Guitar impresario Billy Rogan, formerly of Scranton, has made his way to NYC. I caught up with him at Webster Hall last night for Lach’s weekly Antihoot. A couple of pictures of Billy:

With all the news the last couple of days regarding the sinking of the Cheosan I’ve been thinking about Korea a great deal. After the trips there in 2006 and 2009, there are a number of friends there who have been in my thoughts, not to mention Ji’s family and my cousin teaching English. I’m not one for brinkmanship, and the pissing match that is getting under way has me on edge. I hope tempers subside and cooler heads prevail.

A couple of images came to my mind today. The first is a group of tourists looking out over the DMZ towards North Korea. It’s funny how such a militarized place can become a tourist destination. In a way, the people on the day trip were as interesting as the location.

This image is elsewhere on my site, but It strikes me as being the heart of the matter: the current pissing match is just another in a long series of pissing matches. This photograph was taken from an observation tower (primarily constructed for tourists if I remember correctly) looking over Pan Mun Jom. The large building on the left was built by South Korea to highlight its commitment to peace and, while they were highlighting things, to show also it’s economic might and power. To the right, behind the large building is a smaller squat building, which houses the conference room that straddles the border and where meetings were/are held. Not visible in this photograph, similar shows of strength are on the North Korean side of the border.

And several new ideas have been percolating. A few recent photographs from March’s trip to Puerto Rico that I’ve been meaning to get up on the blog:

Been busy shooting jewelry. This past week I went through over 500 pieces, and that has been a slow week of late… I’ll gang up a selection for this post.

Went up to the Roseland last night with Ji, Dave, Wendy, Nam Wha and James to check out Atoms for Peace. It was pretty cool. I haven’t been to a big concert like that in a while and, while it wasn’t the best show I’ve been to, it was fine rock and roll. Since I wasn’t there to take pictures, I didn’t take many.

Spring is here. The weather is starting to turn–today was beautiful. This is contributing to my slow pace of posting. With the warmer weather I’m hoping to return to my bicycle commute (yes, I’m a fairweather cyclist). So I’ve been spending a lot of time overhauling my bike and waiting for new parts. Today I repacked the bearings in both my front and rear hubs and replaced the brake pads and cables front and rear. My rear cassette is long overdue for a replacement as is the rear derailer, so I’m removing them and converting the bike to a single speed. Vertical dropouts mean I’m waiting for a chain tensioner. I’m also waiting for a new cone for my front hub, so that will get another overhaul next week… Once everything arrives, I’ll throw the new chain on and head off to work. I can’t wait… for the commute, at least.

There should be a flurry of posts soon with recent photographs.

I love links. Want to tell someone about this blog or my site? Please do. The more the better.

I hate hotlinking. I especially hate hotlinking when another photographer is given credit–even if it is on a spam blog. The five spam filled blogs that stole photos over the last couple days can bugger off. The lovely lady given credit gets a free pass. How could you be mad at her?

I photographed the very lovely and very talented Imelda Mays at her show at Southpaw this past Wednesday. Just one picture from the show; more to come soon on NewYorkCool.

“In any case, if most viewers can’t tell whether pictures were taken with analogue or digital cameras, who cares if film fades? Whatever photographers use, their goal is no longer taking pictures but showing how their work is not painting, cinema, sculpture or any other medium. The negative is no longer a square of film: it’s a question of survival.”

This quote is the closing paragraph of Jennifer Allen’s essay Long Exposure in Frieze Magazine. As I was reading the essay, I kept wondering if the questions she was asking weren’t at odds to something she wasn’t discussing: is photography as a physical medium different than it’s digital incarnation? Are we seeing a new medium form? Analogue photography (and I would include printed photographs produced in the digital dakroom here) is a physical medium. Once it is translated onto the screen, it is something different. Just as a photo-realistic painting functions differently than a photograph, so too does a digital photograph on screen function differently. Is there more than one photography? Is what Allen is talking about the fitful defining of a new medium, much as video art worked to define itself as separate from cinema.

As a photographer working with both analogue and digital cameras, I still work in a primarily analogue way. I make photographs and present them in physical forms. How does digital a digital origin change this? It doesn’t. In a similar vein, if I digitized an image from film and embedded it with audio files or turn it into a hyperlink, then I’m engaging in a different kind of medium; one that is partly photography, but partly something else.

Allen’s assertions that the technological advances of cameras changes the medium, is valid but weak. Photographers have long been editors. Anyone who photographed in the PD (pre-digital) era, particularly those shooting smaller formats, selected their best images from amongst many. Winogrand is an extreme example of this. Just because one’s camera can shoot many more continuous frames without needing a new roll of film or memory card doesn’t make this selection process any more important–if one is making prints.

What does matter is the way that the images are used. When these digital images are used in a way that are uniquely digital, that can only be accomplished through interacting with a computer, then we are finding something new. Simply replicating the white wall of a gallery or the turning pages of a magazine in a website isn’t enough. When the viewer can interact and make choices, when audio and video enrich the experience then we are looking at something new. There may be precedent in analogue PD era, but it was still film becoming physical prints.

I’m heading to a wedding in Puerto Rico next week. My intention had been to bring a beat up polaroid camera and shoot instant pictures during the trip. Now, I’m definitely going to do so. My photographic practice isn’t fighting for survival and is clearly not any other medium. That is not to say that my digital practice isn’t seeking new directions, new alliances and new opportunities.