Aug 15, 2013 | Blog
Last summer I spent two weeks in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn, Red Hook and shot steadily every day. My first thought was that I would rephotograph my favorite images from the 1980’s. The problem was that the neighborhood had changed so much that I could not find the exact location of many of the images. I was disappointed and have not edited the images too much since then. But lately I have started to edit and realized that though I did not rephotograph the old images, I was working in a similar vein, on the edges, on the dead ends and in overgrown lots and streets. I loved the wild edges of the harbor then and was happy to see that still they exist.
The changes in the neighborhood have been significant, as most people know, the area has been “gentrified.” Now this is not necessarily a bad thing, but for me the big change is one called air conditioning. The eleven years I lived in the Hook, I did not have air conditioning nor did most anyone else. At night, everyone was out enjoying the cool breeze off the harbor and everyone knew everyone else. Now, the streets at night are empty. People aren’t sitting outside, talking to their neighbors. I missed the connections, the way everyone knew my name back then and the way my neighbors looked after each other. The streets were never empty in the old days. Still last summer, I walked the streets and ran into a few old timers who remembered me and they laughed when I showed them the old photographs and said, oh, you will never find that again. But I did find the edges and realized that was what I was looking for all along.
Here are a few examples of the new work from the Hook. I hope to have a portfolio up on the website soon.
.
Feb 26, 2013 | Portfolio
Featured image: Stanley Ave South and South Albro
I have been working since 2013 on a project called NightTime. These images were all made within the neighborhood where I live near the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. The neighborhood is a mixture of industrial and residential structures, full of train yards, factories, overpasses, trailers, small homes and beautiful gardens. Situated at the end of Boeing Field, it endures an enormous amount of truck, train and airplane traffic. In 2014, the Argo Yard Bridge, connecting the neighborhood to downtown Seattle via Airport Way was closed for reconstruction for about 18 months. It was a time of heavy construction on the bridge mixed with greatly reduced truck traffic along the streets. Georgetown was in the throes of change. My photographs try to capture both that change and the historical nature of the area.
At night Georgetown is alive. The freeway, the train yards, the Duwamish River and Boeing Field create the four edges of the neighborhood. These edges hum with noise and movement, yet there is solitude to be found on the tracks after trains pass, in the alleys after planes land and on the streets when the trucks are silent.
The Nighttime images are a work in progress. This portfolio will continue to evolve and change, just as Georgetown has done. The images are printed in an edition of 10/15 x 10 inches. All images are shot with low ISO, long exposure digital capture and printed on rag paper with archival inks. Please inquire about print availability, size and pricing. Please see the blog for updates about this portfolio: ten of these images were in the viewing drawers of Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon during 2016. They were shown at Gallery 110 in Seattle for the month of September, 2017.
