Relations between police and street people seems to be the same wherever I go. I only say “seems” because I haven’t been many places. But if you’ve lived in modern cities, I think you know what I mean.
Not the steps to the Cathedral, but a fairly long flight of stairs that at least at that time lead down to a narrow street with a paint store.
I didn’t have a tripod, so I was balancing the camera (Rollei TLR) on one of the railings.
1992, Rollei TLR, TMY
Now what other borough gets a store named after it in the center of Paris? Do you think people from the Bronx opened this burger joint? I wish I had gone in there, but I didn’t.
The outdoor menu says: THE BRONX
(Salle au Sous-sol)
Salade Composée 18f
Poulet Frites 25f
Steack Frites 24f
Croque-Monsiur 16f, Pizza 30F
Hamburgers 38f
Plat du Jour 40f
The Plat du Jour is: Quenelles de brochet
“A quenelle is mixture of creamed fish, chicken, or meat, sometimes combined with breadcrumbs, with a light egg binding. It is usually poached. Formerly, quenelles were often used as a garnish in haute cuisine; today, they are usually served on their own. Quenelle may also refer to a food item made into an oval or egg shape, such as ice cream, sorbet, or mashed potato quenelles. This usage derives from the original shape of the egg-and-meat quenelle.”
Definitely not something eaten in the Bronx, unless they’re talking about potato pancakes in the form of an oval.
Lyon and Nantua are famous for their quenelles de brochet (mousseline) (pike quenelles), often served with cream sauce and run under the salamander grill. Pike has many small bones, so passing it through a tamis is an expeditious way of removing them.
A few years ago, after thinking about my identity, I came to the conclusion that I saw myself as a Bronx kid. Obviously, not a kid anymore, but deep-down, I still see myself as a kid from the Bronx. That’s how I identify myself to myself. And around that time, I went back to my old haunts, and photographed them. I spent about two years going back to the Bronx for two years, looking for places that had meaning to me; physical places, buildings, streets, the old school, the apartment on University Avenue, that could evoke memories just by standing near them; or touching them.
I did as many interviews as I could with people who were still living there, or with family members who were brought up in the Bronx. And the idea was that someday I would do a book, part memoir, part picture book with this material. So now, just as the Paris shots sat for years without being seriously looked at, I have at least as much, or more of Bronx memories. I posted a few of them, at one point, but since none of them sold, I removed them. In the meantime, the site has grown up, and out, and I can see that the time will come soon to put together the Bronx collection. I’d love to use this shot as the opening title shot.
Paris 1992. Rollei TLR, TMY
I remember thinking about this title, 20 years ago! Not sure if this was it exactly, but it was along these lines.
Another title that wouldn’t go away: I SAW MUSIC!
* * *
Yes, due to popular requests of Tweeters (since I put the Tweet Widget onto the Photo Store pages) you can now comment on photos in the store.
*** UPDATE ***
And then after I added comments almost no one used them and I dropped a bit in G engine. So I decided to remove comments from the store. (More on the G. search later on in this post).
*** UPDATE ***
I like this shot so damned much, that I thought it would be a nice place for someone to start:
http://www.beckermanphoto.com/farmhouse-arles-france-fhaf.html
Once I’m sure that the basics are all working properly; I’m going to put a plugin in so that you can edit your own comments. As the Admin, I have always been able to do this, but I agree, it is a real pain to write something and not be able to go back and change it. So let’s see how it goes, step by step.
* * * *
This is what I mean about the mysterious world of G. I was regularly at 3 or 4 on the first page for ‘black and white photography’ during the last few weeks; and then I added the ability to comment in the store. I only had one or two comments so far. Yet, when I looked at my G placement for the same phrase, I had dropped down to seven on the first page. When you add comments, you get a bunch of other words with it, such as Comments closed, or Pings open or follow this or that… So I removed all the extraeous stuff and just kept the comment box and the phrase leave a comment.
We’ll see if that makes any difference. One of the new things about G. is that they have tweaked their system so that they pick up on these minor changes very quickly now. Which is good because you get to see pretty fast what effect your efforts are having.
An annoying Search Engine Optimization point is that for those of us who don’t or can’t rely on advertising – it means that we must design our sites with G. in mind, and always keep an eye on it in terms of any major (or sometimes minor) changes we’ve made. Although there’s nothing personal about it and it’s just bits and bytes making these decisions (though of course human beings have written those bits and bytes) – the Search Engine can make or break you, all in a very impersonal way.
Reminds me of an old New Yorker cartoon. Two business guys. One has just stabbed the other in the back. Caption reads, Sorry Charlie, but business is business.
Or something like that.
Similar phrase in the Godfather: it’s just business.
Large corporations have millions to spend on Search Engine Optimization. These are generally not programs, but specialists who design and work on the corporations web design to make sure it has a high ranking. G. says that you can’t pay for a high ranking; and that is true. In the sense that you can’t go to them and say, hey, here’s a million bucks. Please list my site on the first page for this phrase.
On the other hand, if you have the money, you can pay the experts to help your corporation achieve good placement. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always ads; which are very straight forward. Whoever has the most money to spend on them wins since your placement is based on bidding.
Social networks, like Twitter, can also be rigged by corporations, but it isn’t as easy. You have a much better chance to win out over a large corporation if you are offering content that people really want to read about. However, this can also lead to the Lowest Common Denominator effect. Here it depends on your view of human nature, and the idea that the vast multitudes are not as sophisticated about art as the 10 percent of experts on the right hand side of the curve… It’s easy enough to see what the human curve is like in terms of interest by simply going to Twitter and look at what’s trending…
You can view it by city, or country. If I look today to see what’s trending, there will be new movies that I haven’t seen yet; new stars that I don’t know; and here and there some bits of funny creative stuff. You’ll find stars that I haven’t heard of that have 100,000 followers. T.V. shows I’ve heard of, but don’t watch with millions of followers.
In other words, it’s the very definition of popular culture. And popular culture doesn’t have much to do with “fine art” although every once in a while they will overlap.
Can you imagine what Twitter would have been like if it had been around the night the Beatles went on Ed Sullivan? Or Elvis (make sure you only film him from the hips up). It’s as if their is a national, or international water cooler. Is that really such a bad thing? I don’t think so. But it’s early in the Twitter Era.
Some of the images tempt me to play with them. Especially this clock where the details are somewhere between Gothic, ghastly, and regal. Long live the King. I don’t think anyone makes this sort of thing anymore.
I threw the kitchen sink at this one. Tonemapped. Faux HDR. Infrared. And anything else that was sitting around the house of the bored mind. This one is sort of erotic – in the vein of what’s her name – Georgia O’Keeffe?
But it is all just one shot, looking down at lobby, Top of the Rock. Hopefully, you’ll do some of these and we can begin a new photo movement.
I never did like just posting images. I like to ramble about what my day is like, or write about something that seemingly has nothing to do with the photograph.
For example. Today, I had plans to finish matting prints for the China order, but when I went to the closet to find the 20 x 24 backing, I discovered that I was out of it. But I had ordered 20 x 32 matboard for backing, but when I searched for that – you guessed it – I couldn’t find it either.
And there’s the ladder with me near the top, with the ceiling fan brushing by my hair, and tubes and cartons and the ladder is tipping, and the cat wants to climb the ladder and scratch my bare feet, and I’m starting to wonder what would happen if I fell and broke something, specifically what would happen to the business? And just a little bit of reach was a box that said 16 x 32 in my handwriting on it. Crescent 16 x 32, that didn’t make any sense.
But I couldn’t reach the package in the loft, without a dangerous mountain climbing type move, so I came back down and looked up what I had ordered from DickBlick.com – and sure enough it was Crescent 20 x 32. So I could cut that to 20 x 24, and have nice 4 ply backing for the China prints.
It was tricky to get to it, and I dropped a package of flat cartons that just missed the cat. He definitely got the idea that standing near the bottom of the ladder was not a good idea and went to hang out in the now empty big box that the tubes had come in yesterday. And somehow, although I scraped my knees, I managed to get the package of backing down, and started cutting it.
But now I really didn’t feel like going back to the matting process. I hadn’t had a thing to eat all day and it was nearing 4 pm. I had done pretty good cigar-wise, only smoking two small cigars; but the fridge was empty except for hot sauce; and I had worked on this shot – with tonemapping which I wanted to post, but I had nothing new to say about it other than that it was done with the infrared camera and the 300mm lens from the Top of the Rock. I thought it looked very much like a well-known shot by Kertesz, so that in itself is a fine reason to post it. And so it goes up, and now I’d better continue matting so this order can go out tomorrow because it’s already four days or so late. And that’s how it all goes together – sort of. Plus I want to tweet this one since I am getting a whole new bunch of tweet followers that never did read the blog before.
Which brings me to something else I wanted to write: the difference between Tweeting and Blogging. This may be sexist, but Tweeting is a masculine sort of activity where you go out chasing your audience / customer; and blogging is more feminine, where you are discovered, noticed by the customer / audience.
Does that make any sense to you? Of course not. If it made perfect sense, if it was obvious, there’d be no point in writing it. But if there’s just a smidgen of truth in it – then it becomes interesting.
Tweeting v. Blogging. Part II (when I get done with what I’m supposed to be doing).
This should really just be a tweet. But so it will end up. I now have something like 40 prints to do. Yes, that is how busy things are. I’m not complaining, just writing about what is going on in my world. They are almost all connected with interior design work for Bistros, Condo Complexes, and the like. And this is after finishing off a pile for individual customers. Here’s hoping that printer stays in top form (which it has been for the last month).
Places buying prints: China, Italy, Australia, New York, U.K., San Francisco…
In the meantime, I have given up the cigarettes (as mentioned); switched to small cigars (not inhaling) and trying not to smoke in the house; and as you also can see, put a heck of a lot of European prints into the store. (Haven’t sold any of them yet, though I did sell one or two of the kid shots a long time ago to Richo). And no sales (yet) of the Southwest work. One day maybe.
Given that the summer is usually the slowest season for me, I’m feeling pretty good about how this is all going. Hooray. Oh, and this is weird – but when I gave up the cigarettes, I also changed my eating habits, and stopped eating animal flesh. I don’t know what that’s about. I did go through a period of being a veggie guy for a year or two back in the day… Eugene, you remember?
But now I’ve been buying the veggie frozen stuff – Amy’s etc. and doing them in the microwave, and then adding my own stuff like really good hot sauce, or some excellent cheese. Anyway, it’s a good period, and I will try to savor it while I get the next batch of prints out.
I didn’t write about this yet, but I also simplified the overseas shipping stuff. Basically, if your country is listed, it’s going to be a $95 charge for any amount of prints via Fedex. That is a lot for a small order which is fine with me since I don’t want to send one tiny print to China; and it’s enough so that I won’t lose money on the deal if the order is in the $300 range. But just for your info, to send a stack of unmatted prints to Australia, is about $95, and a bunch of matted prints to England, $125.
I thought this view camera shot was worth a re-scan. My scanning techniques and cleaning etc. getting better.
It is unfortunate (as always) that the larger the negative, the poorer the translation to the web jpg. But so it goes.
I would compare it to eating a very good chicken parm. sandwich without being able to taste or sense the texture of the breaded chicken, or the freshness of the sauce. You know it’s chicken parm. because of what it looks like, and because it’s what you ordered, but they’ve put a small amount of cotton coating on your tongue, and you just have to live with it.
On the home page, www.beckermanphoto.com you’ll see the 25 or so tweet logo at the top. I’m curious – when I go to tweet using it, I get my Twitter login to tweet with.
What do you get? I think it’s either going to be your Twitter name if you have one, or maybe it lets you put your twitter name in; or else it will be prefilled with tweetmeme which is the plugin.
Anyway – more tweets the better.
Can hardly keep my eyes open but I have
three prints waiting to be picked up by
two people who are going to give them
to one person
as a gift for
$300.
And then there are about 20 more prints
sitting in the in box to
be printed but even though one of those orders
should be started today I don’t see how
I’m going to start it. I think I’m going to almost certainly
either go back to sleep and then when I wake
go back to the French stuff and finish it off already.
Tweet me to wake me up.
Tweet me to snap me from a snooze.
Tweet my pictures so that they circle the world
In a chain of tweets.
Viral.
Very much wanted.
A chipper tweeting virus that there is no cure for.
For sure there is no cure
Until the twitter replacement makes it’s way
across the tweeting universe
but not in verse.
*According to article in today’s NY Times only 7% of all bloggers are over 52 (hey, that means me)
*Most are between 21 and 35. (Of course they are. Who else would bother to read or write this stuff that goes mostly unread).
I type this with closed eyes now… even the dots adn the
carriage return
and I am from a time when typing machines actually had carriage returns.
It was a metal handle that you hit and push two return the carriage.
I feel myself noddin’ each leg… almost asleep…
Every country seems to have a national street dish. Here it’s the hot dog (at least in NYC). I haven’t traveled enough to know if it’s different in various states. I don’t mean a state food, but a street food.
Belgium, I saw lots of Frites stands. And not only that, but the fries were better. And more elaborate. Often double-fried, and the stands were surrounded with squeeze bottles of everything from vinegar to mayonnaise. In case you didn’t know this, the most popular topping in Belgium for Frites is mayonnaise. First time I saw that, I thought, with my American health-consciousness that this was like putting fat on fat. Which it is. But very tasty it was too.
And then in France, the obvious contender for street food would be the crepe. That’s an odd food given that it takes time to properly pour and cook a crepe, compared to a hotdog which just has to be luke warm. But those crepes were good. And they made them for any meal. You could get them with meat, berries, whipped cream, or just straight up.
London, I’d guess would be chips and fish in a bag. That sort of makes sense, seeing as it’s a big island – so there should be lots of fish, and you need something to absorb all the drinking that goes on there, which is where greasy chips come into play. Odd, but for some reason, my mom often made us fish and chips in brown paper bags with salt, vinegar and something else, and you’d shake it up and the bag would get all greasy, and we loved it as kids.
I go back far enough that we would get smaltz at my grandmother’s house. That’s right – 100% pure fat from a chicken. My grandmother (from Russia / Poland) would pour the drippings from a roasted chicken into a jar, and stick it into the fridge, and eventually it would harden and you’d have an old jam jar filled with rock hard chicken fat.
And we considered this a great treat – to put it onto a piece of stale bread – as if it were butter. It was salty, and tasty, and somehow my grandparents lived pretty long lives. My grandmother who fed us shmaltz, lived into her hundreds.
It’s all a crazy sort of world, because as you know, you walk down French streets and they’re all smoking and eating fat and bread, and they look healthy, and live longer than we do (Americans) and do all the wrong things – but scientists say that it’s because the wine thins their blood or something. Maybe those Galloise cigarettes get their hearts to beat hard enough to knock the fat off the inside of the arterial walls.
Well, that’s all my mumbling about food for now. It’s true that these hotdogs are mostly sawdust and unclean; and I’m not a big fan of them in terms of taste – but the Hebrew National ones, if they’re grilled are excellent; and we were brought up on good quality hotdogs, Chinese food, and pizza and sure enough: SPAM.
If you don’t know what SPAM is – then forget about it. Only one or two companies know exactly what they put into that, but it’s the cheapest form of pre-cooked meat around; usually in a tin, with gelatin around it. However, there is a trick to preparing it. Cut into very think slices, as thin as you can so that you can read a newspaper through it (if you use newspapers, or if not, you should be able to read your iPhone through a slice) and then fry them until they are burnt badly on both sides. This makes them crispy. Then put them between two slices of toast, with lots and lots of good quality mustard, and you’re set to go.
If you prepare it correctly, you’ll be treated to a crispy blackened shell, with a tiny bit of sweet-tasting meat inside, that doesn’t taste like anything else in the world other than Sabratt hot dogs that haven’t been fully cooked.
So what the heck is this you say, and why should we care. I don’t know why you should care, but the technique is interesting: the camera has been modified to read infrared light (that in itself is not a big deal these days) but I am using it with a Vivitar flash which only emits infrared light in the wavelength which the camera can read.
In short, the user doesn’t see a flash unless they are looking directly at the camera, and it feels very much as if you are shooting in complete blackness. The idea goes back a long way, at least to Weegee who did this sort of thing with infrared bulbs. But this is a hell of a lot easier, and more fun since you can tell quickly whether you’re exposures are close or not.
Another advantage is that, as in this case where the woman was running past me, you can have the benefits of flash photography (stopping motion) without using the flash which has a tendency to have authorities tell you that there is no flash photography in the subway (which is true) but not usually enforced.
