Adventures on the F train, Chinatown, #OWS, Queens, Brooklyn Heights & Red Hook

I took the F train from Red Hook to Chinatown (and was serenade by an awesome Mexican duo) to meet Chris Buck for lunch.  He is a commercial portrait photographer I met over e-mail through high school & FB friend Andy Goldman.  Andy told me about a personal project he is working on to photograph as many other people named Chris Buck as he can.  I was intrigued by the project so I tracked him down and we met up for lunch in Chinatown.  We had a great conversation about portraiture and the difference/fine line between commercial and fine art photography.

I  had a couple of hours to kill before my shoot, so I walked down to #ows.   I have been to #occupyMaine, but as part of the project I have seen #occupyBoston from the bus, and been to #occupyProvidence as well.   As many of you know, I have been following the protests and cheering them on via FB and Twitter for weeks, so I was very excited to carve out a little bit of time to go and check them out in real life during the day (I went the night before as well). .   I was amazed at how different it is to experience #ows first hand, to see the community / little village that they have built, to see how organized and self sufficient they are, and my favorite part to participate in the human mic.   I can tell you first hand the mass media has the group all wrong.  This is not a group of dirty hippees or trust fund kids, they are not a group of violent police haters.  They are a very diverse group of passionate, hearty, smart and resourceful people.  They were feeding, sharing information, playing music for, dancing, meditating with anyone who wanted to join in.  It is a village by the people for the people.   I was also lucky enough to be there for the beginning of award winning journalists Leslie and Andrew Cockburn talk (on the people's mic!) about their film American Casino, a documentary about the subprime loans.  Please watch the video below!

Then off to photograph Hampshire friend (and 1st year hallmate) Lydia in Queens. Then off to dinner and a car service back to Red Hook where I got to watch some Spanish tv.

 

#OWS!