Posts Tagged documentary

i am unbeautiful

Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on April 26, 2013

i’ve always been fascinated with the concept of beauty and why people feel attractive or unattractive. one might feel attractive for having a particularly strong facial/bodily features, and another might feel unattractive for having the same features. as styles and fads come and go, the light by which we perceive ourselves is constantly flickering. it’s so wild to think about. in 2007 i decided to post ads on craigslist and some other online classified ad sites searching for people who felt ugly or unattractive who would be willing to let me interview them and take their photo. i interviewed and shot 4 people, but i ran out of free time and the project got buried under the massive pile of everything else in my brain. now, years later, i was digging through the mountain of stuff in my head and found the project. i changed the art direction a little and added video to the mix. now, finally i give you i am unbeautiful.

5d, documentary, i am unbeautiful, nyc, picture, portrait, ugly, unbeautiful, video

3 Comments

nyc – 11pm – 95 degrees

Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on July 23, 2011

surfing the heat wave like a boss.

broadway, documentary, dyckman, fire, fire hydrant, heat, hood, hydrant, inwood, manhattan, my hood, neighborhood, new york, night, ny, nyc, photo, photography, portrait, spray, street, water, wave

1 Comment

my hood #6

Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on April 15, 2011

here are a few pictures i snapped last saturday

this is beautiful. i friggin love everything about it. i love what's happening. i love where it's happening. i love the backwards/inside-out dress. i love that they let me take the picture. i love it all.

how basketball was born

by the look of that window, i guess they've played here before

ball, basket, basketball, broadway, documentary, dominican, dyckman, fire escape, hair, hallway, hood, inwood, kids, location, manhattan, natural light, neighborhood, new york, ny, nyc, photo, photography, photojournalism, picture, portrait, relaxer, sidewalk, street, trash

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my hood #5

Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on October 12, 2010

pictures from my hood.

here are more from the archives:

street ball

bones

chillin on the stoop

race

: waitin for the bus

: be where of the dog

: after the game

: eating rice and salami

: i think the batter and the pitcher are on the same team. if the pitcher catches a hit ball, he can throw it at the detergent bottle for a point. i think. i was confused. if you know the name of the game or the rules, let me know.

: fire escape superman

: race

: chillin on the stoop

: pow pow power wheels

: bones

: playin bones

: home run derby

: street ball

: helpin out the girls

: the boys chillin. a couple of em didn’t want me to take a picture. then they said, “ok, yeah – whatever” and then they hid their faces.

: baby slice $1

ball, bike, documentary, dominican, dominos, hood, inwood, location, manhattan, neighborhood, new york, nyc, photo, photography, photojournalism, portrait, race, street

world cup 2010 in madrid

Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary, fitness/sports on August 3, 2010

so my friend monte is om is a photographer and he’s always got something up his sleeve. dude kills it behind the camera and his hustle skills are just as strong. on thursday the 8th of july i got a call from monte saying he had a plan in the works. the next day i was on a plane bound for the netherlands. after hanging with customs in amsterdam for six hours or so, and after BARELY making it through with our gear (that’s a crazy story within itself), i rendezvoused with monte and hung for the night. we chilled with some of monte’s rad amsterdam peoples and afterwards got some waves, winks and kisses blown at us while on a walking tour in the red light district.

don’t take pictures of the ladies – they get pissed

instead of hookers, we got french fries. they were a lot cheaper and less likely to have STD’s. by that time it was like 2 am, and the women of the night would stroll in and out of the deli in-between clients to order their usual meals – and it totally made me giggly when one of the ladies ordered a hot dog. i got two hours sleep that night and the next morning i was on a plane to madrid. monte’s plan was to photograph the world cup fans in the public viewing areas. he would shoot in amsterdam, i would shoot in madrid and we’d put the pictures side by side to have a fans showdown. my plane landed in madrid and i went straight from the airport to the hotel – and then straight to the plaza de colon

one of the many public viewing areas packed with excited futbol fans. i was kinda loopy from no sleep, but the energy of hundreds of thousands of people crammed together kept me goin. here’s what we got:

at the end of the second half, the score was 0-0. when overtime kicked in, tension was thick. the ball would get close to spain’s goalie and everybody would start freaking out – then the ball would get close to the netherlands’ goalie and everybody would scream at the top of their lungs. it was back and forth for probably 10 minutes until spain scored. the crowd went totally bonkers. it was insane. completely insane. for the last few minutes, the tension got thicker and the responses got more excited. when overtime ended and spain was still in the lead, the whole city of madrid LIT UP. it was spain’s first world cup win and the most important futbol victory in spain’s history. consider this: in america we have baseball, we have (american) football, and we have basketball. some like one, some like another, some like none. we have no unified sports pride. but in spain (like a lot of other countries) the elderly, the middle-aged, the teenagers and the kids all have a dedicated love for futbol. so you can imagine that when spain won, the city went bananas. TOTALLY – BANANAS. people were yelling, people were jumping, people were hugging and crying, and everybody was happy. i ended up in the middle of a public fountain dance party with about 20,000 happy spaniards.

it was an unbelievable night and i can’t believe i was there to watch it all go down. the noise that tore through the city when spain won was the same noise that was still blasting when i went to bed at 5am. i got up 2 hours later and was pretty delirious, but managed to fumble my way to the airport to catch my flight. i must have been in a time warp because i got to nyc 5 days before my checked luggage.

me post public fountain dance party

2010, african, american, amped, amsterdam, ball, beer, black, blonde, blue white, body, brunette, caucasian, crazed, crazy, dance, dance party, documentary, drunk, energy, family, fan, fans, fifa, finals, fountain, friends, futbol, game, holland, horn, hyped, hyper, kids, last, location, madrid, netherlands, orange, paint, painted, party, photo, photographer, picture, plaza de colon, portraits, public, red, soccer, spain, sports, victory, vuvuzela, water, wig, win, world cup

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

: the paparazzi got paparazzied

: guy has a baby carriage converted into some icee cart or somethin

: the girls chillin

: 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.

: so i’m takin this picture of the kid’s feet and all of the sudden a plate with a chicken bone floats by

: grown ups playin bones

: 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.

: water fight in front of the roach coach

: gettin ammo

: 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

water fight in front of the roach coach

the paparazzi got paparazzied

documentary, fire, heat, hood, hot, hydrant, inwood, kids, manhattan, neighborhood, new york, nyc, open, photo, photography, portrait, streets, summer, water

2 Comments

my hood #3

Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on March 29, 2010

check out the other shots of my hood here:

my hood #1

my hood #2

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.

: there where a lot of cool things in there.

: 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.

: this is a whole store with nothing but religious statues

: when window styling gets awesome

: scooters with training wheels are weird. this girl was so dang cute.

: photos like this mean a lot to me. there’s a cool story there somewhere.

: 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.”

: this sidewalk is always a hot spot for out-of-a-van flea markets

: 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.

: 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.

: i love this guy’s picture-takin stance

: goin for the triple lindy.

: it’s all fun and games until some kid faceplants

: she said, “go dad, go!”

: another unhappy sledder

: plum tuckered out

: yeeehaawwww

: i’m gonna pretend that her jacket says “apple blossom” cause a 5 year old with an “apple bottom” jacket just seems wrong

: school’s out

: this roach coach is always at the same spot almost every day. and they’re usually always busy.

: another store of religious stuff. who is that random guy in the middle with the hat?

: he built this RC car from scratch. that sucker was fast.

: rat poison in use. keep out.

: 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.

: 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.

: pizza palace

: this girl was playing peek-a-boo with me

: nueva york

: fresh sqeezed OJ is bomb diggy

: it’s a minimum security playground

: sandals, white socks and checkers

: closed for renovations/court order. before this hood was dominican it was really irish – so there are a ton of irish bars around still

: chillin on the corner

: street food

: 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.

: sidewalk fruit and lottery tickets

: he made a clean catch and took it in for the touchdown

: 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.

: i like these colors.

: swingsets and buttcracks

: the MTA buses are built like tanks. ask that guy’s bumper.

: broadway

: a couple games of bones at the end of the day

: pow pow powerwheels

: the 1 train in all of it’s glory

angel, ball, big wheel, bike, bird, bones, broadway, building, car hood, cast, chains, checkers, couch, crutches, documentary, doll, dominos, dyckman, football, fresh squeezed, fruit, girl, grill, hood, hoola hoop, inwood, keenan's bar, manhattan, naranja, neighborhood, new york, nyc, orange juice, parking meter, photo, photography, photojournalism, pizza, pizza palace, plane, play, playground, portrait, rc car, religious, roach coach, scooter, sled, slice, smile, snow, statue, swing, tools, train, trash, van, window, wreck

1 Comment

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.

broadway, broken, documentary, inwood, manhattan, neighborhood, new york, nyc, photo, photojournalism, portrait, storm, umbrella

my hood #2

Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary on June 16, 2009

more shots of my hood

straight chillin on the stoop

: 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.

: the moms make the kids sit there and listen.

: i friggin LOVE this.

: sidewalk preaching happens a lot in the summer.

: it was hot that day

: this guy saw me taking a photo of this lady and started hamming it up.

: this trannie was with the telemundo crew. the kids had no idea what to think.

: painting toe nails on the sidewalk

: this got painted over. kinda sad.

: straight chillin on the stoop

: they filmed something for telemundo on our corner for a few days

: on holidays, there are grills as far as the eye can see

: this guy is super nice

: girls hang out as the adults play quarters

: playing soccer in the middle of people next to the sidewalk sale. there’s something awesome about this scene.

: cards and coconut water

: heated game of pokemon or yu-gi-oh or somethin

: girls just being girly

: concrete baseball

: 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!

: this is the famous iron cross left at the world trade center

: this girl was crying until i came up with my camera

broadway, child, documentary, dyckman, hood, inwood, manhattan, natural light, neighborhood, new york, nyc, photo, photography, photojournalism, portrait

2 Comments

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…

inwood_mailboxkids4.2

: walked up on a friendly wrestling match at the park. the guy on the bottom just wouldn’t give up.

: i can’t even take it how cute these kids are

: i love all these colors

: she was kinda shy at first

: this is another favorite

: long day

: chillin at the corner store

: cute as a button

: 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.

: 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.