Archive for category documentary
hot town, summer in the city – my hood #4
Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on May 27, 2010
yesterday’s freak heat wave almost broke a 130 year record. it just kinda snuck up on us. a humid 95 degrees is no joke – especially in this brick-oven of a city.
they ran around like tyrants, soaking up the open fire hydrants
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- the livery cabs drive by the open hydrants really slow to wash their cars, stopping for a few seconds on each wheel to make em shine
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- gettin ammo
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- water fight in front of the roach coach
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- the ol’, “‘take a picture of us pouring water on our heads” and then pour the water on your brother at the last second” trick.
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- grown ups playin bones
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- so i’m takin this picture of the kid’s feet and all of the sudden a plate with a chicken bone floats by
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- a guy cleaned this drain spotless with a broom handle so it would drain – then about a minute later this is what it looked like.
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- the girls chillin
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- guy has a baby carriage converted into some icee cart or somethin
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- the paparazzi got paparazzied
water fight in front of the roach coach
the paparazzi got paparazzied
colin kane is unzipped
Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on May 8, 2010
i shot a promo for colin kane’s comedy show at Comix called “unzipped” the other day. this wasn’t the shot he picked, but it was my favorite. colin’s a pretty mellow guy on stage, but it’s like this picture is showing the beast inside that fuels his brutal humor. maybe that’s why i like it so much. andrew schulz and josh accardo are his guest comedians this time around and i pretty much love their faces in this picture. kinda priceless. tickets are selling for the may 24th show now, so buy your tickets HERE.
my hood #3
Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on March 29, 2010
check out the other shots of my hood here:
there's so many things i like about this scene. i mean, maybe its the girls braids with the blue beads, the motion of the throw, the girls vs. boys, the open courtyard, the trash in the corner... it's all really beautiful to me.
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- when window styling gets awesome
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- scooters with training wheels are weird. this girl was so dang cute.
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- photos like this mean a lot to me. there’s a cool story there somewhere.
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- somebody walked up to him and asked, “so does selling this stuff give you enough to make a living?” and he said, “nah, but i gotta do it to make ends meet.”
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- this sidewalk is always a hot spot for out-of-a-van flea markets
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- the boys playin ball. when i asked if i could take a shot, a couple guys stepped out and said, “nah, i don’t want my picture taken – i appreciate you asking, though” and were super cool.
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- this guy got nailed with like 1000 snowballs. then right afterwards, some girl ran up and did a flying ninja pounce right on this poor fella. it happened too fast for me to catch it.
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- i love this guy’s picture-takin stance
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- goin for the triple lindy.
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- it’s all fun and games until some kid faceplants
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- she said, “go dad, go!”
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- another unhappy sledder
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- plum tuckered out
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- yeeehaawwww
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- i’m gonna pretend that her jacket says “apple blossom” cause a 5 year old with an “apple bottom” jacket just seems wrong
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- school’s out
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- this roach coach is always at the same spot almost every day. and they’re usually always busy.
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- another store of religious stuff. who is that random guy in the middle with the hat?
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- he built this RC car from scratch. that sucker was fast.
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- rat poison in use. keep out.
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- i see a few of these portable mechanic trucks around. if your car is busted, they’ll come to you and fix it right there on the street. it’s pretty awesome.
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- i love this pizza. i’ll even go out of my way to get it. the crust is really salty and it makes it delicious.
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- pizza palace
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- this girl was playing peek-a-boo with me
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- nueva york
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- fresh sqeezed OJ is bomb diggy
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- it’s a minimum security playground
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- sandals, white socks and checkers
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- closed for renovations/court order. before this hood was dominican it was really irish – so there are a ton of irish bars around still
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- chillin on the corner
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- street food
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- there’s so many beautiful things about this shot. i mean, maybe its the girls braids with the blue beads, the motion of the throw, the girls vs. boys, the open courtyard, the trash in the corner… something about this is really beautiful to me.
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- sidewalk fruit and lottery tickets
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- he made a clean catch and took it in for the touchdown
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- the fellas dragged an old couch from the sidewalk trash and got some more use out of it. at one point, they had a huge blue tarp tied to street signs to give them some shade. love it.
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- i like these colors.
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- swingsets and buttcracks
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- the MTA buses are built like tanks. ask that guy’s bumper.
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- broadway
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- a couple games of bones at the end of the day
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- pow pow powerwheels
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- the 1 train in all of it’s glory
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- this is a whole store with nothing but religious statues
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- and tarot cards. nothing brings the occult and catholicism together like reading tarot cards on a prayer mat surrounded by candles with saints on them and thousands of biblical statues.
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- there where a lot of cool things in there.
dumbrella
Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on March 15, 2010
i like to imagine the weather reporter talking about the size of a storm by the amount of crappy umbrellas that will be littering the streets the day after. they’d be like, “well john, you can expect tomorrow’s storm to bring a minimum of 5-6 UPB’s (umbrellas per block – you know how T.V. people like to “abbreve” things) then the following day will calm down to about 2-3 UPB…” last night we had a pretty gnarly storm, so this morning i walked down 9 blocks of broadway (almost a half mile) and back to document the carnage. during that 9 block round trip i counted 86 umbrellas. so that makes last nights squall a 9.5 UPB storm.
eddie spaghetti from the supersuckers
Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary, music on November 17, 2009
lightning from my hotel room
Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on September 4, 2009
i can’t say, “light-NING.” i grew up in the south, man. so if i ever say the “ing” part of a word i feel like i’m betraying my heritage. it’s always “lightin.” or “fishin” or “weddin.” that’s just the way it is. i mean, sometimes like if i’m in the phone with a customer support lady from india i have to say the “ing” cause she’ll have no idea what in the world i’m saying. i mean – sayin.
miami has had some ca-raaazy lightnin this week. this is from my room at the eden roc hotel.
my hood #2
Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on June 16, 2009
more shots of my hood
straight chillin on the stoop
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- this girl was crying until i came up with my camera
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- this is the famous iron cross left at the world trade center
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- they were just chillin on the mailbox. they saw my camera and jumped down to pose and i was like, no no no! hop back up!
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- concrete baseball
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- girls just being girly
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- heated game of pokemon or yu-gi-oh or somethin
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- cards and coconut water
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- playing soccer in the middle of people next to the sidewalk sale. there’s something awesome about this scene.
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- girls hang out as the adults play quarters
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- this guy is super nice
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- on holidays, there are grills as far as the eye can see
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- they filmed something for telemundo on our corner for a few days
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- straight chillin on the stoop
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- this got painted over. kinda sad.
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- painting toe nails on the sidewalk
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- this trannie was with the telemundo crew. the kids had no idea what to think.
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- this guy saw me taking a photo of this lady and started hamming it up.
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- it was hot that day
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- sidewalk preaching happens a lot in the summer.
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- i friggin LOVE this.
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- the moms make the kids sit there and listen.
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- there were about 30 people playing basketball on the street to the left of these guys that i wanted to shoot, but one guy got nervous and started saying i was a cop so everybody got sketched. these dudes were cool, though. i actually have 5×7 prints of this picture in my bag ready to give to them when i see em next.
my hood
Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on June 15, 2009
over the last couple of years i’ve been collecting cool pictures of inwood. there’s so much life here and so much… idunno, man.. you just have to be here to feel what i’m talking about. it’s loud, it’s social, it’s dirty and it’s beautiful. kids play in the streets till the wee hours of the mornin while the adults play dominos or chill around the stoop or on lawn chairs or couches they drag into the street. instead of sitting in front of a tv all night like an idiot, the people in my hood hang out and actually communicate with each other. it’s hard for me to take pictures around here because people usually think i’m a cop or for some reason they don’t want their faces in front of a camera. but people are usually cool with me shooting their kids, so i start with the kids and sometimes they’ll warm up to me. many more to come…
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- this is probably one of my favorite shots. i love everything about it.
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- i was in the elevator with this girl and her mom and she saw my camera and started posing, so after we got out i started snapping shots.
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- bingo!
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- some kid throwing a ball at the “foreing and domestic auto parts” store
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- nightcap at noon
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- shaved ice, dominoes and fanta
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- these kids were fun to shoot
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- repuzent
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- this is friggin beautiful. two old ladies, matching old lady hair cuts, pocket books, pediatric shoes, polyester pants, canes, flower print blouses… and they hold hands and walk with itty bitty shuffle steps. totally adorable.
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- she was hilarious. she was laughing because i was throwing a balled up piece of tin foil up in the air and making it land near her feet.
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- cute as a button
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- chillin at the corner store
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- long day
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- this is another favorite
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- she was kinda shy at first
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- i love all these colors
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- i can’t even take it how cute these kids are
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- walked up on a friendly wrestling match at the park. the guy on the bottom just wouldn’t give up.
jesusita fire in santa barbara
Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on June 13, 2009
i was staying at the fess parker’s doubletree in santa barbara when the jesusita fires started burning – these shots are from my hotel room balcony on the second floor. one night we were eating outside and the wind changed and started blowing in ashes. i said that it was weird to think that i might be inhaling some kids teddy bear – that’s pretty messed up, but that’s some hard reality right there. all the vacant rooms at the hotel were slammed full with evacuees – some were sleeping in their cars that were packed full with whatever they could cram in before they had to evacuate. in total around 80 homes were destroyed and another 20 or so were damaged. i had a house burn down one time and that crap is no good. but the free cookies they give you at the doubletree are fan-frickin-tastic.
pic-a-pet slideshow and interview
Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on March 8, 2009
UPDATE 20 oct 09
you’ll be missed, mr. madonna
this summer i was lookin all over for venus flytraps. i made calls to plant stores, went to home depot and some other places, but nobody had any left. so one day i was walking down broadway past dyckman st. (200th st) in manhattan and i saw an old, small plant/pet supply store called Pic-A-Pet. see, i’m a sucker for small, privately owned stores; the older the better. this store had weathered a few storms in it’s day and the guy sitting down just inside the door seemed to be in about the same condition. when i asked him if he had any venus flytraps, he said with a smile, “yeah, we got em for 9 bucks.” so i picked up two plants. i asked him if i could have a receipt and when we walked near the register that looked like it hadn’t been used since before i was born he looked around for his receipt book. it was yellowed with age and when he handed it to me, i looked it over and it was receipt #42 from the 70′s. i said, “don’t write many receipts, huh?” and he started laughing. his name was Mr. Tony Madonna – a life-long new yorker; a real genuine kind of guy with a heart of gold. it’s funny how once i stopped in to ask about flytraps and now i stop in whenever i’m near just to say howdy to my new friend. his wrinkled face and callused hands have a few stories to tell and if you stop in, you just might get to hear a couple.
look at the date. how cool is that?!
