Maciej Dakowicz

Recently I discovered Maciej Dakowicz and while a lot of his photography isn't groundbreaking, he does have one project which I found to be really entertaining. Mainly this,



While generally I am not a huge fan of party pictures, this project is quirky, fun, and hilarious. Dakowicz is an outsider to these images of Welsh party life in the city of Cardiff. While his motives may be brought into questions one thing is for sure, Welsh women sure look like they should lay off the fast food along with the massive amounts of beer. This work has received a decent amount of press recently. The main article in the Daily Mail can be read here.

After looking at all of Dakowicz's work, my main question was, "Is he a good photographer, or did he simply find a fascinating subject?" Plainly, I just don't know. Many of the images on his site are boring beyond their beauty. They are travel photography with nothing to think about after looking at the image. This image, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (down the street from my house) is a great example of what I am describing.



Others from the travel series contradict my previous statements.



Dakowicz's problem is his editing. Many of the images on his site need to be scaled back. He is a talented man but perhaps the reason his images of binge drinking in Cardiff hit a home run is because of his familiarity with the subject. Dakowicz lives in Cardiff and even though he says that he started photographing these drinkers because of their alien appeal, the time he put into this study clearly shows.



While other image catagories look like a week long holiday trip, binge drinking in Cardiff proves what can happen when time is put into a great project.

Back with Five Boro Sports

So I'm back to shooting for Five Boro Sports. Yesterday I shot a baseball game for them. I enjoyed spending time talking with the reporter Marc. It has been awhile since I've done journalistic work. I miss it but there is no way it could ever really pay the bills.



Anyway, check out these photos of yesterday's game. It was a good one. George Washington defeated Wagner. The score was 4-1. Click to read the article or see the photo gallery that Five Boro Sports produced.

Aperture Gallary: The Edge of Vision

Tonight I attended this new show at Aperture Gallery. There was some SVA professors present and I even saw SVA grad Seth Lambert with work in show.

Overall I had a great time and the show is totally worth checking out. I won't say much about the review of it. One can simply check the release in the above aperture link. I just want to say that it was a good time and I hope to see more of fellow SVA alumni in future shows.
Check the show out! It runs until Thursday, July 9th.

Bruar Falls, Brooklyn NY

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to shoot a new club that opened up on Grand Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The name of the venue is Bruar Falls, and personally I think it's a great place to hang out, drink a beer and listen to some music.

The bar has a great atmosphere. Laid back but fun, hip but not pretentious, great music but not at a ridiculous loud volume. For someone like me, in their late twenties, I thought the crowd was great. No young, fresh from the Heartlands New Yorkers here. Everyone seemed to be 25+.

I shot the club for NYC&Co. I assume they will write about it on their website, nycgo.com. Bruar Falls will probably be placed on the nightlife section of the website. NYC&Co is the company in charge of tourism for the City of New York.

Click on the Photo above to check out shots of the club.

International Center of Photography at the Point.

Summer is on its way so I decided to do a little promoting for one of the New York City's best kept photography secrets. The International Center of Photography runs summer programs for children to learn the art of classic photography. By classic I mean black and white darkroom printing!! Remember the days of water running, fixer stains and hanging your prints to dry? Well if you have a middle or high school child that wants to try his or her hand at it then this might just be the way.

The Point is a community development center in the south Bronx, Hunt's Point, neighborhood. ICP teams up with them in order to give children who might not normally be exposed to this kind of art a chance to try out photography for free.

I helped teach there last summer and found it a most rewarding experience. In fact, that experience is part of the reason why I'm currently working towards a teaching certification for the NYC public school system.
I've included some photographs to give a visual sense of what this program is all about.


I'd like to thank Melanie Diaz, ICP Program Manager at the Point for working really hard to put this program together. If you want to get more information about the summer classes being offered the number is 718-542-4149.

Another year, another dollar.

Hello,
Recently I took a trip down to Washington, DC to work. I drove talent for the Mark Twain Prize. I want to thank my fellow SVA Alum Cat Del Buono for getting me the gig. While I was down there, I didn't have much time for picture taking. However, I did manage to hit up this weird activity.

People do indoor rock climbing on artificial rock surfaces. I had no idea this existed, much less that people pay to join rock climbing gyms. Here is a shot, of my buddy, Paul Khouri, showing me how climbing is done.



The best part of being in DC was being around all that wonderful architecture. The monuments, capitol, white house, all of it gave me my inspiration for my next photo project.

Tomorrow I leave for Phoenix, Arizona. Here I hope to take my next move, and more photographs.

World Savvy Promotes Arts at Queens High School

Hello all,
Sorry about my tardiness in updating my blog. Life has been very crazy these last six month since I graduated from the School of Visual Arts. Briefly, I have decided to pursue teaching full-time. After leaving the Queens Courier I wanted to make sure that my new job would leave me enough time to continue being a photographer. Teaching is the obvious answer to this.
Currently I am enrolled to earn yet another Master's degree at Brooklyn College. This time it will be in English. I hope to start teaching High School, while working on a PhD. And then there is the photography.

This little piece up above is an internet slide show I made in my waning days at the Courier. Think of it as a tidbit while waiting for new work.

I have recently started on my followup to American Pastimes. I'll try to get some samples up