I've known this young man for a few years, and have photographed him before. When I saw him the other day with the painful-looking but beautiful bruises on his face, I ran up to my apartment to get my camera. By the time I returned he was surrounded by friends, relaxing. His friends were protective, but he said he was happy to be photographed and chose to keep smoking for the picture. I hesitated to post this, because the beat-up face and blunt in his mouth are so symbolic of many misconceptions and real concerns about young men of color in poor urban neighborhoods. But doesn't he have a hopeful and dignified glint in his eye?

For our new picture of the day, we go inside the walls of South Brooklyn Community High School. This is James Perez, who is a minor celebrity in the world of New York inline skating. He's a really good guy. I've been his advocate counselor for more than two years. He only has a few more classes to pass to graduate and he and I both know he's going to do that this year. Click here to seem him skating.

PRINT GIVEAWAY

The Prints Have Been Requested- thank you everyone.

Today I am giving away two pairs of prints of Here in Red Hook photographs. They are signed archival inkjet prints on heavyweight matte photo paper; each is approximately 8"x 8". If you'd like to own one of these pairs of prints, please send me an email with your name, mailing address, and which pair is your first choice. We'll call the top the "red pair" and the bottom the "blue pair." The first two people to email me will get the photographs. Send email to avernonjones@gmail.com.

Elia Kazan's 1954 film On the Waterfront was based on the world of Red Hook longshoremen. I just read that originally the film was going to be written by Arthur Miller and called The Hook, but the House Un-American Activities Commission pressured the studio to change Miller's script. Miller refused and dropped the project. With the new writer, Budd Schulberg, the title was changed.

As I get ready to move, I know the proximity the the water is one of the things I'll miss most, hence my posting another picture of fishing and the piers. In the foreground is my old friend Elijah Miller. Elijah is a songwriter who works at B61, a bar on Red Hook's northern border with Carroll Gardens. In the background, that faint point on the horizon is the Statue of Liberty.

This is Jermaine. I met him about a month ago, and recently I think he's started keeping his motorcycle in the overgrown lot next to my building. In the past I've met guys who have wanted their bikes photographed but didn't want to be in the pictures themselves. But I think Jermaine knew that he was at least as good looking as his motorcycle.

On Columbia Street, just south of Lorraine, is this metal workshop. I've chatted with William, on the right, and photographed him more than once, but I've never learned exactly what they do. I plan to.

When I was out shooting a few weeks ago, these guys were playing ball- pitching from one side of Verona Street across to the other. The buildings on two sides of an industrial Brooklyn block present the perfect backstop and outfield wall (actually more like an infield wall) for a two man ball game. The ball they were playing with was a heavy rubber. Not a hardball- but I still wouldn't have wanted to pitch to this kid at close distance without wearing a glove to protect me from a line drive smacked right back at me. To be photographed these guys fell naturally into poses reminiscent of those on baseball cards or major league ballpark programs. They seem somewhere between men- with the actual swagger of a pro ball player, and boys- with innocent dreams of one day playing in the big leagues.

I see this man very often, never in the same place. I've only talked to him this once, interrupting him from his cleaning because the light on him was so beautiful. He was very willing to be photographed, though skeptical. I love that he didn't completely stop wiping his windshield as he turned to me for the picture.

This photograph is from the part of the neighborhood where the buildings have forklifts coming in and out of them and where trucks are being loaded and unloaded. I don't know if these boxes are made there, of if they're used for packaging other things made there or for packaging things made somewhere else. I didn't ask. I just liked the stacks of flat boxes and the men moving them around and shooting the breeze.

(Please click on these pictures so you can see them a little bigger!) For the first time in several years NYC had a snow day where schools were closed, so I got to shoot for a couple hours in the middle of the day. The woman with the box (actually a drawer from an old dresser) was using it to shake salt out onto the sidewalk. She and I talked about how she had extra work to do on a day when lots of us got to stay home. That run down house, which I've been into for a while, is now pretty overshadowed by that great street art. And the father and son were sledding in Coffey Park, which has no hills. (Is it still called sledding if your dad just pulls you around on the sled?)

Metalworker

It was early- before 8am- and cold. These guys' workshop was wide open. They let me in to check out their work, but there wasn't nearly enough light inside to shoot. This guy, William, was happy to step out into the morning light for a portrait. The other guy wasn't interested, but I love that his faint figure is back there in the shadows.

Dogs and Dog Tags

When I'm looking at a portrait, I almost always want to see eyes and a face, so I try to make portraits that way. But when I was talking to this man in Coffey Park, and photographing him and his dogs, an interesting switch happened. He was facing me, but turned his head away, and his dog that was facing away turned her head back towards the camera, asserting herself as the main subject of the portrait.

I think he said that she was the mother of one or maybe both of the other snarling dogs- who I guess couldn't care less about being photographed.

New Man Dog (First Post)

This blog is a way to show and write about my ongoing photographic project documenting the neighborhood where I live. It's about the people the streets and the light, and why I'm in love with them. Lots is being written and discussed about how Red Hook is changing. I love change, but I think this project is more about what's not changing, or about what's changing more slowly and going unnoticed.