It’s hard to remember, but in 2006 Wikipedia had just said copyrighted photos–like publicity shots and film stills–couldn’t be used.  This was a huge deal and caused a lot of bitterness.  People were angry.  Senior editors walked off.

Times change:  today, no respectable editor would argue for the wanton use of copyrighted images (there are a few ‘certain circumstances’).

Back in the day, I uploaded images to Wikipedia that lacked the basic standards of information.  In 2006, you didn’t need to justify the work’s import nor its origin.  The rules were fast, loose and ever-changing.

A small subgroup of my Creative Commons photos were uploaded in that era.  They may now be deleted.

They are no loss.  In 2006 I was shooting with a Fuji 1.3px point-n-shoot.  But also included were my crappiest-but-favorite uploads from 2002, Cuba and Imitation of Christ.

So here are two Creative Commons 3.0 licensed photos to be deleted from Wikipedia.  These photos are no loss for the encyclopedia.  They are unremarkable and low quality.  But they are personal favorites because of what they symbolize in my photographic and personal development.

I decided to clean them up a little, so I give you the original, and the cleaned-up version I would have uploaded today:

The original above is of Cayo Levisa, a private island where Ernest Hemingway used to fish off  the coast of western Cuba in Pinar del Rio.  There are only 20 bungalows to rent on the entire island.  It’s unspoiled in a way that I know that once the American travel embargo is lifted that it will never be the same.   Unfortunately, this is the best my low-res 2002 digicam took.  Below is my 2010 improvement of it:

This photo below was one of my street shots of the recycle hounds that gather around the Key Food recycling center where they get cash for their deposits.  There are people who make their livings by walking the streets of New York looking for discarded aluminum cans and bottles.  These people usually fall into two categories (based upon my observation over 10 years): Asian immigrants and long-term homeless people who might be better classified as “independent spirits”.  This was my 2006 attempt to capture them:

And here is how I would have uploaded the same shot today:

After reading the New York Times article about the new skate park in Queens at Corona Park, I invited my nephews up to try it out.  Verdict: they loved it.  They had scooters, which is bigger in New Jersey than New York (a skateboarding city).  According to the Times, the City is trying to become the international center of the fast-growing sport.  They have been on a construction spree of skate parks (here’s a list).  The Corona Park one, however, was designed with skaterboarders and is judged to be the best for them in the city.  Scooters will still have fun at CP, but the park is really designed for skateboards.

Here are some Creative Commons shots (taken with my cameraphone):

The world-famous Unisphere from the 1964 World’s Fair.

The skate park

Matthew and Richard look on as Joseph jumps the stairs on his scooter.

Queens Theatre.

Exhausted on the subway from a day of scootering.

It was a beautiful day in New York yesterday, perfect late August: 85 degrees and sunny, with a slight sea breeze.

I took Little Man to my favorite park in New York: East River Park.  I love it because is in my neighborhood, and it’s rarely crowded so there are a lot of places Little Man can play and roll around in the grass.  The City has been paying a lot of attention to the waterfront of the New Yorkest of rivers, the East River.  The views of Brooklyn from the new esplanade are incredible, and the Williamsburg Bridge stretches over my end of the park.

I used my much-loathed Samsung Memoir cameraphone, which was able to produce a few good shots.

These are all licensed Creative Commons 3.0 attribution:

Back in the summer of 2006 I set out on a project to create a body of high-resolution photography that allowed the public to use it, even alter it, without my permission.

I initially hosted this project at Wikipedia, because back then very few articles had photographs for a lack of freely-licensed imagery.  I also wholeheartedly supported what they were doing at Wikimedia and still do.   I wanted to contribute.  So I focused on what I considered the most difficult subject to illustrate: biographies.  Photos of famous people.   Not only actors and athletes, but also politicians, poets, presidents, porn stars; nobody was off limits.  Within four years I photographed over 800 people.  Very few release photos of these subjects to the public, and almost never at my resolutions.

My recent CC portraits include the Time 100, the Tribeca Film Festival and Joan Jett.

Any new work I produce–which is sporadic–is hosted at my Creative Commons Flickr Photostream.  Over on Flickr, I compiled a list of my 100 favorite portaits. Click the image below to see the ones that meant the most to me.

I received a few e-mails from people wondering why I haven’t been blogging, and there isn’t really a reason.  I’ve been busy with work, I don’t have much to say and I’m in a creative rut.  I don’t enjoy writing about politics because of how absurd the national discourse is right now; it feels a little degrading to write when ‘terror babies‘ and U.N. conspiracies pass for mainstream issues.  If Jack Stuef and Josh Fruhlinger weren’t around, I don’t know how I would make sense of the right wing (Poe’s Law).  I’m in love with Jack Stuef.

Work is busy, though, and the few hours I’m not putting in at the office I am working on a story that’s been in my head for awhile.

I have, however, been keeping my Flickr Creative Commons photostream alive with randomness.  So, to fill the void in my political rants and meaningless observations, I include a few recent uploads.

COLD SPRING NEW YORK WITH SANDY ORDONEZ

If you are an old timer Wikimedian then you will remember the days when the public relations guru Sandra Ordonez was cutting her teeth at the Wikimedia Foundation in St. Petersburg.  Sandy and I have become good friends, and she and her husband José hosted a weekend retreat for various New York artists and intellectuals at their country compound in Cold Spring in the gorgeous Hudson Valley.

The property they rented for the summer has a main house, a four bedroom guest barnhouse, a boat house, and a private pond that you have to traverse by boat to visit the abandoned 19th Century graveyard that contains perhaps 30 graves.  All on their private property.

Above:  The boat house, with the main house in the background.  We were out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees, nature and silence (except for our loud laughs and conversation).

Above:  Dave and Sandy in the abandoned 19th Century graveyard across the pond on the property.  There were about 30 graves there of people lost and long forgotten (until we were there).

Above:  Sandy and Maria laughing late into the night by candlelight.

Above:  The Little Man enjoying the flowers in the country air.

See more Cold Springs photos at my Flickr

FIRE ISLAND BIRTHDAY 2010

I was kind of surprised at how “racy” my sister said she found my Fire Island birthday photos.  Actually, both of my sisters found them…<ahem>…racy.  I asked the one why, because there are no shots of anything salacious like people fucking or doing anything other than dancing and having a good time.  She paused for a moment to think about it, and then she laughed and said, “Yeah, I know, but I guess it’s what I don’t see.  The mind fills in the blanks.”

Ha!  I was a saint and just enjoyed hanging out with my friends.  Here are a few more shots:

Michael Lucas, Nonie, Rafael Alencar, David Shankbone and Ernesto Altamirano at the Hotel Belvedere.

Michael and Nonie at the Belvedere.

I don’t know what we were thinking:  Judas carrying crucified Christ.

Michael, Nonie and Ernesto trying to catch fish on the Great South Bay.

See more of my Fire Island Creative Commons photos at Flickr.

LITTLE MAN & THE PIGEON

Finally, below are two shots of Little Man’s unrequited dream captured on film.  His lifelong goal, since he was little (he’s five and a half now) is to catch a pigeon.  He tries often, and never comes close to succeeding.  Then one morning we leave the building for his morning walk and right outside in our alcove is a pigeon with a broken wing.  Helpless, hapless, flopping about.  Little Man was so excited he could barely contain himself.  Alas, I did not let him realize his dream because it was not a fair fight.

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This man is not a neo-Nazi; he was at the Festival of India in Washington Square Park yesterday.  The swastika on his shirt is an ancient symbol (though obviously a little jarring to see).

I thought it was funny that there was not one other person at the Indian festival that wore this symbol except this white guy. Hipster Hindu with ironic Whole Foods bag juxtaposition – only in New York.

From Wikipedia:

Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period in Ancient India. It occurs mainly in the modern day culture of India, sometimes as a geometrical motif and sometimes as a religious symbol. It remains widely used inIndian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Though once commonly used all over much of the world without stigma, because of its iconic usage as Hakenkreuz in Nazi Germany the symbol has become stigmatized in the Western world, notably even outlawed in Germany.

Here are a few more photos from the festival, licensed Creative Commons 3.0

This photo below was on the side of a tent promising some multi-media mind expansion experience, or something.  This mural was particularly strange.  It shows the stages of life:

If you click on the mural and blow it up, the last stage right before death looks particularly gruesome:

There are 60 diseases humans can contract from pigeons, and this guy in Washington Square Park must be one of the loneliest souls in New York City.  Really, to be such a bird man, loving their bird-brained adoration as they climb all over you; he revels in the trust that they give few.  It makes this man feel special, a Dr. Doolittle of downtown New York.

That is what I think when I see bird people like him in my neighborhood, because their adopted pigeon progeny roost on my windowsills and fire escape.  To pity this man is the only way I can make sense of what posses him and neighbors of mine like him to nourish these filthy birds to flouish.  Here are a few diseases this guy can get from these pigeons that he doesn’t care about:

Histoplasmosis - also known as “Cave disease,” is caused by the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. Symptoms of this infection vary greatly, but the disease primarily affects the lungs. Occasionally, other organs are affected; this is called disseminated histoplasmosis, and it can be fatal if untreated.

St. Louis encephalitis – an inflammation of the nervous system, usually causes drowsiness, headache and fever. It may even result in paralysis, coma or death. St. Louis encephalitis occurs in all age groups, but is especially fatal to persons over age 60.

Escherichia coli - Virulent strains of E. coli can cause gastroenteritis, urinary tract infections, and neonatal meningitis. In rarer cases, virulent strains are also responsible for hæmolytic-uremic syndrome  (HUS), peritonitis, mastitis, septicemia and Gram-negative pneumonia.

All images of this dirty birdy man are licensed Creative Commons 3.0.

Have you ever wondered a good place to contemplate life?  How about on top of a Wall Street skyscraper.  I had a meeting downtown and the bathroom had a window, which is when I caught this guy with my cameraphone.

The island between the buildings is Governors Island and way off in the distance is Staten Island.  The bridge barely visible on the left is the largest suspension bridge in the United States, the Verrazano-Narrows.  Who this guy is and what he was doing is anybody’s guess.  Images licensed Creative Commons 3.0.

Oh, the East Village, my neighborhood.  Some poor soul for weeks, if not months, planned to crochet his/her bike and put it out as art, or whatever else reaction they wanted.  I bet you if anything, they wanted this blog post; they spent countless hours in hopes somebody, somewhere, would see what they did and let you know about it.

Well, Crochet Bandit, I have taken the bait.  Now you read this and revel in the absolute bizarre amount of time you poured into this pointless exercise, which now officially exists.  Not only is it now on the Internets, but when I was there I saw real, live Asians photographing it.  When you move to Raleigh in two years, you can now spin yarns to the knitting club about the impact you had in New York City as a subversive street artist.  You. Were.  The Edge.

This is what bikes look like normally, all over this city:

But with the Crocheting Bandit on the loose, your hapless bike might end up like this:

The Crochet Bandit wants you to believe that this could happen to anyone, anywhere.  They hope to strike fear in you, asshole bicyclers, that you could wake one morning to find your smug eco-friendly way to work rendered useless in yarn.

Yet the un-yarned magna-lock and that the wheels don’t work show this was meticulously created over months, in the safety of an apartment, and then placed for you to behold.  And for Critical Mass to fear.  Well, I’ll bite.  I fear.

I fear for all those bikers New Yorkers hate, who beg for more bicycle lanes no pedestrian wants.  Those bicyclers (all of them) who obey no traffic laws and that most New Yorkers wish would not exist.  Cyclists.  New Yorkers hate them.  Really, we do.

So yes, Crochet Bandit, gum their wheels with the needle of synthetic justice!

My dog Little Man is my best friend and we’ve been through a lot together.  Dogs are incredible, and this one has added a lot of joy to my life.

In January Little Man turned five, and in dog years that makes him 35, which is exactly my age right now. To mark the occasion this month, my friend Billy Name, Andy Warhol’s live-in photographer at The Factory, did some portrait shots at the historic Chelsea Hotel in New York City.

Images with attribution to Billy Name

This is a photo my friend Nate took of Billy photographing:

Billy and me:

Image above licensed Creative Commons 3.0