Best of 2013

Drive Thru, POTY, 2013

This is my second Best-Of post, the first being from December, 2012.  This year's set contains 15 images, all but one shot in the first half of the year.  As with last year, the number could have been higher or lower, it just happened to be the number I truly liked.  Unlike last year, I won't post all of them, but will only comment on the POTY and the runner up.  The entire set is viewable in my Flickr feed by clicking here.

The POTY, Drive Thru, was shot in Wynwood on my return from my studio at the Bakehouse.  I was stopped at a light and just raised the camera and snapped off a shot.  Composition and tonality are the two things I like most in photography and the reason I shoot predominantly in black & white. This image has it all.  The sign on the extreme right third of the image tells you exactly where you are and acts as a counterpoint to the subjects on the left.  The left-side is lighted nearer the bottom whereas the right-side is lighted from where the left-side leave off all the way to the top.

The people in the image, though, complete the photo.  They are illuminated by the store and almost organically a part of the image.  Because of the tonality, the interplay between light and shadow and the presence of people engaged in ordinary tasks, this photo has always reminded me of an Edward Hopper painting, albeit in black & white.

Tagging Party in Wynwood

Following up my previous post on Graffiti Art in Wynwood,  during our stop in Wynwood Jackie and stumbled across a tagging party.   Two guys were doing the tagging, with some others hanging out by the cars, in the rear with the bear.  The kids were very cool and let themselves be photographed.

I don't know if they had the owner's permission.  Graffiti abounds in Wynwood.  Not all of it can be "illegal".  The work is beautiful. Surely some of it, maybe most of it, is done under commission by the building owners.  Still, I didn't photograph their faces, just to be careful.

Graffiti is fraught with such controversy given its origins in the streets, its association with African American and Hispanic culture and wholly unfair association with gang life. Many people don't consider it an art at all but merely a form of vandalism.   The vandalism aspect of this is almost beside the point, actually.  It confuses the act of graffiti with permission to create the art in the first place.  I suppose if Micheal Angelo had painted the Sistine Chapel without the Pope's permission it would technically be considered graffiti vandalism, but it would still be his masterpiece on the Sistine Chapel.  The art deserves to be measured on its own value regardless of whether the artist had permission in the first place.  As art, much of it is beautiful.  This beauty abounds in Wynwood.
 
Click here to read a great article on Graffiti.

Click here to view the rest of the gallery in my Flickr feed.

Graffiti Art in Wynwood

Batmen

 After the Wynwood Art Fair, Jackie and I drove around looking for something else interesting to photograph when she spotted the Batman tags on a wall.

Since I already had a photo of a Captain America she suggested I photograph this.  Well, it turned into an urban photo safari and a great encounter with some taggers as well. 

Photos of the tags can be found in my gallery on Flickr called Graffiti Art in Wynwood.  More on the taggers next time.

Wynwood Art Festival

Couple walks past a dry-ice machine

Wynwood had its pre-Basel party in October with its Art Festival.  Typical of Wynwood, though, this was very much a participatory event.  You could even say that the Festival was, by itself, a piece of performance art.

Billowing clouds of dry ice embrace you as you walk in and are immediately a bunch of dancers, a kid doing an old-style break dance and a Celia Cruz lookalike. 

The entire set can be viewed in my Wynwood Arts Festival Gallery on Flickr.

Tomorrowland

Urban, hip, gritty, gentrified, artsy, blue-collar, new, and decaying. Wynwood is a place that defies description and one that presents us with a paradox.

Wynwood had it's origins in the great Puerto Rican migration of the 1950's. People came here in droves seeking a better life for themselves and their families, seeking a better tomorrow. Like immigrants before them, they founded a neighborhood that met their needs and reflected their character, all within the limited resources available to them. Through the years, Wynwood remained an island of genuineness in a city that was constantly being remade. It was an area apart.