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.

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

Hillel Mintz posted a quick interview with me about my perspective on Israel after having traveled there twice for the creative commons and Wikimedia projects.  Go here to read it.

Speaking of Israel, tonight I will be photographing Israeli rock star Ivri Lider at Webster Hall.

Earlier today I met with a couple of local New York literary scenesters to discuss the formation of a new website.  We began its design.

Yesterday I, along with Lisa Levy and Little Man, appeared on the People’s Court on behalf of a dog rescue who was being unfairly maligned and sued.  I wrote about the experience on this post.  The short version is that a woman adopted an abused dog from Waggytail Rescue, paid the standard donation, but then discovered–after she had the dog–that a friend of hers had a dog that she could have free.

Treating an abused dog like a piece of luggage, she returned it to the rescue and wanted her donation back. The rescue offered to help her find another match if it didn’t work out, because she had signed a contract that stipulated that the donation was non-refundable, and helps to cover the cost of medical bills for the rescued dogs (for instance, I once fostered a 14 pound dog that had been anally raped by a man – you can’t adopt out a dog with the sorts of medical problems that creates).

The People’s Court judge agreed, and Waggytail won!  Incidentally, the woman who sued?  She received back all of her money via her appearance fee on the show.  In the end, it worked out for everyone, and justice was served.

If you are reading this post and live in New York City, join us at a viewing party where you can see justice working on behalf of those who can’t defend themselves: abused dogs.  Below are the details:

Where:  Whiskey Town bar in the East Village on 3rd Street between Bowery and 2nd Avenue (click here for their website)

When:  Thursday, April 30, 2009.  Party begins at 8:30, viewing of the episode will be at 9:00

Hosts:  Lisa Levy, Holly DeRito and David Shankbone

Every year I forget how rough the Tribeca Film Festival can be on me, physically.  A typical day for me goes like this:

7:00 a.m. – Wake up, jostle about
7:20 a.m. – Walk Little Man
7:50 a.m. – Shower, dress, get ready for work
9:00 a.m. – Arrive at work
5:00 p.m. – Get off work
5:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.  – Run all over New York City to disparate locations where premieres are happening to photograph on the red carpet.
10:30 p.m. – Get home and walk Little Man, who is adopted by my building (several neighbors have keys to my apartment), so I feel assured he is not a lonely little guy during the day.  My neighbors take Little Man on walks so often, that sometimes people on the street ask me things like, “Hey, isn’t that Pedro’s dog?”
11:00 p.m. – 1:00 a.m.- Upload and Photoshop a few of the photos.  By no means am I able to upload all of the photographs I take of different people, so I try to get at least 5 to 10 from the day uploaded to Flickr (for the non-profit news sites) and Wikipedia.
1:00 a.m. until I fall asleep – It’s difficult to wind down from such a day, and I am so over-exhausted that I have trouble falling asleep, so I will usually put on Jon Stewart on Hulu and drift off to sleep before it’s over.

Then I do it all over again, until the end of the festival.  On some days, like tomorrow (Friday), I have to wake up an hour early and get to work an hour early so that I can leave early to make a 4:30 p.m. premiere.  

It’s taxing, because all of this is physically exhausting, and the lack of sleep makes me mentally exhausted.  I become more prickly than usual, sometimes snap at people and always–always–start to question why I put so much work in to expanding the photographic work available to the Creative Commons.  I make no money on this photography, nor will I ever since I release it at the highest resolution possible.  Besides,  I have no desire to be a professional photographer. 

The reward is in seeing the work used; in filling a need that exists.  It’s also rewarding to see and meet some of the people I have watched on film and television screens my entire life.  Most important, over the three years I have shot at the Tribeca Film Festival, I have gained artistic skill in photography, and I am proud of the work I produce (most of it – there’s always a few stinkers, but that’s true of every photographer – we talk about it). 

Another reward is that I lose about ten pounds each year during all of this, which helps to prep me for the summer swimsuit season.  My diet during Tribeca consists of Xanax, coffee and Saltine crackers.  If only I were joking…

It sure can be a hard day’s night, every night, for a week and a half.  I am unable to answer most e-mails; I don’t listen to my voicemails; my snail mail goes uncollected and my apartment becomes a Beyond Thunderdome horror of strewn clothing, infosheets, papers, business cards and processed food wrappers.

Below are just a few of the shots that I had time to upload last night from the premiere of Woody Allen’s latest film, Whatever Works (as with all of my photography, these images may be reproduced under the Creative Commons attribution license)

Woody Allen (I need to get rid of that red eye)

Soon-Yi Previn

Click here to view all photos uploaded from the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival for use on Wikipedias around the world.

On December 20th Lisa Levy and I appeared for a taping of the People’s Court on behalf of Waggytail dog rescue (read the post here).  The air date for the show is April 23.  There was drama.  So tune in then to see me and my dog Little Man defending a dog rescue.

Yesterday morning former model and downtown lounge chanteuse Lisa Levy (of Psychotherapy Live! ), Little Man and I were on The People’s Court.  I thought to bring my camera to do photography for Wikipedia, but then decided against it.  I assumed that the use of any recording devices and cameras is verboten.  That doesn’t usually stop me from trying, but I also had Little Man with me and I didn’t want to worry about him, expensive camera equipment and my part on the this reality television show.

The Case – Claire Lieb vs. Waggytail Rescue

Waggytail Rescue is a Chihuahua rescue organization that I fostered and adopted dogs through.  It’s run by one of my best friends, Holly DeRito, who is well known in New York City dog circles for tireless and selfless dedication to saving dogs.  The dogs Waggytail takes in–mostly Chihuahua mixes–are rescued from kill shelters.  There is a flat $250 adoption fee that is a donation.  Waggytail barely makes ends meet. They often cover gargantuan medical bills to get animals to a point where they are healthy and can be adopted.  One 14 pound dog I fostered had been raped anally by a man.  Kill shelters don’t take care of these kinds of medical bills; they just kill the dog.

The dogs are traumatized if not by abuse, then certainly by the experience at the shelter, which reeks of death and sounds of anguish to a dog. When a person adopts a dog, it is not a commercial transaction.  Most people get this.

Claire Lieb adopted Waggytail dog Chiquita, and signed an adoption agreement with short, easy to understand representations.  One stipulated she was making a donation, not buying a dog.  A dog rescue is a place people go to find a pet that somebody else hurt, didn’t love or irretrievably lost.  Ms. Lieb and Chiquita didn’t work out, so two weeks later Ms. Lieb returned the dog.  Waggytail offered to help find a new dog, but Ms. Lieb apparently discovered a “free” dog through a friend and so she wanted her donation back.  Waggytail refused; Ms. Lieb sued.

The People’s Court scene

Ms. Lieb was a sight to behold.  I would not have been surprised if she didn’t make it through the night.  Her ill-fitting wig was gray and bulbous, like a hair hat.  The crackling sparkle of the polyester was jarringly juxtaposed atop a face so chaotically caked with make-up that it didn’t look as if Ms. Lieb applied it, but instead fell face-first into it.  The woman she was accompanied with, though, wore none and had the figure of a hockey player.

The most fascinating part of this Anthropology project was her eye-make up.  Large swathes both under and over each eye, as if she had taken 1960′s robin’s egg blue eye shadow on the her index finger and thumb and then rubbed at her eyes to smash the make-up into her face.  At one point when she looked up quickly, angered, she resembled a celestial baglady raccoon.

Ms. Lieb was also not the only Lady of the People’s Court with an ill-fitting wig. It was a great discovery:  People still wear wigs!   It was awesome!

Lisa Levy, who is heavily involved in Waggytail, had Holly’s Power of Attorney and represented our side.  Little Man was there as a Waggytail dog on behalf of Chiquita (the dog Claire Lieb did not want).  I was a witness, but there was no need to call me to testify about the adoption process.  It was an open-and-shut case:  you can’t expect to receive a charitable donation back.  A dog rescue is not a commercial enterprise.

The one dramatic episode in our case was that we didn’t have the signed adoption agreement that she signed – it was at Holly’s mother’s house in Pennsylvania where she stored Waggytail records last month, not thinking she would need any of them urgently.  So Judge Marilyn Milian was angry about that.  She even called a recess!

When we went back, I told Lisa we have to give them some more theater.  “Give them some crazy” and “think Ricki Lake” and “nobody’s watching daytime TV”.  It’s supposed to be entertainment as well as arbitration.  So Lisa went back and started bang-bang-banging her hand on the podium when she spoke with an emotionally shaky voice!  It was excellent.  Judge Marilyn told her to “take it down a notch.”  It was great.

People in the audience were asking whether Little Man is available for adoption.  And the bailiff, Douglas Macintosh was really hot.

I had an interesting morning yesterday, as giants from various worlds met in an Upper East Side apartment for breakfast….

Nily Oz and Amos Oz

Salman Rushdie, Israeli President Shimon Peres and David Shankbone

Paul Auster, Salman Rushdie and David Shankbone

With Ed Koch

Director Michael Lucas extended an invitation to me to photograph Fire Island for Wikimedia.  In the 8 years I have lived in New York, I had never been.  Rentals on the island are insane; one of Michael’s friends said they could only find a hotel for $1,400 for two nights.  So the invitation from Lucas for the Wikipedia sites to obtain some good, quality media of the island and the celebrities who go there was a generous one.

We also had a really, really, really good time.  The group that stayed in the house were some of the nicest, down-to-Earth, warm group of guys one could hope to meet.  Below are just a few of the shots and the articles where they are found.

Found on Fire Island Pines.

Paul Dawson and PJ DeBoy found on Shortbus and PJ DeBoy.

Found on Great South Bay and to be placed on Diving.

Found on Fire Island Pines.

Journalist Jason Bellini, David Grant, David Saranga, bloggers Andy Towle and Bradford Shellhammer, David Shankbone, Matthew Williamson executive Jean-Manuel Pourquet, director Michael Lucas, and actors Paul Dawson and PJ Deboy.

Found on Michael Lucas (director)