Further proof that I have the ability to travel forward and backward in time, as long as I stay in the Astor Place IRT station

And if you really want to know, the fare in 2044 is $12.

Mission Impossible?

A not so cheery “portrait” of the current state of the professional (and amateur) assignment and stock photography business here at the New York Times. Nothing we haven’t heard, experienced or feared, but it does show how forces of technology, the economy and human nature have all created a perfect storm that threatens to destroy our livelihood.

Pretty much anyone can take an occasional decent picture that is good enough for many stock uses, given enough time and some luck. But, if professional photography as a career falls by the wayside, who will clients call when they need an assignment done that requires experience, and lots of it?

As the entry point for creating decent images has dropped, and continues to drop, we as professional image makers really need to sell ourselves not on our abilities to get sharp well exposed images, as most point & shoot cameras can do that, not as the cheapest way to get images (although in the long run hiring a professional can often be the most cost effective), but on the strength and individuality of our visions, and on our professionalism and experience in getting jobs done on schedule, on budget (or under), and under the worst of conditions & circumstances.

Perhaps our only hope is to all become amateurs. Unfortunately, we will of course need to work another job or two just to support our new “hobby”!

Mission Improbable

Today the Impossible Project is releasing the first in its' new line of instant integral processing films, PX film (when’s the last time you typed the word film?), a sepia toned black & white pack that will fit into folding SLR Polaroid models, like the SX-70. Supposedly the film is able to be manipulated, like the classic SX-70 or Time Zero films were, and a color version will be introduced this summer. You can read more details here.
Then there is this, on the Impossible Project site, a special film pack made with expired chemicals, called SX-70 Fadetoblack Film that “…shortly after taking the photo drifts through different colour schemes before it finally turns to blackness after 24 hours”- I am not sure if this is an early April fool’s gag, or if I should call Jim Phelps.

What I did on my spring break

I recently shot an ad for long time client GMHC- the final ad will have a New York City scene striped in behind the models, so look for it at a bus shelter near you.

Hello Kitto Katsu

According to AdAge, there are 19 special flavors of Kit Kat bars available only in Japan that you just can’t get anywhere else, like strawberry-cheesecake, blueberry, cherry blossom and green tea (no big deal you say).

Have you ever tried yubari melon, yuzu, grape or wasabi-flavored white chocolate? No, how about sweet potato, miso, baked corn, green beans, red potatoes or kinako (a toasted soybean flour mostly used to coat mochi)? My mouth is watering already.

The number one flavor- surprise, it’s soy sauce (who would have thought that). For the whole story, go to adage.com.

Six feet under…

...Atlantic Avenue is where the ladder takes you, after first descending
through a standard sized manhole, to a dirt floored passage, carved through more dirt and small stones.

Duck under the low concrete intrusion, mind the water and the mud, then walk maybe 70 feet, as you notice the curved brick ceiling low enough to touch.

You then come to a solid looking wall, with a very narrow sliver of a passage chiseled through it. Once you squeeze thorough a couple of feet of concrete,




you suddenly find yourself overlooking a long, seemingly endless empty tunnel, with homemade wooden steps leading you down to the bottom.
As you descend the steps, a seated man warns you to watch your step. You soon reach another dirt floor, only this one is fairly solid- damp of course, as the 60 degree tunnel maintains a pretty high humidity- and as you gaze around you notice the Manhattan schist blocks that form the tunnel walls, which are then topped with a gently curving brick arch that rises almost 20 feet over your head.

The man you passed is of course no other than Bob Diamond, who in 1980 discovered the long abandoned tunnel, after he was repeated told by everyone that it did not exist. But it does exist, and Atlantic Avenue bustles blissfully 30-40 feet above you, except you can’t hear any of that, as there is only the one opening to the street, and it is far, far behind you as you walk over the uneven dirt floor, noticing where each railroad tie used to be a century and a half ago.

Written about by Walt Whitman and H.P. Lovecraft, and rumored to be the hiding place of German spies, bootleggers, lost treasure, pirates, vampires and the final resting place of a murdered foreman, this tunnel has to be one of the most visited, and most legendary, yet least know pieces of New York City’s transportation, or for that matter, any kind of our city’s history.




Here and there your flashlight picks out things: graffiti from Mr. Lynch who put electricity in the tunnel during one of its’ many investigations for supposed criminal activity, a huge pile of curved brick sections where the above ground airshaft was torn down and dumped into thehole before being sealed on the surface, the occasional rotten piece of wood, or rusted metal object, patches of white paint still remaining on the ceiling which was painted that way to reflect light, and the fact that despite being built in 1844, and abandoned in 1861, the tunnel is in pretty solid shape.

After walking the equivalent of several city blocks, the light from the string of occasional bare light bulbs ends, and you are left with onlywhatever flashlight you have brought with you for illumination. You need to carefully avoid many large pieces of stone as you reach the far end of the tunnel- at least that is where another wall sits, blocking whatever may lie beyond it in the last section of the tunnel- perhaps just dirt and New York City infrastructure, or perhaps, as it is rumored, missing pages from John Wilkes Booths’ diary, or even an overturned 1831 vintage steam locomotive. Some large sewer pipes and pieces of conduit pierce the back corner of the crumbling wall, reminding us that even though the tunnel has sat abandoned and mostly forgotten for over 150 years, there does exist a bustling metropolis overhead, one that like an old tree, occasionally extends its’ roots down into the deep dark earth.

Will we soon discover what lies beyond that wall? Will another fascinating chapter in the story of this subterranean structure be written? Stay tuned.

Snow storm #3...or 4?

Who remembers by now? A few snapshots before the next one hits. All this will seem quaint in August….