The other morning I was on my way to shoot some stuff at the Jack Spade showroom on Greene. I couldn’t help by notice that KATSU had been busy in the neighborhood. These sidewalk stencils were everywhere, including at the top of the steps exiting the R train on Prince and B-way. Last I heard from the dude, he was going big at MOCA. Anyway, I’m liking the stencil campaign. It was early enough in the morning that the streets (and sidewalks) were still relatively empty, so I was able to get a few shots. I also noticed a few stickers of the variety below.

and a detail–

Along the way, I also saw this mickey mouse stencil on an express mail label. I dig it.

I have been wanting to get a shot of this since I read about it a few weeks ago. One of my favorite parts about living in this city is its rich history. I was so stoked when I saw that this sign had been preserved for so many years behind the newsstand. A newsstand that I have been walking past for the last several years. When I learn about this kind of stuff, my mind goes wild imagining what other types of historical treasures are right under my feet, or behind the walls when I’m walking around the city. Anyway, sorry for droning on so long about a silly sign. Perhaps it will be become the subject of some of my poetry. It is an entrance to the A Train, after all.

As great as public transportation is, the MTA is seriously messed up. Sometimes the glaring deficiencies are maddening. Other times, their efforts to restore service, or prevent interruptions are something that the Army corps of engineers would be proud of. One example of this was on Monday. A broken water main on the UWS caused the ABC and D tunnels to become totally full of water in certain sections. The MTA spent all night pumping it out and replacing signals and switches ruined by the flooding. Even though afternoon commute that day was hellish, having those lines out of service, the MTA had everything back in working order in time for the morning commute. Way to go, guys. In honor of their hard work, I would like to debut a little poem that I wrote about the A train. Hahahaha.

I have actually now written several of these. I thought that it would be hilarious to start writing poems while either waiting for, or riding the train late at night. This particular poem was one of the first. I thought that in light of recent events, it was appropriate to publish it this week.

On the platform, probably staring at the texturized yellow line. Maybe sane, maybe paralyzed. On my retinas flash the reflection of incandescent light on the tracks. It’s that ghetto incandescent light of a city that hasn’t been updated in much too, too long.  The tracks have been worn smooth, shinier than mirrors. Two parallel mirrors in the sooty rat pen. Optics strain, pupils dial down. There is a disgustingly un-royal, royal blue circle with the English equivalent of Alpha marking the center. On my way home, at last. At last what? I don’t know. Nothing significant, because I’ll do it again tomorrow and again. I’m bad at poems.

So there you have it. Happy Wednesday.

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The image above is currently one of my favorites shots from this iteration of NYFW. It was back stage at a Native Son show. Normally all of the back stage stuff that you get is the same. It is generally a bunch of candid images of people getting hair and makeup done, PR people yelling at other PR people in their headsets, etc.. My favorite overheard back stage conversation so far was “OMG, Yuri got arrested! We need to do a model count right now!”

Anyway, the reason that I like the image above so much, is because this particular show was off site at Pier 59 in Chelsea. The windows from the hair/makeup area of back stage opened onto the roof. So a bunch of the more Rat Pack-like models ducked out to have a quick butt. Another shot of the smoke break, below-

..and one from the actual presentation–

Next, let’s talk about Betsey Johnson. I went to this show with Reagan, so I decided not to shoot it from the riser. Plus, since I only intended on giving the images to Reagan for this HDOF article, I figured that I might as well try to get some atypical shots focusing on hair. At the end of her shows, Betsey always comes out and dances around, like in the image below–

I really like the animation going on with these curls.

Finally, I was dying over this adorable little family sitting on the front row.

Moving along to J. Crew. It is amazing the way that their look can be so sterile, but still beautiful. Favorite two looks from the presentation–

I’m hoping to have more images from these sets up on my photo blog by this weekend.

Oh yeah, wait. One more. I really liked this one from Billy Reid.

I wish that it wouldn’t have been so dark in there. I had to have the ISO jammed all of the way at like 1200 or something. So, this image isn’t very sharp. But I still really like the moodiness.

We capped off our Sunday night in Brooklyn gazing across the water at the memorial light show. There were some low clouds, but it was still a pretty spectacular sight. We love our city.

I almost didn’t even go out to the comp today, since it was so overcast when I finished my run in the morning. The sun came out soon afterwards, and I got an email from one of my photog friends who said that the conditions were ok. By the time that I arrived in LB, the weather was great, but it was almost high tide, and the waves were kind of crap. I hung out in the press pavilion the whole time and almost didn’t bother getting the camera out. But then I decided that I should probably get a couple of atmosphere shots, at least.

I’m headed out there early tomorrow, hopefully the conditions will be a bit better, since low tide is at like 8 AM or something. I have had worse Labor Day weekends. At least I was able to work on my tan a little bit. Part of me secretly wishes that I could just skip out on fashion week altogether and just shoot surfing all week.

Well… this is kind of awkward. I was supposed to be spending the weekend in Southern California. But, as they often do these days, my plans changed at the last minute. Friday was the official kickoff of New York City’s first ever major surf competition. Since Quiksilver is sponsoring it, Tony Hawk put on a vert demo as the inaugural event. The ramp was set up at the end of Pier 59 on the Hudson (14th St.). It was pretty amazing to be able to shoot these guys skating. Like every other kid who grew up skating in the 80′s I was always a massive fan of Tony Hawk. One of the other old school guys at the demo was Kevin Staab. His pro model was the first “real” skateboard that I ever bought. Anyway, that top image of Tony is one of my fav’s of the day. Here are a few more.

Sandro Diaz–

Elliot Sloan–

Sandro Diaz going huge with FDNY watching from the river–

Here is the sequence of Tony’s front side mellon  from the top of the post–

Sunday and Monday, I’m hoping to be shooting surfing at Longbeach. Have a great weekend.

Check out this recently released vid featuring Shepard Fairey talking about how Obey came about. According to the video, Fairey derived some of his early inspiration from the NYC bred skate company Shut. As it so happens, I spent an afternoon back in June hanging out with Rodney and Eli (the founders of Shut) and shot the the stills (above)  for an article that was to be included in the latest HS print mag. Anyway, I thought that this video was pretty cool. It even includes some old footage of Shepard himself doing it up on a mini ramp. Check it–

Lots of “part 2″s today. This is the piece that I was intending to shoot in DC over the weekend. Since that whole plan was fouled up by the weather. Sam was a good enough sport to step in and rock this messenger bag for me. The lighting was surprisingly good for post-hurricane overcast conditions. I thought about warming the images up a bit, but ultimately I liked them how they were shot. A couple more looks–

Despite not being able to go to DC, like we had planned, we had a total blast hanging out with some of our good friends during the storm. We ventured out on a walk this morning to survey the carnage. It was still a bit breezy, and there were plenty of puddles. But, the temperature was very nice. The Hudson was moving faster than I had ever seen it. There was almost some small rapids developing in the the shallows near the east bank. Besides some downed tree limbs and other things that commonly happen whenever we get a heavy rain storm, I would say that our neighborhood fared very well.

A few of our friends came out with us on the walk. I love this shot of Reagan and Jen chasing Jen’s dog around the empty tennis courts (normally packed on Sunday morning).

One more shot of Reagan posing on the bank of the Hudson–

Not a bad weekend.