8.27.11

I give you... Buddy. This dog lives across the street from my Old Lady's house in Vermont. Buddy is a Blue Tick Hound, which is a breed of dog developed especially for barking. Buddy barks at everything, all day long, soulfully, with his entire being. Look closely at this photo of Buddy- he's barking so hard his front paws are coming off the ground. This happens every time he barks, which is about five- hundred times a day, at everyone, for any reason. He's been barking at me for five years, every time I show up at the house, every time I walk to my car to go to the store, every time I get out of my car and walk back to the house with my candy bar. When I go biking and head out up the hill, he barks as if I were wearing a grizzly bear costume. When I arrive home a few hours later, he barks like he's never seen me, or any other human being, before. He's so cute, though and I really want him to like me. I went over there with a piece of steak once and he barked like I was going to slit his throat, then ran behind the house, where he continued barking... so I waited... about three minutes later, the barking stopped and Buddy came trotting back around as if nothing had ever happened, saw me again, freaked out even more and ran back behind the house. I will pet Buddy.

New York/Sao Paulo, August '11

    New York, Fall '10

8.15.11

From Chernobyl, Ukraine/surrounding region from April '10. I recorded the sound outside of the Chernobyl Orthodox church as the Easter service was getting out at around 4:30 A.M. The sound at the end was recorded outside my cabin in the woods in a village called Orane. I recommend using headphones when you look at this slideshow.
The resolution of the slideshow is crappy- you can see the higher-res version at: http://youtu.be/YMc4jer-suE

8.7.11

 Sao Paulo, Brazil August '11

Colorado, Summer '10  Jen

New York, March '11  I got to act in an opera at Lincoln Center over the winter. The man in the photo is the conductor, George. I marveled at how seemingly effortlessly he made sense of the (to me) impenetrable  score, conducted three sopranos and an orchestra, maintained a relaxed and positive vibe for the three months of rehearsal and still somehow found the time to impersonate a vampire. The person reflected in that thing on the right is Amanda, one of the other cast members. That thing is a mirrored cube hanging from the ceiling. For this piece there were 50 or so of these cubes hanging on the stage. They rose and fell in various patterns. Each cube was operated by one stage hand holding a string. The first few dress rehearsals were basically a game of whack-a-mole, only more avant garde. Cubes flew in and out at random times and velocities. We cast members ducked and shuffled. A soprano got bonked on the head. I kept imagining the crew back there smoking joints and looking confusedly at their cue sheets, all standing around the rigging station holding their strings in the dark like slave boat rowers just kind of winging it, pulling and releasing, shrugging at each other, unaware of the carnage just a few yards away.

8.1.11

 New York, March '11  I was walking to the bakery on the corner in a tank top and sandals earlier today thinking "I love summer... I love my neighborhood... I love this bakery... look at that nice tree..." I remember late March, just a few months ago. Everyone wanted spring so badly but every day was like this one- wet, cold, crappy...with people lining up in quiet solidarity and mutual disgust to step around slushy puddles with scrunched up faces, hunched over, trying to pull themselves deeper into their coats. I think it was this same day where, a few blocks up the street, there were chunks of ice falling off a skyscraper and landing on the sidewalk. I looked at a bagel cart vendor standing a few yards from where some ice hit and we smiled at each other and shrugged.

 Under the F train elevated tracks near Smith/9th streets in Brooklyn, Winter '10

Rajasthan, Feb. '11  Who here doesn't like goats?  How can anyone not like goats? I walk about 200 yards into this desert and am about to take a shot of the herder sitting quietly with the high voltage towers in the distance. It's mid-day- very still, very hot...  then this goat sneaks up and sticks his head into the frame like a hand puppet. Hilarious. Don't talk to me about how their eyes look satanic with little rectangles for pupils and how that scares you- baloney. I love goats.

7.29.11

Chernobyl, Ukraine April '10  the Woman in the background was one of four choir members at the Orthodox Easter service. She and the others sang for roughly five (5) hours. The service went from 10pm until about 4 am.

 Brooklyn, NY July '11  View from my roof, looking up Flatbush. It was 100+ degrees when this was taken. If you look very closely, you can see the heat... and if you put your ear up to the image on your screen and listen carefully, you can actually hear, faintly, the sound of various Brooklynites shouting "fuggetaboudit". It's like that everywhere in Brooklyn, we can't help ourselves- always shouting that word over and over. When I was a kid growing up in Vermont, I used to look at a map of New York, see Flatbush Ave. and fantasize about living in New York, on Flatbush Ave. The first apartment I saw on my first day of apartment hunting upon moving to NY was, of course, on Flatbush and I took it. That, my friends, is called "visualization". Visualization is a technique developed by lazy people where you sit around eating chicken wings thinking about what you'd like to have happen in roughly 20 years.

Colorado, July '10  Hiking up a mountain to watch 250,000 male bats emerge from a cave. 250,000 male bats.

7.22.11

 Rajasthan, February '11   Look how relaxed this goat looks riding on a motorcycle, like it's considering whether it will have a sack of oats or go with a leather sandal tonight for supper.

New York, July 22 '11  It was 100 degrees today in this place I help out at. John's friend came in and they greeted each other by hugging and then dancing to a song on the radio.

    Kitty and "Joe", Randolph, Vt. July '11

7.20.11

Jaisalmer, Rajasthan Feb. '11  It rained most of the day. I was wet and was about to go home when I saw these kids. They invited me to play cricket with them. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, cricket is an incomprehensible game invented by people who like to see other people look confused. By the time I got up to bat, the Mother and a baby, two sisters and a handful of people from the neighborhood had come out, smiling and watching. I missed 5 times but hit the ball pretty far on the sixth pitch and everyone cheered. It was dreamy.

 Randolph, Vt. July '11

Hurley, NY Spring '11  Ama (behind the toad).

7.13.11

    Canal St. station, NY  One of the smellier subway stations in the city.

    Nagaur, India Feb. '11  Why do camels hate me so much? Every time I tried to get close to a camel in India, they'd pull one of these faces on me. The truth is, this camel might like me. It may be smiling, even. I grew up in the northeast part of the U.S.  My brain just isn't good at interpreting camel faces. I've heard camels will spit on you- so naturally, when I try to hear the camel's thoughts, all I hear is "I'm about to spit on you" with some reverb added. This camel is wearing a red carnation on it's nose.

    NY, Spring '11 Early, early morning.

7.12.11

        I was in Bolivia a few years ago and saw an open- fronted shop with mannequins facing the street. There was a guy sitting amongst them staring out, totally still. I didn't take the picture and it bothered me all day... so I went back that evening, but the guy was gone. Five months later in NY, I got a second chance at the same photo.

 Brooklyn, NY  I don't understand why, on a nearly deserted Brooklyn street, a Woman with blue hair and a blue umbrella would walk by literally seconds after I arrived at this wall.

Barcelona, March '10  I saw a bird coming down the alley and had about 3 seconds to shoot this. 

7.10.11

    Rajasthan, February '11  Rural wedding.

    Ukraine, April '10  Home made Ukrainian vodka.

  Jodphur, Rajasthan Feb. '11  Kids in a wedding procession. The weddings here last 8 days. The little one in the middle is actually attempting to murder me with cuteness.

7.9.11

 The Hotel, Chernobyl, Ukraine April '10  The only hotel in town, used exclusively by the Chernobyl administration- workers and officials who manage the power plant/surrounding exclusion zone. It's made of aluminum. "Jaunty" is one of several words that do not come to mind when I think of the Chernobyl hotel.

 NY, May '11.  This person said "I'm going to show you the "real mother****ing New York". People sometimes think I'm a German tourist... but I'm not. I'm mostly French. French Canadian, probably... but I was raised by Italians. This is actually true.

Brighton Beach, early spring '11

7.8.11

 Ground Zero, NY Spring '11  Bin Laden was killed the night before.

 Q Train, Brooklyn, Spring '11  Go out and get a cat. If you already have a cat, you can use that one. Get on the Q train and swing the cat by it's tail for 15 minutes or so every day for four or five days and there's a reasonable chance you will, at some point, hit a break dancer with it. This guy was really good.

L.E.S., NY Fall, '10

7.7.11

    Randolph, VT Summer '08  One of my two favorite Horses. I've never seen it's face, though I can conjure it in my mind if I just close my eyes and imagine other horses faces I've seen. It's pretty long and horse- like, with wide-set eyes. This is my guess.

    Sao Paulo, Brazil December '10  The festive, scorching hot Southern Hemisphere holiday season in full swing.   

    Jaipur, India Feb. '11   The Man attached to these feet works harder in one week than I do in 8 months.