Shake 'n' break

Just got a copy of the December 2008 Consumer Reports, which features two images from a shoot I did there earlier this year. CR is a truly great place to shoot- a cross between Dr. Emmett Brown’s laboratory and the back room at Costco. A wild place to see and be able to hang out & create fun images.











Photos by Andrea Patton









I can’t wait to get back in there and see more things get baked, watered, bent, crushed, stained, scraped, pulled, pushed, burned, smashed, tortured and destroyed.

And they have a good cafeteria as well ;).

In memoriam

It is not often I post sad news, but I must mention the passing of my friend, photographer, fellow APA|NY board and longtime Success Team member Susan San Giovanni, on October 9, 2008 after a long illness.

Her sometimes sardonic wit, calm demeanor and ability to cut to the quick of things will be missed by all of us here in NY, and especially those of us who worked with her. She was never afraid to tell you what she thought of things, and her can do spirit & courage made her a valued member of the NY photo community.

I would post a link to her site to celebrate her work, but unfortunately, her domain lapsed while she was ill, her site is no longer accessible. She did beautiful environmental portraits for corporate, not for profit and music clients- hopefully, someone will be able to post a gallery of some of her best pictures at some point.

Be at peace, Susan. We miss you.

New at Workbook

Just a quick mention to take a peek at the new Workbook online portal. I have reworked my galleries, arranging them loosely by category, and added a whole new gallery just of images from SHE"S OUT THERE!

Amazon amazing

The truth can now be told- my book project, “SHE’S OUT THERE! The Next Generation of Presidential Candidates” not only has a publisher- LifeTime Media, but a pub date of April 2009. So you will only have to wait six more months to get your hands on it.







You can go to Amazon and preorder it to avoid the April 15 rush (and don’t worry, the real book will actually have a cover with my photo on ;).

If you can’t wait to see some more shots, you can look here.

Son of

I finally managed to score a reservation at Ko, albeit on a federal holiday, but hey, I still got to eat, right?

So what was it like? Was it worth the time & effort to gain admittance to the temple? Of course it was…although with this big a buildup, even a Bacchanalian feast would be a let down. Okay, cut to the chase, what did I have?

Among other more pedestrian ingredients, ther was bacon dashi, duck breast, pickled strawberries, pepperonchini broth, corn raviolis with chorizo, Riesling glacis, buttermilk & white miso sauce with poppies, and if I understood correctly, an English muffin toped with whipped pork fat.

It was such a swirl of ingredients, tastes, textures, presentations, not to mention a paired wine, beer and sake, that without taking notes, it is hard to know what was real, and what was an illusion (cue the Moody Blues). I guess I should have taken notes, taken pictures, stayed sober…but I didn’t, so you will just have to take my word, use you imagination, or just get clicking at 10:00:00 AM every morning for a few months to see for yourself.

And I am thinking maybe I should start again & get a jump on that holiday rush…..

Get real

I was watching my 6 year old play on the computer, while his friends stood next to him looking on.

Why don’t you guys play a real game like Life, or Connect Four,” I said.

“Dad,” said Oliver, “they have Connect Four online.

“Sure,” I said, “but sometimes it is good to touch real plastic.”

Real plastic. I started thinking about the absurdity of that, and how “real plastic” seems like some fancy substance in this digital, virtual world we seem to be living in more and more. Just this morning, I “borrowed” money from a loan account online, and transferred it to my checking account, where it instantly appeared. Wow, I thought, I can create $4,000, and move it through the air from one account to another…but of course I realized that I actually didn’t move anything physical at all, just a credit in one account, and a debit in another. Probably there is no actual money in any of my accounts really- just a big plus in one, and a bigger minus in another on a hard drive somewhere in the world.

So what does this have to do with photography? That there is something missing in this digital photography world, where images only exist as ones or zeros on a hard drive, or plastic disk, and can only be seen with the aid of a electronic liquid crystal display, or printed on an ink jet printer.

Yes, you could argue, previously photography consisted of invisible grains of silver nitrates on a clear plastic substrate, that first needed to be transformed by chemical reactions before anything was visible, but at least when it was developed, you could take the image out of its sleeve, hold it up and see, maybe in a negative form, but a pretty recognizable representation of the image without any mechanical or electronic device.

It was somehow more real than a digital image- more tangible, and also at the same time, more fragile and more unique as this was the actual film that went through your camera at the moment the image was recorded, the film that traveled 10,000 miles with you, the film that was exposed to the light of another hemisphere, perhaps at great personal risk, or expense.

Not a copy of a copy of a transfer from a flash card copy of data copied from a digital sensor manipulated by a bunch of transistors on a circuit board in a camera/computer. This (the film image) was it- take good care of it or there is nothing left.

And I do miss the smell of freshly processed Kodachrome slide film that you used to get when you first opened the little yellow boxes….

SLPS XII aka pool party

Last night was Slideluck Potshow XII- if you don't know what that is, you are missing a great event.

What was really fun about this one was it was outside, in McCarren Park pool, an abandoned 6 acre, 72 year old swimming pool in Brooklyn. You can read even more about it here.


It's hard to tell if it was really crowded, as when you are standing in a swimming pool- sans water- the size of a city block- well, my block at least- it is hard to feel crowded. The threatening weather held out, even with a few not too distant rumbles of thunder, and just literally 45 seconds of water drops at one point near the beginning of the show.

Due to time constraints, the intermission was virtually non-existent, so it was about two hours straight of images- phew!

As usual, there was a great assortment of things to eat from freshly grilled items, to yours truely's roast vegetable pesto pasta salad to a Polish cheesecake.

And, Calumet was there giving an equipment demo that mainly consisted of shooting attendees in a wading pool full of water, the most appropriate (or inappropriate, depending of your viewpoint) of which was a tall tattooed mermaid wearing practicality nothing. And no, I don't have any pictures of her.

I do, however have a few more of the pool- look a real pool in the pool:














And this "pool" of sorts....


















The night is still young.....