SEE(K)

Erica McDonald and I have begun The Intuitive Document workshop in Brooklyn. Nine photographers traveled from Italy to work on the streets and study with us. They have a week to explore NYC with their cameras and bring back a fresh body of work. Our hosts Roberto and Laura will provide daily updates on the workshop blog. I’ll do my best to show some photos and give brief updates. This Saturday we’ll celebrate the students’ work with a festive slideshow and maybe a few beers.

We’re going to encourage the students to stretch and break their comfort zones, and photograph with newfound intensity. We encountered Angelica as she whirled with her hula hoop in a park off Broadway near the JMZ. Angelica showed no self-consciousness, just the confidence to be comfortable among a group of strangers with cameras fascinated by her ability.

Catching this energetic lady in a moment of repose at the end of our meeting, I imagined her offering us good luck as we embark on this wild week of creative adventure. Thank you, Angelica.

Sunday May 23 will find me in Williamsburg Brooklyn teaching a documentary photography workshop with my colleague Erica McDonald. We have ten students for a week of inspiration,  creative struggle and growth. We’re going to concentrate on encouraging our students to trust their intuition and embrace their personal vision.

We’ll have daily critiques, shoot-outs and lots of coffee to fuel long but exhilarating hours exploring this dynamic medium. There’s good food, too, as workshop HQ is on Broadway in Williamsburg, next door to Peter Luger’s and just a few doors up from Diner and Marlow & Sons. Bring on the grassfed cheeseburger please. With fries. Lots of fries.

Drop by. We’d love to see you.

Jorge Colombo uses an iPhone app called “Brushes” to make digital paintings reminiscent of the work of painter Edward Hopper. The New Yorker magazine’s website features Colombo in a blog called “Fingerpainting.”

Each post is an animated video of the steps Colombo takes while creating his pictures. It’s beautiful, inspiring work. Really fun to see.

Jorge Colombo | The New Yorker

Burn Magazine, the online publication curated and created by Magnum photographer and all-around great guy David Alan Harvey, has published my essay “Harlem Jazz.”

It’s an audio slide show with music from a concert in Harlem and an interview with 98-year-old saxophonist Max Lucas, who started to earn his living playing jazz in 1925 as a sideman to a banjo player in a barber shop.

I shot most of the images in available murky light and teetered on the edge of underexposure to capture that mood. In a couple of pictures I concentrated on slivers of light and waited for a face to turn into them.

The future holds some promising opportunities for photographers online, and I’m thrilled to be part of it at Burn. It’s definitely inspiration to raise my game.

Many thanks to David and Burn’s tech/design guru Anton Kusters.