Any lens can do this, but these were taken with the new, creamy Nikkor 50f1.4G with 9-blade aperture.

Don’t know if the recession will lead to 1970s era unrest and urban blight, but this seen on Livingston Street may be a scene of things to come.

Shooting into the sun with my D40, I can force a weird kind of sensor flare which exaggerates chromatic abberation and causes purple and green fringing. Looks kind of cool, perhaps analogous to a light leak in a film body.

Somehow I missed this photojournalism controversy last week. Jill Greenberg, aka The Manipulator, was hired by The Atlantic to shoot a portrait of John McCain and she posted photoshopped outtakes (a few shown here) from the shoot on her website (all since removed). The editor of The Atlantic released a condemnation of Greenberg’s actions as well as an apology to the McCain campaign. The whole controversy has spawned some lively discussions (here, here, and here) on photojournalist ethics. Though I find her actions unprofessional and childish, I don’t see why Greenberg can’t publicize her strong political views. Of course, she won’t be working for The Atlantic again, but so what? Maybe she’ll have to give up her title of photojournalist, since she can’t remain impartial. But that’s okay, she’s not documenting reality anyway, she’s an artist illustrator.

Artists can and should take stands; too often they end up only making slick PR advertisements for the subjects they shoot. Even if McCain’s image was made into propaganda, it does not change the fact that he’s a Bush lapdog, a man who has totally lost his principles, and someone we should really fear running this country.

For an interesting read on how a real pro dealt with photographing a subject he considered evil, read this about Arnold Newman posing Alfred Krupp.

An Araki+Moriyama spread on the sofa...

Ralph Gibson crotch shot...

These are from a project I’m doing with LuLu LoLo, an hommage to Nadar’s photos of Pierrot.

Lens Culture has an interesting feel-good webpage inviting viewers to submit photos of the buddha wherever he may be. This shot was taken during the Chinese New Year at Mahayana Temple on Canal Street in Chinatown.

A portfolio of our trip to Paris is now online here.

Beckett and Baudelaire, among many others...

One of the most influential photography books of all time is coming out in a 50th anniversary edition. No doubt about it, Robert Frank had a major influence on me. I view his balance of detachment, social commentary, and poetry nothing short of pure genius. The guy has/had eyes! And he never kept still, always moved on and innovated. The Americans is like Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, groundbreaking, iconic. Neither artist was foolish enough to rest on his laurels or repeat the past. That’s why they ended up being great.

Some of My Favorite Photos from the Book

He was one of the first to use the flag compositionally, exploiting its graphic form in ways many Americans found offensive and unpatriotic.

He photographed everyone, black, white, latino, rich and poor. Part of Frank’s gift was that he wasn’t dogmatic or biased. He seemed to treat all subjects equally, with dignity and an open mind.

He was a formalist as well as a poet. This picture taken on the East River flashed in my mind when I was writing a couple of scenes in my novel about the ferry and Ellis Island.

This picture is both compositionally and emotionally perfect. The elevator girl’s expression, the blur of the woman in the mink stole, the silhouette of the portly man with glasses, plus the angle of the composition adds movement and tension. The positive and negative spaces are just amazing, an interesting jigsaw puzzle, seemingly reconfigurable.

More on the 50th
For more commentary on Robert Frank and this anniversary, go here, here, and here. 2009 will bring a travelling exposition, starting at the National Gallery.

Ruth Sergel's Chalk Project 2008 memorializes the 146 victims (mostly women) who died in the March 25, 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, one of the worst fires in NYC history and the start of modern labor safety law movement. For the last couple of years, she has recruited volunteers to fan out over the city to chalk the names of the victims in front of the houses where they lived. Most of the young women lived in tenements on the Lower East Side, but four lived near my apartment in Prospect Heights, so Julie, me, and my friend Ranbir headed on a walk from Park Slope, through Columbia Terrace and onto Red Hook to chalk their names on the sidewalk.

Sunset over New Jersey Turnpike reststop, sponsored by Levitra.

A cardinal on the fire escape...

and a morning dove.

Here are some photos of the great sculptures and architectural details of the Alexander Hamilton Custom House, designed by Cass Gilbert and built in 1907.

Ginkos! Ginkos! Ginkos!

If you haven't been following Errol Morris' indefatigable research into which of Roger Fenton's two pictures of the Valley of the Shadow of Death came first, it is definitely worth a read (part1, part2, part3). Like a one-manned JFK assassination inquiry, Morris tries to refute Susan Sontag's claim that the photo with the canon balls on the road was staged, "a fake." This whole subject is fascinating for photographers like me who strive to document reality, but know that aesthetics often trump when the subject is mundane. Here are the two photos in question. Now, which was shot first and why?
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A fascinating, democratic series of passengers leaving MTA turnstyles.