Photos for Will

[thenatsdorf]

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“I don’t have any fur and I really like the feel of yours.”

[tamascotchi-deactivated20190101]

two wrinkly old men

[lord-kitschener]

A gentle and loving nudist goblin

[tastefullyoffensive]

[roane72]

I have one of these!

[lyndsayfaye]

This is precious and exactly what we all need.

[gabriellaachadinha]

Shot around central and southern Japan / Okinawa, the photographic series by Gabriella Achadinha shows day and night photographs of spaces and individuals that stood out from the time there. Marlize Eckard has added her touch by creating the ‘fleeting impermanence’ via acrylic paint with additional strokes that create the smudging, lapsing memory.

[fuckyeahvintage-retro]

American Landscapes: California - By Josef Hoflehner.

[sixpenceee]

Photographer Walter Sachels was terrified of death, so much so he refused to see his mother after she passed away. Upon entering his 70s, Schels finally decided to overcome his fear through a bold, bizarre project – photographing individuals before and directly after their death.

Schels and his partner Beat Lakotta began approaching potential individuals at hospices in Berlin and Hamburg. The pair were on constant alert, at times running out in the middle of the night to shoot before the undertaker would come.

Though emotionally draining, Schels recognized that the series became an important epitaph to people before they actually died. With family and friends unable to cope with the looming truth, terminally ill patients often feel completely isolated.

“It’s so good you’re doing this”, Schels quoted a dying man to The Guardian, “No one else is listening to me, no one wants to hear or know what it’s really like.”

Schels is no longer terrified of death and now sees avoidance of the issue as a serious problem in contemporary society, people unable to be truly present for loved ones when they need them most. Life Before Death is an attempt to confront our worst fears and perhaps, to see those nearing the end in a more human light. For the individual stories behind each of the portraits click here. 

Here is another post by SIxpenceee on the effect of sunlight on aging.

[silent--era]

Early autochrome photographs of Charlie Chaplin in character, by Charles C. Zoller in Hollywood c. 1917

[photosforwill]

NJ Suburbia/Rural

[photosforwill]

Coney Island

[photosforwill]

New York in the 80s

Book for purchase: "New York in the Eighties: A Photographic History" www.blurb.com/b/6144990-new-york-in-the-80s-a-photographi... I’ve been photographing the streets and subways of New York for the past 30 years. When young people today look at my shots from the 1980’s, they are aghast. To them, New York of the 1980’s is almost unrecognizable. And they are right. Some older people are nostalgic for “the good old days.” For example, they remember the Times Square of the 80’s… And what they remember is not so much the danger but the grittiness and (for lack of a better word) the authenticity. Yes, there was sleaze, but there were also video arcades, cheap movies, restaurants, and weird places. These same people resent the “Disney-ification” of Times Square and the gentrification of virtually all of Manhattan and many areas of the boroughs, and the loss of cheap housing and local stores everywhere. Others’ reactions to these same photos could not be more different. If they’re over a certain age, they remember the high crime, the twin crises of AIDS and crack, the racial tension, the lurid tabloid headlines about the latest street crime. They say: It was a nightmare, and thank God it’s over. Of course, both views are right. *** This set contains a sampling of my 1980s-era photos of the World Trade Center.

[photosforwill]

New York Street Portraits

[photosforwill]

Subway Dream

The "Subway Dream" series was shot around 1988 through 1990 in a junkyard in Jersey City just south of Liberty State Park and the Statute of Liberty. At the time the junkyard was scrapping old subway cars under contract to the MTA. Surprisingly, the junkyard was not fenced off and there was no security whatsoever. My friends and I stumbled onto the place and returned repeatedly. Since the junkyard was in the shadow of the Manhattan skyline and the Statute of Liberty, the place resembled the set of a post-apocalyptic movie! The subway cars were piled up haphazardly. Some subway cars were laying on their sides. This, of course, enabled us to do "which way is up" type shots inside the subway car... with people seemingly walking on subway car walls. Since this was late 1980s, the junkyard subway cars were the last generation of subway cars with full-scale graffiti. (The MTA subway fleet was virtually graffiti-free by about 1987). So this represented one last opportunity to photograph some of the classic graffiti large-scale "canvases" before they were gone forever. For all of these reasons this was truly a photographer's paradise -- especially for someone such as myself who loves photographing both "gritty urban realism" and the profoundly weird "art" photograph. The subway car junkyard offered remarkable opportunities to photograph one or the other genre... or both in the same frame. When I found this location I knew at once this was going to be probably one of the greatest photographic locations I would ever encounter in my life. And the passage of years has proven this to be true. If this subway car scrapyard existed today, it would be overrun with photographers. Today "ruins photography" has become a popular hobby for the masses. But back when I began doing it in the 1980s, there were very few other photographers and adventurers visiting these "off-the-beaten-track" locations. For example, I don't recall encountering a single other photographer at the Jersey City subway cart junkyard in the many times that I visited. Incidentally, the Jersey City junkyard is still there today. But... before you run over there with your camera... the MTA no longer sends old subway cars to this junkyard ... or to any other junkyard. Instead, the MTA ships subway cars out by barge for a "burial at sea." The cars are dumped a few miles out offshore and are intended to serve as undersea reefs for fish. And so... perhaps some intrepid underwater photographer can locate the subway car reef .... and (carrying on the spirit of subway-car surrealism) photograph a shark living on the A train!

[photosforwill]

Halloween in the Subway

[timessquareblue]

Embassy 1 Theater, 1560 Broadway, ca. 1987

Photo by Steve Siegel

[kiaraspeaks]

Steven Siegel’s been photographing the streets of NYC for 30 years. His speciality is catching the City’s grittier edges, and his snaps from the 1980s are powerful examples. Peep the pictures below to see what NYC used to look like.

Click here for more

[photosforwill]

1980s NYC (Photos by Steve Siegel)

A couple of weeks ago, Steve Siegel published a set of photographs on his Flickr

[photosforwill]

From the Bronx to the Bowery, 21 Photos of 1980s New York

Welcome to In Focus, a new feature where writer Hannah Frishberg profiles some of the great street photographers of New York City's past and present. [A subway...

[photosforwill]

Steven Siegel Tells Us About His 1980s Photography Days, And A Changing NYC

Photographer Steven Siegel has an amazing archive of photos from all over New York City in the 1980s, and beyond. Here are more of his photos, along with his thoughts on a changing NYC.