Superfuzzy

Go, Mrs. Mudskipper, Go!

Go Humans Go, 3/11/09

On average, my Atomische photoblog gets about 600 page views per day, reflecting about 200 unique visitors, who look at an average of 3 photos each. That doesn’t include robots, like Google, Yahoo and others, who visit the site every day looking for new posts.

Yesterday around 10am I noticed a huge spike in traffic and peeked under the hood to see what was up. Following through the chain of referrer links I discovered that the lovely Mrs. Mudskipper posted a link to my photo over on the social bookmarking site reddit. A handful of visitors there voted the image “up” which kept it on the list.

So, by the end of the day my site had 4759 page views, made by 4066 unique visitors. That photo “Go Humans Go” received a total of 3833 views. (Take note that without the reddit bump, my site would have had traffic far below normal.)

To Mrs. Mudskipper, whoever you are, I say thank you for helping bring my art to the people!

Holi, Phagwah, or The Festival of Colors

Holi, 3/15/09

Today was my second time attending the Hindu spring festival Holi (also called Phagwah or the Festival of Colors) out in Richmond Hills, Queens.

Last year I had no idea what to expect, and it took me a while to get into it. I was also worried about dust on the camera. This year I planned ahead and made a clear plastic camera cover.

There’s a short and sweet parade, mostly for sponsors and politicians. But the fun really starts at the end when the crowds gather in the park to exchange colors. Everyone goes a little wild, with kids throwing colored powder, baby powder, and also color liquid at eachother. The teenagers get really crazy, but the little kids and grownups get into it too.

The rowdiness is fun but never gets out of control. Everyone is smiling and laughing. The festivities really bring people together, and total strangers have no shyness about approaching eachother to apply colors.

In the photo of me above, each unique color was gently and lovingly applied by hand by a different total stranger.

Photo Safari: South Williamsburg

Escalade EXT, 3/14/09

Went solo today, so made a very fast efficient trip. Sprinted to the G train, got off on Broadway and walked west, then up and down the streets of south Williamsburg until I got to the bridge, then over to Bedford and south again to Broadway, then east back to the G train. Round trip was about two hours. I took a total of 225 shots, including about 50 of a single, very interesting textured wall. More later, but here’s one for posting on Atomische tomorrow.

Trevor Brown : Ordinary Wonderful

Trevor Brown: Stripping the Familiarity from the Everyday, New York Times, 3/7/09

The opening for Trevor’s exhibit “Ordinary Wonderful” was a huge success. He wowed them with his presentation–and presence–and got a nice write up in the new New York Times blog “The Local.”

Photo Safari: Coney Island

Winter Beach, 2/28/09

Yesterday I went on a photo safari with Trevor. He selected Coney Island as our destination, which was a great choice. I love the beach on a winter’s day. It was a little gloomy for photos, but just sunny enough. We started at the 8th Street/Aquarium stop, and walked to the very east end of the board walk, all the way to Sea Gate. (Talk about odd–I really need to figure out how to get into Sea Gate for some photos.) Along the way we diverted out to the end of the Steeplechase Pier. My eagle eye spotted a distinctive box in one of the trash cans, and sure enough it turned out to be the container that crematoria give cremated remains in. So we missed an ash-scattering ceremony. I wondered if perhaps the recently departed was one of the hard-core fishermen that hangs out there in the summer.

Looking for Male Fliers

Cheer New York is looking for male fliers. (Well, who isn’t?) Speaking of fliers, I’ve donated the use of a photo for their flyer (above) which you may see around town soon.

Thought of the Day…

Happy New Year to Me :)

Today, January 1st 2009, is day # 327 of my new-found sobriety. It is also one of the first New Year Days that I can remember waking up without a hangover, or for that matter, waking up while the sun was still shining. The physical hangover was never that bad, nothing I couldn’t sleep off or take care of with aspirin or coffee. But what really pleases me is to be free of the psychological hangover: that feeling of depression, guilt and fear which constantly lingered. Thanks to all my friends who supported me in the past year!

Mulberry Tree, R.I.P.

Photo Safari: East Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Newton Creek Superfish, 8/27/08

Three big photo-opportunities happened for me last weekend. (1) A long photo-hike through Sunset Park where we got harangued by a security guard and narrowly avoided getting bothered by police — luckily some law-breaking kids diverted their attention from us. (2) A four-hour marathon of fashion and flash photography at GMHC’s Latex Ball — a totally new experience for me. (3) Another long photo-hike through Williamsburg, where Trevor DID get busted — more on that later.

Unfortunately, on Monday morning my motherboard fried, and my brand new super-duper Photoshop computer is on it’s way back to Shuttle for brain surgery. So I won’t be posting many of the photos any time soon. My old setup is just too slow and painful to process the 25MB RAW files that the Canon 1DS MkIII makes.

Anyway, here’s one photo I took the time to process. After crossing a train bridge over the Newton Creek to see some graffiti, we noticed this effluent pipe with tendrils of black gunk slowly streaming out. Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea. Lots of fish swimming around it too — but they were too small to see if they had three eyes.

A post on yesterday’s City Room blog at NYTimes.com I see that the EPA is going to “develop a sampling plan” there, perhaps the first steps towards making it a Superfund cleanup site. Woohoo!