best
Kathleen

jbnightengale – I hope I will be able to share more and more with you in book.

Imants – and the hound is a fan of you

nmn – local..this has been a big question for me. I too am lured by the promise of distant lands, but some of my favorite work (Davidson’s East 100th and Richards’ Dorchester Days, Petersen’s Cafe L, for example) are all neighborhood stories. I think these just take time to get into as a photographer, and to be able to see.

Charles – though I of course know Levitt’s work, I haven’t looked at any of it in earnest..I will have to do that. It raises an interesting question for me about origins of ’style’…

Mark – you know how esteemed I fond your opinion, I’m so pleased to finally be able to show this to you.

Ross – damn that’s a good word.

ALL – Thank you!!!

Fantastic stuff – a heady mix of two classic styles (shall I venture Leavitt and Avedon) that work together well. Great to finally see what you’ve been up to. Congrats.

Charles

Brava lady!

Saludos,

Adam

John D, Akaky, Abele, Ramon, Martin, Glenn, Sean, Vivek, Liam, Peter, Charlie, Jenny, Alicia, Mimi, Kyunghee, Panos, Yulia, Arty, Matthew (matthew, matthew…), Michael M., Kerry, Tom, Anna B, Lori… XO and Thank you!

Miles – Welcome to burn and thank YOU…

Eric E – someone else (in a PM) asked if i thought of my audience in shooting, editing this..and i have to say, in the moments I thought of audience, it was an audience of 1…YOU.

Gordon, photohumourist – (blush)

Petteri – good to hear that ’cause there are a lot more images in the wide edit :)

Bob – Bob, Bob, Bob…yes indeed, our conversations started with Levinas..still, as you know, the Levinas signature on my email is still “The real fraternity is fraternity by the fact that the other concerns me; inasmuch as he is stranger, he is my brother.” and that is SO much a part of this work and i love that you understand… And you are so right, it is a celebration of memory..I had no idea about your thoughts of your mom while you were here, what a lot you were going through while the squirrels nibbled away… and about DAH’s challenge to all of us, so much beauty was born from it, you are right, you are right about the lot of it so i will just say thank you…

Frank – very interesting that a quote by HK came to your mind for a visual/audio piece, quite profound actually, thinking about the essence of our work as photographers as being so much beyond what we normally suppose…

Michael W – hi..let’s see..the audio was captured with a ZOOM H2, using just the internal mike and the windsock, I monitored the whole time, one earphone in…I think what you might be liking about the quality of the sound is the way it was put together, there are a lot of layers going on. For example, when you come to the photo of the girl jump roping, you can hear the sounds of shoes on the pavement, but that sound is layered with someone else talking from a totally different recording..there are birds and street music and such, none of which were actually happening at the same time, i recorded them separately and then put them all together using Final Cut Pro (well, I directed what I wanted layered after I selected the clips, I had help, i don’t myself know FCP)

No Betty involved :) but you ask “Then I wondered if the photos were from around there.” You mean Park Slope? The photos are all Park Slope – in fact I am kind of into creating rules for myself for something like this to create some structure, so I picked very firm boundaries of what Park Slope is..until June I was in a tighter radius, ending at 15th street, but then I found a map from the 40’s that extended to the expressway so I started asking a lot of locals where they thought the boundaries ended..a lot of discrepancy but my point is that but for all but 1 image which had reason to be taken 3 blocks out of this radius, they are all strictly confined to the hood – so much so that I often felt like a hamster in my habitrail..but about me making your neighborhood unrecognizable, i have to say i decided early on NOT to include any of the new, and the reason perhaps that your hood is not apparent is because I only shot the vestiges of memory and time and of the old that is so so so little now..i would walk all day sometimes and find none of it.

I’m going to quote Bob here about the neighborhood now: “the place it has become, of fashionistas and boutiques and clever resto and famous writers/gurus/artists/designers/packagers, but time both changes and returns all things. In some sense, this essay isn’t what Park Slope has become, not at all, but what (to me more importantly) defines and fuels the beauty of park slope: the lives that have loved that damn place so well and for so long.” And most of that is hidden from the eye. When i told someone from the ‘new’ who had lived here for 6 years what I was doing, she asked what on earth I would shoot, just people on their cellphones and the double wide SUV style strollers that line up in front of cafes? Point being this was my decision, to give the time and space to those who are disappearing. And in my mind stepping back to the long view and giving “Bart and Lisa” their time in this piece wasn’t appropriate, for me, it would be stealing from the old…

Jerome C. – very interesting insight as to the why of these being vertical – I like your suggestion of spirituality being some how involved, it is quite a logical possibility given my background and predispositions..but initially this choice wasn’t conscious, it was intuitive. It wasn’t until I got my first bulk of film back that I realized on rare occasion I’d have to flip the film around because I had shot a horizontal. There are a few horizontals that I like, and maybe those will make it to the book, but I felt like it was one format too many for mm.

David S – re: the man with his arm raised..that was THE day shooting…I had sh*tloads of other work to do but the light was calling..I had 2 dogs in tow, and on one side of the street was the lady looking out her window, pulling at my heartstrings, impish, playful – I was so drawn to her but at the same moment I had a concerned neighbor in my face telling wondering why i was shooting and trying to prevent me from doing so – and on the other side of the street was the man, who spoke no English, been in the hood for 38 years, straight from Italy and never left his small neighborhood, so i had to find his daughter because I wanted to be clear it was okay with him what I was doing..and all the while 2 small dogs on my hip…

Tanguy y Violet – merci and I do hope we connect soon

Showed it to Violette (loves it!), and looked at it again this morning… Very well done!
That mix of street images with portraits, and wrapped-up in dialogues/audio makes it so… so You!
I guess many have had a similar experience, probably explained it better than I did, but this is such a touching, personal,and strong essay, that I see you…!
And yet we don’t know each other that well ;)
See you soon, T.