Recent graduates and company

It took a little time to assemble this group. Friends and relatives of the original five or six girls jumping on the steps of their house wanted to join the group as they drove or walked by. This either upset the look of the group or distracted the people in it. Finally a little peace descended over us when additions to the group dried up and passing drivers ceased to catcall.

The high spirits were partly due to the two girls in flowered skirts on the left. They had graduated from their school that afternoon.

Granny was there when I first turned up―enjoying her large family, but she soon disappeared inside when I asked her to stand over there instead of where she was. I think she also saw that helping to control the young people was not a battle she wanted to take part in. Just as I had things in a fairly orderly way, she appeared at a second floor window and asked when her pizza was coming. An added hazard was that two of the women wanted to photograph me while I was struggling to photograph them.

Young man and his fiancé

"I'll bring you 50 dollars tomorrow," he shouted as he left his sisters who had been such a rich source of subjects for me. He used to live in their house, the only male amongst seven or eight women and girls. "I moved out as soon as I could afford it, to get a bit of peace and quiet."

He has a job with a moving company in New Windsor, NY and told me that his father had drummed into him the necessity to leave no stone unturned to find work. This included going to every party there was, because that is how you meet people who can help you find a job. And that was indeed how he found this one, through a friend at a party who told him that his company needed people.

 

Comfortably seated

Looking at this picture I think how comfortable she looks. But I wonder if she is, considering the edge of the pillar is pressing into her temple.

John, a member of the journalist class at Newburgh Free Academy

In partnership with the Newburgh Free Academy, Newburgh, NY, I was awarded a grant this spring by Arts in Orange County to give workshops on the subject of Observation. The workshops began badly when I asked the class to give up texting and look at what was around them. I also told them that if they were observing acutely and constantly, they would loose friends, as only their best friends would understand what they were trying to do. When we go out with a camera or a note book (which we should always be doing) we have little time for anything else but looking, I told them. 

Train spotters

These are train spotters on a platform at Clapham Junction station in South London, England taken in 1979. You bought a platform ticket for almost nothing so that you could see your sweetheart off to visit her aunt in Brighton and if you were a photographer or a train spotter armed with a platform ticket you could go about your work without question. Now it is quite different. This picture was published recently in the photography blog London Column where the writer describes what happens if you want to go on to a platform and you are not a traveler.

California

Sometimes I mind the tame way people hold each other. Here it seems to me that the man is merely lolling around the girl and the girl only has the barest grasp of him, almost as though she's holding just his t-shirt. You can't feel someone the way she is holding him, with her half clenched fist. There is not much lust here. Well, of course there may not have been. I think I will ask them when I see them again. "Are you just friends?" 

Anyway, I have promoted this photograph into my favorites list because of her dress, their matching slimness and his pride (or is it challenge?) — the slightly raised chin.

Father and daughter

Father and daughter shrimping in The Solent, England, early 1970s.

A smile on Broadway

I do not take many smiling pictures but this was irresistible.

She is featured in my proposed outdoor exhibition of the people of Newburgh. This exhibition can only take place with your support. Please go to Kickstarter if you think you can make a pledge. 

Girl with short hair

A fine day with a clear blue sky. We hear the sound of a light aircraft approaching. It comes into view at about 2000ft. Three bodies tumble from the plane. Three parachutes open and steer towards our field. They land, gather up their 'chutes and walk towards us.  We recognize two adults and a girl of about fifteen. The woman is clutching two bottles of Bordeaux, and the girl a skateboard. Before we made lunch and opened the bottles I took this picture.

Young Enlishman again

Kit and his father liked this shot better than the one below. The side light has narrowed his face. And he looks comfortable amongst the indecipherable graffiti symbols.

Young Englishman

Fifteen year-old Kit, on a visit from London to see his father who lives in Beacon, NY. I photographed them together but liked this shot the best. It was the last I took. Just as I was about to take the camera off the tripod Kit spoke to me about his love of landscape photography and settled his weight on one foot with his hands behind his back like a leaning tree that had been severely pruned.

Square format

Is her expression a show of firmness of character, or an unflinching contempt for the lens?

Girl at the Frick Collection

Downstairs where the kitchens once were I suppose, the Frick has put together an exhibition of drawings and etchings by Rembrandt. I loved the self portraits. They were a little difficult to see on Saturday because many are only inches big and people like to step close to examine them thoroughly and you have to wait your turn.

Upstairs we looked at the Rembrandt paintings. As dark as some are, made more so by the low lighting, they held us. Richard Avedon adored the youth on the old nag (The Polish Rider) trotting off to find his fortune. It inspired him as a young man going out into the world.

Admiring it and other old masters was a girl strolling between one painting and another with her audio tour pressed to her ear. She stopped by her mother or father and spoke for a moment before skipping to the next painting. It was her father who first lowered his hand set long enough for me to introduce myself. I asked him if I could photograph his daughter. He agreed and so did she and they obligingly interrupted their viewing of the paintings.

We crossed 70th Street. I asked the girl to stand under the awning of an apartment building. As I was thinking that I liked the clip in her hair, her mother stretched out an arm and removed it. "You don't want this clip, do you? I have a photograph that I like of her at home where she is wearing it. The clip has always irritated me." This was not the moment to argue I thought.

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.

Girl in truck

As I drove through Jonesport, Maine on the way to the ferry that would take us to Norton Island, Caroline spotted this girl standing by a red truck. This shows clearly the value of having help from one with sharp eyes attuned to those of the photographer's. We were not able to stop without the risk of missing the ferry, but as we drove by two days latter there she was, this time sitting in the truck with a male friend. "I think they live in it." Caroline said. I should have asked but was too excited over getting the picture and left smartly handing them my card. Sometimes I have the feeling that subjects have the power to take the picture back.

Not her baby

In a family of eleven siblings you are likely to be brought up to look after anyone who needs you.
"She's not my baby," she pointed out when I asked her if I could take her with her baby.

I love fashion

You can tell, the girl in gray lives for clothes. "You don't learn style," she said.

Girl with gold earring

She and her friend were lugging shopping up the steep steps of Morningside Park. They were on their way to one of the scores of picnics that crowd the park on summer evenings. I think they were happy to have an excuse to stop and put down their bags. Just as I had arranged my subjects and set the camera, two of their friends, young men, started to clown around behind me and make the girls giggle. I was saved by a mother or aunt ordering the young men to leave us alone and to carry the bags the rest of the way to the picnic site.

Girl in white shirt

I wasn't paying attention and I missed my chance as this girl and her friend came out of the gate of their house in Bedford Stuyvesant. I hesitated and they were gone. An hour later we ran into them on the same street coming in the opposite direction. One does not often get a second chance. I took them together but this shot was the best I thought.

Girl with floral earrings

Spotted on the steps of the High School on the way from the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens to where our car was parked. She is a 9th grade hip hop dancer.