harney & sons

I recently had the pleasure of meeting, photographing and drinking tea with Harney & Sons in Millerton, NY.

consider the shadow puppet

 

My very talented friend and artist deb davidovits made these beautiful shadow plays and just finished a new one to be shown with another very talented artist, kazumi tanaka, at hudson beach glass in beacon, ny on april 2.

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This morning, waiting for the bus, my sons and I were amazed to see perfect snow flakes falling on us.  They were gigantic and fantastic - caricatures of what a snowflake should look like.

I tried to take picture but they were hard to capture, big for what they were, but still miniature and fleeting.

In a dark, dark room

This illustration by Dirk Zimmer really tickled my funny bone.

new color: black

The gallery of my website is organized by color.  Check out my latest section:  black (I realize that there are those who do not consider this a color, but humor me here).

Dan Fiege

Welcome to the first edition of the Beacon Portrait Project.

The Beacon Portrait Project began when I moved to Beacon, NY from San Francisco, CA in 2006.  My life, to date, had been spent in large cities, so the idea of moving to a smaller, more intimate place was extremely appealing to me.  As a photographer, it was natural to translate this interest into a photo-study.  I decided I would celebrate my new home by doing a portrait of every resident of Beacon.  I started shooting about a year ago and I have made around 40 portraits so far.

Beacon’s history is very interesting.  Once a thriving industrial town producing the nation’s hats, it suffered a deep economic downturn in the 1970’s.

Several factors have led to a sort of renaissance here, but perhaps the most transformative milestone was the opening of the contemporary art museum DIA:Beacon in 2003. While this art institution has attracted a new community of artists and young families, it has created a community of contrast: families who have lived and worked here for 3 generations living alongside new arrivals who bring with them the values that they developed after years in large cities.  As a result, there is racial, cultural and economic diversity here, yet it really feels integrated and intimate.

I want to record a cross-section of the citizens of Beacon, NY to give visual expression to this community and to illustrate it’s differences and similarities.  I photograph my subjects in their own environment because their surroundings further communicate who they are.

For more Beacon portraits, go to meredithheuer.com.

and the pigs didn't even seem to care

My cousin takes care of the animals at our nearby farm and I jumped at the chance to watch over them while he was away last week.  There are cows, pigs, chickens, a turkey and some sheep.  I arrived on my second day to see that two beautiful, healthy lambs had been born to one of the sheep.  Lambs are amazing.  It is impossible to take a photo of them that doesn't seem totally saccharin because they embody cuteness so much.  I put the lambs with their mama in a separate pen and looked up only to find that 3 of the cows had escaped into the part of the barn reserved for humans.  Much pushing, shoving and bribing (with grain) later I returned them to their rightful spots and wondered what the next day would bring.  When I returned the following morning, I discovered that another ewe had "lambed" but this one was not so lucky.  Her lamb came out a stillborn and it was heartbreaking to watch her mute attempts to wake her baby.  A quick reminder of how fragile life is. As I knelt down to wrap the corpse in a towel, the mama ewe came over and rubbed her cheek against mine.  It seemed that she was both looking for comfort and, at the same time, trying to comfort me, who was very clearly distraught at the scene.  I went back later that day to find yet another two new, this time, healthy lambs born to another ewe.  A quick reminder that life goes on.