Self Portrait
Kitchen
……….my muse about two years ago, love and respect……….
……….a labor day weekend spent shooting friends at the Bonaventure hotel, Los Angeles, a very grand time………….
The Bonaventure
……….a rainy day in Silverlake, Cali…………
To learn more about Stephanie Vovas work log on to www.StephanieVovas.com.
Spectra 1
Notes on my Polaroids: Posted by Stephanie Vovas
……….Ever since I was a young girl I have loved Polaroids. I have about 1500 of them, dating all the way back to when I was little. To me, Polaroids are like precious jewels, you cannot recreate them. I think it’s one of the greatest inventions of modern times.
I was a Polaroid junkie and If I didn’t have any Spectra film on hand I felt uncomfortable, because that meant I was unprepared for any beautiful, sexy, interesting moments that might come up.
Spectra 3
I want to make a book of all my Polaroid work someday. I look forward to meeting the right publisher. I can’t wait to try the new film that is coming out. Thank God Polaroid is making a come back!
Spectra 4
To learn more about Stephanie Vovas Polaroid work log on to www.StephanieVovas.com.
Alejandra Guerrero
Happy Couple
………It is with great pleasure that we introduce to you part two of the photographs of Cuba by master photographer Eric Mencher. He’s covered regional, national and international assignments from 1987 to 2009 for the Philadelphia Inquirer, including the civil war in Chechnya, the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda and the post apartheid era in South Africa. He is the recipient of numerous national and international awards including World Press Photo, pictures of the year.
Beach Scene
Swim
A Stroll Through Havana
Marina Hemingway
To learn more about Eric Mencher’s photographs log on to www.EricMencher.com.
Castro
Posted by Eric Mencher
Cuba is truly a country on the edge. It’s government, for 50 years the authoritative body over the island’s 11,000,000 people, seems forever on the verge of collapse. The people themselves live constantly in flux, with the promise of freedom one day or prison the next. In Old Havana, people lurk in and of the shadows and the sun’s constant glare seems to ask more questions than it illuminates.
Fishing Along The Malecon
Havana is a street photographer’s paradise. The alleys and streets are a constant swarm of human activity, and moments surreal or all too real unfold in an unending stream of live theater. In the five times I’ve visited the island since 1997, there remains one constant in Cuba: the love of life, whether it’s a couple in embrace on the Malecon or kids who seem to dance in the streets to the beat of the ubiquitous music.
Cuban Music
We can learn a lot from the Cubanos–in the face of a harsh living standard, they always seem to maintain their joy, dignity and spirit.
Young Boy Plaza Of The Cathedral In Havana
Streets Of Havanna
Baseball Field In Pinar del Rio
Cuba's Light And Shadow
To learn more about Eric Mencher’s photographs, please log on to www.EricMencher.com.
Dutch Beauty
THE ART OF FEASTING
Posted by Mashed Up
What would happen if we human beings were not restricted? The absence of restriction would leave us with complete freedom. However, this freedom would then lose its value. We know what freedom is because we know the definition of a restriction. We appreciate freedom because we know what it feels like to be limited. But when do we feel restricted? For most of us it means that we cannot spend our time in a way we want, and generally speaking we tend to say that we are free in the evenings and weekends as we have obligations such as work during the week.
Club Life
We say things such as: “I am looking forward to the weekend” and “I am free at six”. We are eager to do something nice in the weekend because we think that our free time is valuable. We say for example, “I feel like doing something nice” or “I want to do something nice” and we go and look for it at places that provide us with ” that certain something nice”.
Free At Six
A party is a social gathering for pleasure and amusement. But what actually happens when we enter a well organized party? The music, lights and decoration will immediately appeal to our senses. We see lights, dancers and faces. We hear music and the interior and decoration surrounds us in shape. We arrive here and become a part of a different world and a different context.
Photos By Eric Soenens
……. To learn more about Mashed Up log on to www.mashedup.nl
Wall Street
Posted by Orville Robertson
……….This was Wall Street when the workers were allowed to go out and get lunch. Now I suppose they chain them to their desks to squeeze out the last drop of blood profit.
To learn more about Orville Robertson’s work log on to www.newyorkstreetphotography.com.
Posted by John Grant
Why you can’t call a spade a spade in this country
An op-ed in the New York Times deals with one of the most vitally important issues Americans could get their minds around — the difference between an Empire and a Republic and just who are we as a people as we deal with two foreign wars and a job-devouring recession caused by financial delusion and chicanery. Unfortunately the topic is not treated totally seriously, and the notion of an American Empire is ridiculed. I’ve encountered this attitude in a running dialogue on the topic I had with Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky. Stu sneers at the notion we’re an “empire.” He’s a decent guy, and I reduce his argument with me to: “OK, if we’re supposed to be this empire, where’s the emperor in a toga?” I may be obsessive, but I think it’s a good topic for serious discussion. It’s way too easy in the dumbed-down climate of debate in this nation to ridicule the notion of Empire and, thus, of course, avoid dealing with all the real historical and political decisions that lead to the real dynamics of our current reality that suck so much of the oxygen out of our capacity to solve neglected problems. The list is long; for starters there’s a loss of jobs, a lessening of competitiveness due to shortcomings in our education system, crumbling infrastructure and an over-dependency on oil versus developing alternative, green energies — all things we should have been investing more in for the past 40 years. Now, as we are funding two on-going wars, a Global War On Terror and a dismally failed Drug War, these neglected investments at home are coming home to roost. and unless we change, it will only get worse in the future.
Camden, New Jersey 2010
Posted by John Gialuco
……….Part 1 – My mother, Evelyn Gialuco, hired Whitey, a painter and his dog Mugsy, to paint our home because she wanted to sell it and move back to Camden with her sister Sistina. Whitey owned a large Winnebago and would often park and sleep in our driveway at night. Well Whitey had been painting for a month or so and mom would often cook and feed Whitey and Mugsy when he stayed over. So as time passed I noticed that she and Whitey were becoming an item. My father, her husband, had died the previous year and mom was feeling a bit lonely. How I knew they were getting more than chummy was because I would come home late on a Friday or Saturday night and Whitey’s Winnebago would be rocking and bouncing back and forth just like in Cheech and Chong ’s movie, ‘Up in Smoke’ with their trailer scene. Well anyway, Whitey had this wonderful dog Mugsy. Mugsy was never trained, he was the smartest dog I ever knew, and he never had a bath except when he went swimming at the lake or the ocean. The only time I saw Mugsy get washed was right after he was sprayed by a skunk at 3 am in the morning. Mom and Whitey had to wash him with tomato juice for about an hour and everyone went back to bed. A year later Whitey died in my mother’s arms from cancer. I should add that my father also died in my mother’s arms as well. Subsequently whenever my mother wanted to give me a hug because I was going away for a few days I usually declined mom’s hug’s. Well you understand. So a year later Mugsy became very ill and mom couldn’t watch him suffer any longer so she asked me to take him to the vet and put him to sleep.
Part 2 – When the vet called us a week later and asked us to pick up the ashes, Mom admonished me to not bring Mugsy back into the house. She needed time to adjust to her loss, but to bring him back into our shed which was in the rear of the property. As I left the house mom screamed “Do not leave his ashes in your car, put him in back…did you HEAR me?”…yes mom. So I picked Mugsy up at the vet and since I had never seen ashes from a cremation before, I opened the lid of this beautiful oriental embossed tin container which very much reminded me of a red picnic basket. Well the ashes were a pure white powder with small clumps of ash which looked like bits of hard salt. So I put Mugsy and his new home in back of the trunk of my 1987 Volvo and that was it. When I walked into the house mom asked me if I had put Mugsy in the shed and of course I said I did. Not.
Part 3 – Some months later I was hosting a talk and video on how to learn about the unlawful aspects of the IRS with about 20 interested people. Since a friend was letting us use her apartment in West Philly I threw some material in the Volvo’s trunk for demonstration reasons. After carrying the last load up to Catherine’s apartment I apparently left the key in the trunk of the Volvo. So after a rocking good IRS party, 5 hours later, I left to go home and guess what? The Volvo had been stolen! It is one of the worst feelings you will ever have, when you finally admit that your car has been stolen after tortuous hours of crawling through every surrounding street looking for your car. It’s like your parents just revealed to you that you were adopted at the very moment you are about to blow out the birthday candles to celebratie your 21st birthday. When I finally got home and told my mother that the car was stolen in Philly, the first words out of her mouth was, “WHERE”S MUGSY? I distinctly remember the last thoughts I had as I was rapidly fleeing the back door of the house and being pursued by a well aimed broom, which my mother hurled at me with the accuracy of a South American forest head hunter’s blow gun. My mother had honed her throwing abilities through the fine art of cleaning and vacuuming for nearly 70 years. In her day she could have faced any Samurai with her well made corn broom, scorn and not show a bit of fear. I returned days later to a calmer mom.
Mugsy
Part 4 – 43 days later I got a call from the Philadelphia police telling me that my car was found up in the Bronx, NYC. As I was leaving the house to take a train to NY my mother told me to make sure that Mugsy was to be the first thing coming through the garage door when I returned…Yes Mom. Upon arriving at Grand Central station I boarded a subway going uptown to the Bronx. Riding from Midtown NY to the Bronx was a super lesson in paranoia. As the subway left upper Manhattan into Harlem, I notice that the folks who have laptops, jewelery and better clothes began to leave the car at each stop. As we entered Harlem the hip hop, goths, mental escapees and such, started boarding the subway to continue the ride uptown. Once we got into the lower Bronx near the Bronx Zoo those folks began to get off the train and replaced with the hard core human beings, The Warlocks, Saurons, Melkors, Borg types and an occasional Gollum and Hannibal Lecter.
Part 5 – After 40 minutes of this amusement ride I found out that I took the wrong train! Instead of getting on the East Bronx train I took the West Bronx train. So now I had to go back down to Grand Central and start all over again with that now familiar paranoia I obtained on the West side ride. On one stop in Harlem about 75 cops and security people boarded the cars and this made me feel much better and I relaxed my hand off the back of my ass which I was using to protect my wallet. As we rolled into the Bronx, small packs of cops disembarked at various stops along the way to go to work. Upon arriving at my stop, around 180th street, I had to walk some 10 blocks or so to a street that was lined with junk yard after junk yard after junk yard. When I finally found my junk yard and entered the office, I noticed that behind the long counter was a couple of shelves with hundreds of car radios which were for sale. I intuitively knew that my thoughtfully chosen and expensive Volvo radio was once up on those shelves never to be heard from again.
Final Part – So I found my car parked amongst hundreds of other stolen and junked vehicles, and after clearing the front seat of at least 40 parking tickets, which the Manhattan police kindly kept throwing into the unlocked car for the month or so, I started the engine with no problem. I immediately checked the glove compartment for my stuff and saw that everything but a Norelco razor was still there. I quickly went back to the Volvo trunk and saw that everything was in place … EXCEPT…. Mugsy and his newly occupied red tin dog house. While driving back home for 90 miles I was thinking about my fears, my fears and pain of facing Mom as I prepared to tell her t Mugsy was gone forever. I also realized that whoever stole my Volvo, I figured it was probably a bunch of kids having a joy ride, and that they eventually found Mugsy in the trunk, his ashes and believed they had found a large stash of Cocaine. So as any upright carjackers would do they started snorting Mugsy. I am sure at the days end somewhere in NYC a group of young men could be seen pissing on trees with one leg raised in the air so as to leave their marks while Howling at the full Moon.
Mr John
The Fairy Of Pirate's Alley
Posted by Charlene Lanzel
……….I was living in New Orleans’ French Quarter for the winter season in 2007. I fell in love with the city and its past, and became curious of the history of Exchange Alley where I was living. My husband (Ronnie Magri) and I decided to do some research, and headed over to the Historical Society on Chartres Street. What we found was that the infamous painter Edgar Degas had once owned property across the alley from our building. I began studying Degas’ life and discovered he was an avid drinker of Absinthe. I had heard many tales of the mysterious wormwood elixir and longed to try it. After all, it seemed to be the official drink of some of history’s greatest artists!
The Devil Drinks Absinthe
Absinthe is said to evoke the spirit of “La Fee Verte” or “The Green Fairy”. I learned that Absinthe was being served at The Pirate’s Alley Cafe, just a few blocks away. So, my husband and I headed over for my first taste. These two painting’s, “The Devil Drinks Absinthe” and “The Fairy of Pirate’s Alley” are the documentation of that night. They are portraits of myself an my husband, sitting across the table from each other in Pirate’s Alley, experiencing the effects of the notorious drink. We have since become Absinthe snobs and enjoy trying different brands from around the world.
……….To learn more about Charlene Lanzel’s work log on to www.CharleneLanzel.com.
