they were standing near the turnstile and had noticed Caroline with our dog Louis and I beckoned to them to come and meet him. They carried no bags. She was there to say goodbye to him. He was returning to Manhattan where he studies Criminal Justice at Berkeley College.

We had to wait for the sun to go behind the clouds. We pressed into a corner on the walkway by the entrance to the subway where the light would be good. Louis and Caroline greeted the shoppers as they banged through the swing doors. At last we felt we had found the center of Brooklyn, a place difficult to pinpoint.

At first she did not want to be photographed because she was wearing sweat pants (I explained it was just head and shoulders). After the shoot, he asked to be photographed by Caroline, with me and Louis.