Posts Tagged photojournalism

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

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.

: repuzent

: these kids were fun to shoot

: shaved ice, dominoes and fanta

: nightcap at noon

: some kid throwing a ball at the “foreing and domestic auto parts” store

: bingo!

: 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.

: this is probably one of my favorite shots. i love everything about it.

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

3 Comments

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

tony_madonna_memorial

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.