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:

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:

I stumbled across this unlucky fat fellow on East 6th Street on my way to breakfast this morning.  I would estimate that he was about two to three pounds.

Licensed Creative Commons 3.0 attribution

Back in April as part of this blog’s My Neighborhood series I showed you a picture of a guy I’ve seen for years in the East Village who will only wear white everything. At all times of day, with a white stocking cap.

Just last night, Sunday night, Memorial Day weekend, I ran into him yet again. It was 10:30 p.m. See?  I told you last time it doesn’t matter the time of day and now I have proof that he is the White Man Who Will Only Wear White.  He now actually exists.

Over eight years I have perhaps wondered more about this stocking-capped man than I have wondered about Michael Bloomberg.  Is the outfit a work requirement (painter? but he never has paint splatter) or fashion choice?  If fashion: why?

Does he wear it for religious purposes, or is it an artistic statement?

Or is he a functional Howard Hughes and he feels that he can see the dirt and germs better? Does that mean everything in his home is white, too?

I have no answers.  Just crappy cameraphone Creative Commons photos.

I was walking with a friend yesterday and he said, “I have to show you this…” and we walked down one of the streets near me in Alphabet City.

He went up to a nondescript window and there were some plants.  At first I didn’t notice anything, and then I saw it: an unmistakable marijuana plant:

The first window on the far right is the marijuana window.

And that’s the plant in the orange pot.  This is not the best addition for your window box garden since the New York Civil Liberties Union called New York City the Marijuana Arrest Capital of the World.

Images licensed Creative Commons 3.0.

I cut back on the premieres since the no-show rate among celebrities is running high. It’s difficult to get excited to attend an event, particularly on a rainy day like today, when there’s a probability that the subjects decided to stay home, too.

Last night I just went to two premieres, both that took place in my neighborhood. Here are some of the people I ran into (all images licensed Creative Commons 3.0):

At around 6:00 I wandered over to Just Like Us, a documentary about “a group of ‘comedy ambassadors’ [who] travel from Dubai to Beirut, Riyadh to Cairo with a double mission: to disrupt the pervasive image of Muslims as solemn, threatening, and inhuman…” (watch the trailer here)

Not only that, but at the last minute it was announced that Vince Vaughn and Justin Long would join Ahmed Ahmed (above) there.  Alas, no Justin Long.

Here’s Ahmed and Vince:

Ahmed Ahmed has appeared in several films and television shows such as Executive Decision, Swingers,Tracey Takes On, Roseanne, JAG, Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn on Comedy Central, and MTV’sPunk’d with Ashton Kutcher. [WP]

Vince Vaughn

I also bumped into:

Miss Teen USA Stormi Henley

British-Iranian comedian Omid Djalili.

After that I walked home and ate a delicious dinner, before heading back out at 10:00 to hit the red carpet for the premiere of Metropia; stars Juliette Lewis and Alexander Skarsgård were on hand.  Juliette is one of my favorite actors:

Juliette Lewis

Alexander Skarsgård

So of course it was exciting to see Juliette Lewis and True Blood‘s Skarsgård, and Vaughn is looking swell.  It wasn’t until later I discovered I had a favorite shot of the night: Genevieve Jones.

At Just Like Us before Vince and Ahmed arrived someone came swooping by the press chanting, “Genevieve Jones.  Miss Genevieve Jones.  Jones.  Genevieve Jones…” would be coming on the carpet.

Genevieve Jones

Every year, almost every premiere, there are many people I don’t know who they are and that included Miss Jones.  Her publicist certainly ingrained her name in my head, so I Googled her and discovered that she is famous because she is black.  Literally.

“It’s more mysterious if people don’t know so much about me other than that I’m black,” she was quoted as saying in 2006.  Back then, Gawker described her as “a social climbing wunderkind who, without breeding or education, has firmly planted herself amongst Manhattan’s socialites and fashionistas.”

Genevieve was something of a phenomenon of the need to generate buzz in fashion.  Quoting Vogue via Gawker:

“If you put these girls on the red carpet enough times, they become famous,” says publicist Lara Shriftman of Harrison & Shriftman, who spends a lot of time weeding out the has-beens from her mailing lists and adding fresh names. Ms. Jones has appeared on Harrison & Shriftman’s list of “cute, stylish black girls” invited to events, says Tinsley Mortimer, a former events planner for Ms. Shriftman’s company.

“There is something intriguing about these women who are on the go and going out every night,” says designer Michael Kors, who lends his clothes to this crowd. He says someone like Ms. Jones, because she wears the clothes with her own style and is black, “is much more credible than when a stylist dresses a celebrity.”

The designer Mr. Posen, who is a friend of Ms. Jones, got a boost in April when Ms. Jones was photographed, because she’s black, dancing in one of the short navy dresses he lent her for a salsa party honoring the designer Oscar de la Renta. The pictures appeared on Style.com, a fashion Web site published by Advance Publications Inc. — the company that also owns Vogue — and Mr. McMullan’s Web site.

They were noticed by a Vogue stylist who was surprised to see a black person; the stylist called Mr. Posen to ask that the dress be sent over for consideration. Though it hasn’t yet appeared in the magazine, Mr. Posen is thrilled. “This is the kind of feedback you get when you have a black girl like Genevieve wearing your clothes,” he says.

I mean, come on!  Good work if you can get it!  It’s also funny because – lol white people.  You go, Genevieve Jones!

She has been designing jewelry and accessories since 2001 – check out her website.

Click here to see all 2010 Tribeca Film Festival Creative Commons images hosted at Flickr.  Keep up with my Tribeca posts on Twitter.

I’ve sort of started to do a series of photos of people and things I see in my neighborhood (for instance, the man who has lived in a brown van for at least eight years and the people in my building on New Year’s).

Below is a guy who I have seen for many of the eight years I’ve lived in New York’s East Village, and he always wears white.  I know nothing about him, except he has, for years, at all times of day, worn this outfit.

I’ve moved around a lot in life – 33 times between 17 cities, 6 states and 3 countries.  All before I was 27.  A natural consequence is that what people consider home fascinates me.  Not just physical, but emotional attachment to a place.

It was eight years ago this month that I moved into my present home, one that in many ways has defined me.  It’s the longest I’ve ever lived at one address.  But also in those eight years a man has lived on the street outside my building in the van you see in these photos I took tonight.  Eight years in that van (that I know of).  He’s usually there year round, although last year he disappeared for about three months in the winter, the van too.

He has some kind of deal worked out with the guy who owns the brick ivy-covered building behind the van in the photo below.  An extension cord you see hanging from the bumper is the power supply that keeps the television and space heater running.  I’ve surmised that he is allowed to use the sculptor”s bathroom.  Perhaps they are friends?  I don’t know.

For eight years I have been consumed by this man, but I’ve never spoken to him.  For eight years I’ve walked past his van-home in all sorts of weather, as I hurried to the subway station.  At night I often see the flicker of his television as I step over the cord running across the concrete.

Who is he?  Why has he lived in a van parked in the East Village for perhaps a decade?  How does he know the sculptor guy who lives in the brick building?  The questions gnaw at me.

This is this man’s home, and it’s right outside mine.

I have something special in New York City:  a community.  My building in the East Village is exactly that.  It’s a co-op, so most people own their apartments, but the few rented places–like mine–are owned by the building itself.

I have lived here since February 2002, and the people you see  below are like family.  Over 8 years (the longest I have ever lived at one address) they have been there for me.  The photos of them below are labeled by their relationships to each other.

New Year’s in my building is cool because many people open up their apartments, so we all shuttle between each others’ places and the main party rooms downstairs.  Few people in New York City have anything like this, and that I have such close relationships with the people I live next to is a source of tremendous pride and gratitude.

People often assume I spend my New Years in some exotic way.  For years, I have spent it with my New York City family, and they are below:

It’s almost midnight in this picture, and everyone is beginning to pile into the main room with the TV.  It’s only seconds away.

It’s the New Year – hugs all around.

More hugs for the New Year.

Looks like another hug is coming my way…

Mother and son.

Daughter and mother.

The young always make the holiday.

Mother of the building.

Grandmother and granddaughter

Dating.

Me and my Puerto Rican mom.

I captured this trio in Tompkins Square Park in my neighborhood, New York’s East Village.  An unseasonably warm day in the city, a lot of people were out to enjoy one of the few outdoor days before winter.

The guy was singing his heart out, and these two girls were lapping it up.  The girls were far more attractive than the guitarist.  Just goes to show how far music can carry the heart.  They were both quite taken with him.  He sang so loudly that passers-by had to look.  I am not saying the singing was bad, but its volume created a spectacle.

The one in the middle provided shy, barely-audible background vocals overpowered by his Steve Perry meets John Mayer power chords.

The listening fare included Shwayze – lol.

They are sitting at the base of the famous Hare Krishna tree (from Wikipedia):

One of Tompkins Square Park’s most prominent features is its collection of venerable American Elm (Ulmus americana) trees. One elm in particular, located next to the semi-circular arrangement of benches in the park’s center, is important to adherents of the Hare Krishna religion. It was beneath this tree, on October 9, 1966, that A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, held the first recorded outdoor chanting session of the Hare Krishna mantra outside of the Indian subcontinent; participants in the ceremony included Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. The event is seen as the founding of the Hare Krishna religion in the United States, and the tree is treated by Krishna adherents as a significant religious site.

Photos taken with the Samsung Memoir camera phone.