Paris 1988
Les Tuileries
Paris, France 1988
I took this photo when I was 16 — on film, probably a Canon AE-1, then developed the film and printed it in a darkroom at school when I still knew how to do such things. You can see the chemical snafu in the upper right. I just found this in an old box and damn if I wouldn’t take this from the same angle today. 📷
Babel
On a flight to Tokyo, I was rereading a favorite and important book to me, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. At its core is the story of Babel, and how humans lost their universal tongue — forevermore to be separated from each other by all the languages of the world.
Toward the end of this flight, the elderly Chinese couple next to me became concerned they wouldn’t make their connecting flight and sought help from the attendants — not one of which spoke Mandarin. This seemed odd for a Japanese airline with so many Chinese travelers, and I’d heard them speak a variety of European languages. The attendants solicited help, in English, from a Korean couple near us who knew enough English and Mandarin to be useful. I listened and also helped by writing helpful numerals on the Chinese travelers’ boarding passes. At the peak of this, I was surrounded by a circle of flight attendants and passengers gesturing and babbling and looking confused, frantically trying to communicate simple matters in a multitude of languages.
And then I went back to my book.
NEW BOOK: Tokyo: Shibuya Shimokitazawa Harajuku (September 2017)
I’m excited to announce the publication of my first monograph, available on Amazon.com:
Tokyo: Shibuya Shimokitazawa Harajuku
Hardcover - Expanded Edition
84 pages / 7”x 7”
Look inside
Also available as Softcover/Mini Edition (34 pages) .
A note on the book design:
Most of the photographs in the book were originally not square. The first layout for the book was large format and displayed the photos on white backgrounds that accommodated all photo orientations — horizontal, vertical, etc — but the book did not “feel” right to me. Tokyo is a vast megalopolis that, on the ground, feels intimate, teeming, overflowing — and I wanted the physical book to capture that, that feeling of tightly contained chaos. So I went with a full-bleed square format, where the images run into eachother and off the page.
At times this re-editing of non-square photos was painful, but ultimately transformative: When juxtaposed against other images, it freed them to become new stories together, even to my eyes. I remember taking each photo — where I stood, what it sounded like, how I got the shot, what I did that day — and still, seeing them together creates an entirely new world.
(This describes the 84-page hardcover edition of the book. The mini softcover edition features a subset of these photos in the same 7″x7″ trim size but with 2-page spreads of single photos instead of microstories.)
Coney Island
Monday was my last day in NYC and I'd planned to walk around midtown, first to Times Square to get a specific shot I wanted then just wander from there. It was pouring pouring rain, and when I stopped for lunch a wave of tiredness washed over me — we'd been go go going for days, walking like 7-10 miles a day in the January cold. Then suddenly I remember Coney Island exists. Once I realize I can get to an ocean... that's it, here I go. One hour each way from midtown NYC. I made it there about 30 minutes before early winter sunset. Pouring even harder rain. Abandoned and creepy (as I hoped it would be), carnival ride neon flashing at no one at all in the flat silver sky. Empty boardwalk. Two teenagers making out under an awning. Lone mystery figures under umbrellas. Crazy mean old guy feeding bread to like 1000 seagulls; he yelled angrily at me for daring to exist in his line of sight. The day before the beach had been full with the New Year's Day "polar bear" jump into the ocean, but I saw about 20 people in town the whole time I was there. Desolate and spooky. Loved it. Got soaking wet, seagull poop on my boot, and ran for the subway as it got dark. I enjoyed a very Slavic ride home through Brighton Beach etc in a steaming dank subway car, then emerged from the dripping swampy underworld to join my lady at a fancy hotel bar. I love New York. I posted this photo on Instagram on the ride back and a few hours later it'd already been featured by a major street photo gallery. So strange when that happens — when something goes from being an intimate immediate moment to public comment. The more I look at this, the more I see — which as a creative person is so deeply satisfying, to watch your own work continue to breathe outside of you. I get lost in it like a poem, and I still have the sand on my shoe to take me there. ➰
Oslo Opera House
The Oslo Opera House (Operahuset) is the home of The Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, and the national opera theatre in Norway.
