New York/Prospect Park


Abraham Lincoln, Prospect Park, New York (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

A statue of Abraham Lincoln, dedicated in 1969, stands in Prospect Park. Lincoln is depicted holding the Emancipation Proclamation, the executive order that effectively freed the slaves in 1862 at the height of the Civil War. Lincoln said at the signing:

“I never in my life felt more certain that I was doing right than I do in signing this paper…if my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.”

A few days ago, John Kelly, chief of staff for President Donald Trump, made remarks that essentially denied that slavery was the central focus of the Civil War, and insulted the legacy of Lincoln. He said: “…the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.”

In 1860, speaking in the Great Hall of Cooper Union, Lincoln addressed, specifically, the issue of false equivalence — and the moral necessity of recognizing right from wrong.

Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored – contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man…

It is not necessary to demonize those who fought on the side of the south — my great, great grandfather died on the battlefield at Vicksburg — believing, I presume, that he fought for a just cause. But it is time to acknowledge that veneration should be reserved for those who fought against slavery, not for it. 

New York/Four Freedoms Park


Four Freedoms Park, Roosevelt Island — © Brian Rose

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression–everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way–everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want–which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear–which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor–anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
January 6, 1941


Four Freedoms Park, Roosevelt Island — © Brian Rose

New York/Meatpacking District

Curbed has done a video about the Meatpacking District and my photography. It’s a little slick, perhaps, but hey, I’m a slick kind of guy. We put quite a bit of work into this video — out in the street, and in the studio. Those are the actual Meatpacking negatives on the lightbox, and that is my super lightweight Toyo 4×5 camera in use.

My book, Metamorphosis, Meatpacking District 1985 + 2013 is still available — about 100 left.

New York/The Bronx

A quick trip to the Bronx. Go Yankees!


Yankee Stadium, 161st Street — © Brian Rose


Cromwell Avenue — © Brian Rose


170th Street and Jerome Avenue — © Brian Rose


170th Street station platform — © Brian Rose

New York/Frame Shop


Meatpacking District image, Laumont Photographics, Long Island City — © Brian Rose

It’s always great to see prints like these go out the door. I was there to place a signature label on the mounted print. They cut a window in the backing board to provide access to the signature.


Signature window in backing board — © Brian Rose

New York/The Guardian

The Arcaid architecture photography award gets a lot of media attention — showing the finalists — not just the winner, which will be chosen in November. Many of the websites that do features are architecturally oriented, but some general news sites take an interest as well. The Guardian did a really nice presentation the other day with comments from readers.


Someone said my photograph was only good because of the two shacks, which is true.

A lot of the discussion centered on whether these were photographs about architecture or photographs that utilize architecture for other purposes. My favorite comment was this one:

New York/Arcaid Shortlist


Atlantic City, Revel casino north wall (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

I’m pleased to announce that my photograph of the new, but empty, Revel casino in Atlantic City (above) has been shortlisted for the  Arcaid architecture photograph of the year award. Twenty photographs were selected, and will be exhibited in Berlin, London, and Beijing. The winner will be chosen at the World Architecture Festival in Berlin in November.

Here are the images.

In a contest like this you want an iconic image with a strong composition, play of light, color arrangement — all the elements. And wow factor turned up to 11. I’m not really that kind of photographer. I work in series rather than individual images, though I expect each image to have a purpose and an internal logic.

As followers of this blog know, I’ve been working on an Atlantic City series with a fairly straightforward political intent. To frame Donald Trump as the scam artist we have known about for years, and to place him at the center of the destruction of Atlantic City, a quintessentially American story of greed and (literally) casino capitalism. The image that was selected does not show a Trump casino, and in fact, the fall of Atlantic City is a complex subject, but I think it works to tell the story about as well as any one photograph can.

American values and idealism, however, survive somewhere between the crumbling houses and the monolithic glass wall of the casino — the little American flag in the vacant lot flapping in the sea breeze.

See my other Atlantic City images here.

New York/Meatpacking District


Gansevoort and Washington Street — Photo by Justin Brooks (Curbed)

Was out with my view camera in the Meatpacking District shooting a video for Curbed, the blog on urban life and architecture. The completed video, which will be about the transformation of the neighborhood and my project photographing it, will only be a few minutes long, but we put at least eight hours into it — footage on the street and in the studio, and an audio interview. I’ll let you know when the video is available.


Meatpacking District negatives — © Brian Rose

The story, for those who don’t know it, is that I photographed the Meatpacking District over several cold days in January of 1985. I processed the film, but never printed any of it. The negatives sat in a Kodak box on my shelf for almost 30 years, when on a whim, I decided to scan them and see what was there.

I was stunned to discover — or rediscover — an exquisitely decrepit New York utterly devoid of people and traffic. The contrast with the present day city was so extreme that I decided to rephotograph the Meatpacking District — repeating the original images with a few variations — and adding a number of contemporary views. The result is my book Metamorphosis, Meatpacking District 1985 + 2013.

New York/Atlantic City


Atlantic City (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

As I set up the composition above with its various interlocking pieces, I noticed that the LED sign at right center, just under the royal crest of Trumplandia, the former Trump Plaza, changed ads every 30 seconds or so. I made several pictures — one with my digital pocket camera — posted a few weeks ago, and one with my 4×5 view camera. All off a sudden an ad for the Miss America Pageant flashed on the sign, and then was gone, before I could get a film holder into my camera. Perfect! I wanted that.

So I waited for the ads to cycle through again, and I waited and waited, but Miss America did not seem to be getting equal time. Finally, she popped up on the screen, a beaming blond wearing a golden crown, adjacent to a royal crest with the words Miss America 2018, Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Miss America pageant has been associated with Atlantic City for as long as I can remember — much longer than Donald Trump’s casino reign — and it remains one of the few vestiges of the past glory of this storied beach resort.

Miraculously, at that moment, a group of people carrying shopping bags acquired from the nearby outlet mall walked into the otherwise vacant pathway leading one’s eye to the smiling face of the beauty queen and the royal escutcheons of Miss America and Donald Trump.


Miss America statue, Atlantic City (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

On the boardwalk, a statue of Miss America holding a crown to be placed on the head of the next winner stands in front of Boardwalk Hall, the historic venue for the pageant. Miss America absconded to Las Vegas in 2006, but has since returned to her rightful realm. A steady stream of tourists photograph themselves beneath the statue’s proffered crown.

The pageant was first televised in 1954, the year I was born, and every Fall my family would gather around the TV set to watch. There were only three major networks in those days, guaranteeing an enormous audience for any event shown in prime time. It’s embarrassing to think about it now, but I remember carefully scrutinizing each contestant for beauty, talent, and poise, as the judges whittled it down to to the final group of worthies. Always of great importance was how well contestants answered questions picked at random, and it was great fun to laugh at the word salad that predictably spewed forth.


Atlantic City (4×5 film) — © Brian Rose

Donald Trump, despite his dominance in Atlantic City, never got his hands on Miss America, literally or figuratively — he was the owner of the Miss Universe and USA pageants for over a decade. Miss America would have been far too cerebral. When he took over Miss Universe pageant Trump said of one of the pageant executives, “They had a person that was extremely proud that a number of the women had become doctors, and I wasn’t interested.”

In the Miss America pageant just held in Atlantic City, Miss Texas was asked about Trump’s non committal response to the white supremacists who engaged in violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. She said, : “I think that the white supremacist issue — it was very obvious that it was a terrorist attack, and I think that President Donald Trump should have made a statement earlier addressing the fact, and making sure that all Americans feel safe in this country. That is the number one issue right now.”

 

 

New York/WTC


Tribute in Light, Brooklyn Bridge Park, 2013 — © Brian Rose

Mike Lupica in the Daily News:

On the eve of another anniversary of Sept. 11, terror from the sky created by madmen, it is always worth remembering that ever since that day 16 years ago, we have worried about somebody coming for us again, Al Qaeda or ISIS or the Taliban. And we have done as much as a city and country can do to make sure that does not happen. It is the storms that keep coming.

WTC — available here.

New York/Miami Beach


Miami Beach, 1982 (4×5 negative) — © Brian Rose

Back when I took this picture, Miami Beach was not the place it is now. The art deco hotels were shabby and low income elderly slumped on the porches and stoops along Ocean Drive. I wish I had taken pictures of the place back then, but I was only passing through.

Over the years, I made many trips to Florida to visit family. My mother lived in Hallandale Beach, just north of Miami — she is in Virginia now — and I’ve seen the extraordinary transformation of the whole area, the palisade of skyscrapers that now lines the beach for miles and miles.

My wife, Renee, and I made a wonderful trip to Key West about 20 years ago — we had a memorable romantic dinner sitting on a deck overlooking the sea as the sun went down —  and we returned with our son, Brendan, a few years later. I got seasick on a glass bottomed boat, much to my son’s amusement, saw a shark and barricuda below, and survived. We also had a magical late afternoon visit to the Everglades, strolled a wooden walkway above an alligator hole teaming with so much life that it you could hear it as well as see it.

I’m expecting Hurricane Irma to do a lot of damage. Like a lot of beautiful places, no matter how civilized by man, nature remains wild and beyond our control.