20-JUL-2015
Then and now, Allentown District, Buffalo, New York, 2015
Allentown is one of Buffalo’s most colorful neighborhoods. It his home to more than 700 historic buildings, and is known for its artists, shops, restaurants and nightlife. I photographed this 150-year-old Allentown wall, bearing but a single window and a decorated with a contemporary splash of graffiti. It is an exercise in color, texture, and contrasts – a scene bearing both the mark of time and a mark of self-expression.
20-JUL-2015
Nature at work, Allentown District, Buffalo, New York, 2015
This 19th century façade in Buffalo’s historic Allentown district seems virtually overwhelmed by a blanket of ivy. The ivy wall is flanked by a Victorian-era street lamp and brilliant blue Victorian window frame, creating an incongruous scene symbolizing both the passage of time, and nature’s continual assault on things built by man.
20-JUL-2015
Crumbling lion, Allentown District, Buffalo, New York, 2015
This huge wall advertisement featuring a slumbering lion is gradually vanishing. It is peeling away, revealing the brick façade of a 19th century building beneath it. My photograph draws on symbolism to tell its story. This lion, the ‘King of Beasts,” has lost its majesty. Time and weather have taken their toll, and incongruously doomed this most powerful of creatures.
20-JUL-2015
Celebration, Allentown District, Buffalo, New York, 2015
I was drawn to the vivid colors of this floral wreath displayed upon a neighborhood door. It was located behind a glass storm door, and as I moved closer to it, I noticed that a flag hanging next to the door was reflected diagonally across the wreath. I composed this image accordingly, expressing a celebratory mood.
21-JUL-2015
Entrance hall, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, 2015
This hall leads to the world’s leading collection of photography and film, as well as the mansion that Kodak founder George Eastman, the founder of modern photography, called home from 1905 to 1932.
I combine three elements to tell my story here, starting with a display containing a massive portrait of Eastman as a young man on the left hand side of my image. He contrasts in scale, gender, and era to a visitor at right who is about to walk past his photograph. Behind her head, a large projected photograph of a yellow dandelion explodes upon a screen, making it seem as if she may have photography on her mind. Eastman does not seem to see her, nor does she look at him. If he could see her, his eyes might well be drawn to her bright blue shoes that offer a touch of visual incongruity to this image.
21-JUL-2015
Elephant dead ahead, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, 2015
I made this image to shock the viewer. A huge elephant seems to be charging at us through the foliage. With fixed gaze and gleaming tusks, it seems bent on destruction. I slightly underexposed the edges of this photograph after I made it, giving the image a frightening, tunnel-like effect. The charging elephant is the most memorable object in Kodak founder George Eastman’s elegant 1905 mansion. After retiring as one of the wealthiest men in the world in 1925, Eastman pursued adventures in the American West and in the African jungle. In 1928, he shot this huge elephant while on safari in Uganda. He had its head mounted on the wall of his conservatory and used to eat his breakfast below it every morning. When the house was renovated in 1947, a replica of the head, re-crafted out of modern-day materials, was installed in its place. (And yes, the puns in my title were intentional.)
22-JUL-2015
Long forgotten, Cazenovia, New York, 2015
While visiting with family in Cazenovia, just outside of Syracuse, I discovered the remains of an old cemetery lost amidst an overgrown hilltop at the edge of a cornfield. Most of its headstones had toppled over time, vanishing beneath the heavy brush that covered the hill. Yet this headstone has somehow remained upright, although the weeds around had grown so high that much of it was obscured. I photograph it as an abstraction, a reminder that nature ultimately reclaims everything. We do not even who is buried here – all is left to our imagination
22-JUL-2015
The Library, Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, Cazenovia, New York, 2015
Inspired by the relationship between art and nature, this art park covers 104 acres of conserved land overlooking the rural landscape around Cazenovia. At once both an art museum and a landscape, the more than 100 works of art displayed here are unsuited for preservation. Instead, the art is expected to change as nature demands, affected by weather, light, motion, color, and sounds. I photographed one of them – a weathered library shelf, filled with books that have been intentionally left to decay. I moved in to photograph the fascinating interplay of texture, color, and form. Both this work of art and my image of it comment on the accelerating deterioration of books, as we once knew them. As electronic readers replace ink on paper, one wonders how long the book will linger among us.
23-JUL-2015
Lamppost, Auburn, New York, 2015
Auburn’s historic downtown district is lined with ornate lampposts that are well over 100 years old. Most of them fly the American flag during the summer. The morning light was warm and rich, emphasizing the bright green paint on the metal post. The branches from two different trees enter the frame from both sides, rhythmically echoing the delicate twin light fixtures atop the post. The flag moves from the shadows into the light. Meanwhile, an oddly patterned wall of the building in the background ties everything together. It appears weathered and stained, as if it has been part of this scene for a century or more.
23-JUL-2015
Wall décor, Auburn, New York, 2015
I often compare and contrast elements that I find placed on opposing sides of the corner of a wall. In this case, I contrast a rusting black metal newspaper receptacle set into the entrance of a local business to the sculptured head of a cherub placed at right angles to it. The open black metal box seems frozen in time, while the cherub’s head flows into the soft light from within a floral frame. The wall itself is painted bright red, and richly textured. The objects on the opposing sides of this corner make an incongruous pairing – the rusting box symbolizes disuse and decay, while the cherub speaks of eternal classical beauty.
23-JUL-2015
Imitation of life, Auburn, New York, 2015
The Liberty Store Mural, by Anthony P. Clubine, covers the entire ground level façade of a local retail store. Six life-sized shoppers are painted into the scene. The warm morning light and its shadows reminded me of the mood of an Edward Hopper painting, as I waited for an actual pedestrian to move down the sidewalk in front of it. Eventually a woman entered the frame, and as she reached the faux door in the middle of the scene, I made this image. She seems to vanish into Clubine's mural because she is the nearly same size as most of the painted figures. Her presence in this photograph defines my purpose in making it – to express art as an imitation of life. Anthony Clubine leaves a comment below -- he says that the people depicted in this mural represent "famous Auburn residents." Both he and I are essentially expressing similar ideas. Clubine uses local celebrities to inhabit the mural and bring art to life. By using an actual city building as a canvas for his mural, Clubine is also using art to imitate life here.
23-JUL-2015
Façade, The Seward House, Auburn, New York, 2015
Light, shadow, and reflected light play against each other to create the illusion of depth in this architectural study of one of the most historic homes in the United States. Originally built in 1816, and expanded in 1848 and again in 1865, this was the Auburn home of William H. Seward from 1824 to 1872. Seward was one of the most important politicians of 19th century America. Known as Abraham Lincoln’s “Indispensable Man,” Seward served as a senator, governor and as Secretary of State under Presidents Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.