by www.BeckermanPhoto.com
This was done with one shot from my A640. So it's faux HDR. It's also more painting than real in many ways but New Yorkers knew that already.
Imaginary Corridor, Grand Central Station – www.BeckermanPhoto.com
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Home on Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse, Bronx New York.
When I was in Paris, the first thing I noticed was how many streets were named after artists, writers and musicians. I never found this to be true in the states. At any rate, while I was working on my photo book about the Bronx, I did try to find the great landmarks and came to the conclusion that this little home where Poe wrote The Raven (for example) and computed to a newspaper job in Manhattan; and where his "child bride" died, and where his mother-in-law tried her best to save him from poverty (without success) – and if you walk into this house you will need to stoop down.
It's tiny. But you will see the desk where Poe wrote by candlelight.
He may not have been the greatest writer produced by America – but he was one of the greatest geniuses we've produced in the arts. I could go on about how he was able to write poetry that was musical; or how he invented the deductive detective before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
And his ultimate mysterious death in the streets of Baltimore. I wondered whether that was why their football team is named the Ravens.
It's a heart-breaking story, and he continues to be one of the few writers that I can pick up at any time and just read a passage or two although I know the story so well. It's the style, the ideas, the crazy excessive erudition and the ideas he came up with despite living in abject poverty.
And it wasn't that the fates were all against him. He had a terrible temper, and it was said that normally he was a quiet reserved fellow, and that he got along with his fellow workers at the journal; but that if he had a single sip of liquor, he became a drunken lunatic.
I had read that about General Grant who had a reputation as a big drinker, but it turned out that Grant got drunk on a single swallow of hard liquor.
Well, I couldn't really just take a single picture of Poe's house that would do it justice, and there it is with the background of the Grand Concourse – and I decided to do it as a sort of poster – or that I might add other views of the house's interior when I visited it again. It was closed the day I was there.
Bon voyage Poe – wherever you are.
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In 1982 I worked as an all around production assistant, bag carrier, dolly-pusher etc. on a film called Wild Style. It was produced / directed by Charlie Ahearn – and mostly shot in the Bronx (my hometown).
There was a lot of work done in small hip-hop clubs and this is a shot of one of the cinematographers – John Foster. The film was either the first or one of the first films to combine tagging and rap. I can assure you that I had no idea that it would document something that would go on and on…
Files / Prints http://www.beckermanphoto.com/camera-man-photo-id-898.html
Cameraman, Wild Style
Prints / Files : http://www.beckermanphoto.com/camera-man-photo-id-898.html
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Originally published as Land of Two Sons
Holly Martins and Harry Lime
As anyone that's seen the Third Man knows, Holly Martin (who became a pulp western writer) and his pal Harry Lime were best friends as kids. This movie tells the story of how they first met, and shows why Harry Lime became the monster of the Third Man.
One of the publicity photographs for the movie shows the idea of Holly Martin as being not only the writer of The Third Man, but the author of The Second Man; and that both characters were part of his personality.
One idea the studio had was to show this with a graphic where Holly Martin has two shadows. One should look like Harry Lime as a young man, the other Holly Martins at that age.
[Editor: I've spoken to Dave about posts like this and asked him to keep them to a minimum because they are a little too "out there" but so far I haven't had any luck. He insists on posting extremely strange images with equally odd stories that make film references to ancient movies.
Please Mr. Beckerman. Stick to colorful pictures of trees.]
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The giant falls. Is it true that the original digital camera was invented at Kodak? Will there by no more Tri-X film. No more Dektol?
Will they come back again in some new form, maybe selling printers?
Personally, I buy and use Ilford paper for my digital work. I like to support a company that I have a history with.
I suppose that by now, the Kodak story is old news. And who am I to grieve over a corporation even if they aren't people – they represent a history of people.
I still have my early Brownie camera in my top drawer. I kept it all these years thinking that someday I would do something with it. But do they even make film that size. I doubt it.
The last gasp for film cameras was really not that long ago – at least in my mind. They had come up with a new format for film cameras – was it APS? I can't remember but the idea was that the film would be associated with a chip and you could do what, order by numbers. But the film size was smaller still. And I can remember thinking even then – that this was a desperate move – way too late in the game. Sort of like eight track, though at least eight track had a life span longer than the life of a fly.
Yes, they hold a lot of patents. And one of the great photography museums is up there. I don't know how many workers are left but that has got to have been a big hit to a city like Rochester.
Oh, the picture – I put the Brownie on the flatbed scanner and moved it along with the light bar.
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#infraredpainting #colorpaintingdlb
From Hudson River Park, New York. Infrared digital camera.
Files and Prints at http://www.beckermanphoto.com/willow-tree-with-orange-background.html
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Yes – Go Giants. #photostorydlb
As a kid growing up in the Bronx, we somehow always had trees around to climb. I'll bet you didn't know this but the Bronx has more parks than any other borough. I'm not saying that you want to go in them at night – but during the day they were pretty safe when I was a kid.
The neighborhood was divided into two groups: Irish and everyone else. The Irish kids were pretty wild and we Jews (there were two or three of us) banded together to form a Jewish tree-climbing club as a means of escape.
Maybe that sort of thing isn't p.c. to write about, but that was the way it was in the late 50s and early 60s.
As a member of the Jewish tree climbing club, you needed to have a piece of rope, a pen knife, and the ability to jumpt to the lowest branch on the elm tree near the projects.
Once you were on that branch, you could pretty much stay up in the tree until the Irish kids had to get home for dinner.
And it went up to the third floor of the projects where you could look into Junior's window and see if he or his larger brother Big Junior were home. They were both called Junior. And they had a sister called Fat Linda.
Either Junior loved to chase me around for sport. Even if he couldn't catch me, he would play with me like a cat plays with a mouse.
But once I got to that elm tree – I was safe because he was too fat to be able to jump up to the lowest branch.
Now if I were left on my own – I probably would have just hid in the house. But my father – a World War II vet. wouldn't see his only son hiding out in his room. So I was forced to get tough. And tough meant being able to be sat upon by someone that outweighed me by 40 pounds.
Yes, I can go on with the story – like the time that Junior's bigger brother, Fat Junior (and this was before the Bill Cosby routine) was hit by a bus and walked away from the accident leaving a bus with two broken windows.
So trees – and height – those were safe places for me and my two friends. And many years later – when I worked in the film business as a gaffer – I was always the one that would volunteer to climb the four story scaffold – even in the middle of a thunder storm. Even as it poured and I put sandbags on the big HMI lights to steady them – and looked down at the cast and techies below – I felt completely comfortable.
www.BeckermanPhoto.com
Close gallery to read story about tree climbing.
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Place: 3rd Avenue, New York
From: www.BeckermanPhoto.com
This shot goes back a while – but of course that's the beauty of photography. You don't really know why you took the shot – well sometimes you do – and then years later, sometimes decades later – it fits.
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Infrared and Photomatix / Nik Software
Camera: Canon Powershot 640
Files / Prints at www.BeckermanPhoto.com
www.BeckermanPhoto.com
Dreamscape Central Park – Infrared
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#streetphotographydlb
I took a lot of street shots – the usual suspects – the odd, the beautiful, the ironic and the only thing that really appealed to me was this collection of bottles. Art of art's sake. No meaning. At least none that I'm aware of. Just a fabulous collection of designs and colors.
At one end of the spectrum, the photograph that is saying something, usually about human beings. Maybe what it is saying isn't entirely clear. Maybe it's sad. Reflects our feelings.
And at the other end, the display of shapes and colors, lines and textures that are delightful to look at. The difference between meatloaf (now I'm reaching) and a light parfait (really reaching).
A bit of paint on canvas and you stand in front of it wondering what it's about. And a beautiful impressionist painting that you just get.
But times change, and a thing of beauty if not a thing of beauty when it first confronts the world; or the world confronts it. The image that is on every postcard today was disliked when it first appeared because it was considered badly drawn.
The image was considered unworthy of being called art because it was simply too easy to get when it first arrived. But it lived on. The postcard shot of the past became the art of the future.
Processing: NIK Software / Photomatix
Prints / High Resolution Files: www.BeckermanPhoto.com
www.BeckermanPhoto.com
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