Join us in ARCHITECTURE AND PHOTOGRAPHY at the School of Visual Arts

If you have been enjoying this blog and are in the NYC area, join me in the classroom at the School of Visual Arts for my favorite class of all time to teach, ARCHITECTURE & PHOTOGRAPHY at the School of Visual Arts. Combining lecture, in-class shooting time, special assignments, and critique, this class will give you a solid basis from which to appreciate and create architectural pictures. We look at lots of amazing fine art and commercial photographers such as Ezra Stoller, Julius Shulman, Edouard Baldus, Andrew Moore, Richard Pare, and Robert Polidori. Sign up now as class begins next Friday September 23. Hope to see you there!



© Julius Shulman

Revisiting Red Hook

Recently I have returned to photographing Red Hook, Brooklyn, a neighborhood I have been exploring visually since 2003. In 2006 suddenly the neighborhood became very trendy, thanks to an Ikea and a Fairway supermarket, and suddenly folks from other areas began popping up everywhere---there were even boatloads of tourists descending upon the waterfront! Disgusted by the sudden popularity of the area, I put away my camera, for the most part, for a year or two.

This past year, I started seeing the old buildings and weed-filled lots with fresh eyes, in part thanks to the photography course I am teaching at the School of Visual Arts, Modern Ruins: Photographing Brooklyn's Industrial Landscapes. In the heat of the summer I took out the 4x5 and with the help of my assistant Alex began, once again, to photograph the neighborhood.

Seeing a project through over a long period of time is a challenge on many levels. It is not the same as making singular images, and it goes against the whole idea of trend in the art world. Something I have struggled with since finishing graduate school in 2008 is regaining a sense of 'poetic innocence' while picture-making---making photographs that are both spiritually and conceptually fulfilling. Finally I feel I am regaining that ground. It has been a struggle---this year I am a new mom, teaching a lot, and really thinking about my life's goals---but finally, I am remembering and re-appreciating what first made me love shooting architecture and its connection to the urban environment in the first place.

WHat's Next

This week has been exciting. I found out that my photograph 'Atomium at Night' made it into Photo-District News 'Picks of the Month' in their January 2009 issue (thanks, Arturo!); I started working as a teaching assistant for Andrew Moore at the School of Visual Arts, my venerable alma mater; and have another show to curate and another show to make work for! Through it all, though, I am obsessed; all I want to do is shoot new work for my big project. If any of you, my dear readers, have suggestions for grants to apply for to keep the project going, please let me know. This is the real challenge of life right now. I also take 4 x 5 film donations, so if anybody out there has extra 160vc sheet film they don't mind donating to my project, send me an email and we'll make it happen.


On a world's fair shoot in Philadelphia last winter