Can you tell that I can’t get enough of this place?

I was looking at this photograph yesterday when I made a connection between the photographs I am currently taking and an experience I had growing up. When I was young, I spent summers living with my great-grandmother in rural New Jersey. My grandma was a gloomy woman, and her house had suffered from years of neglect. I spent my days there practically alone, reading dusty books that hadn’t been off the shelf in ages, exploring the contents of her musty basement, and playing in the wildly overgrown back yard. Her house was literally being swallowed up by the earth.

I think these memories have been lurking in my subconscious since I was a kid, and are now coming out in the photographs I take. I kind of like the idea, anyway.

I don’t know if it’s the promise I made to myself to take more pictures or just the weather, but I made it to Prospect Park to take pictures twice last week, and even went to Central Park on Saturday. In general I think Central Park is too crowded and the landscape views are a bit claustrophobic. Of the three rolls of 120 I shot last week, the photos from Prospect Park are looking much better.

While on one of my walks through through the park, I decided to take a path I’d never seen before and discovered the secluded Vale of Cashmere. It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve been going to the park for seven years now and never discovered this beautiful area (see the photograph from the post below). It’s nestled high up on a hill above Grand Army Plaza, full of birds and squirrels and rabbits, and men hiding in the bushes (oh hey there!). I later learned of the Vale’s somewhat checkered past, known as a cruising and drug spot as well as the site of some anti-gay attacks and at least one murder.

I’m not entirely sure, but I think the perceived possibility of danger in the area makes it even more attractive to me. I will definitely be going back, although I’m wondering if going with a buddy might be a good idea.

Thanks for your interest in my “Taking a Picture” series. Just as a note, I have continued improving my digital workflow and some of these notes are now out-of-date. Feel free to drop a line in the comments or contact me directly if you would like more information on my photographic workflow.

As an experiment, I am posting this example as a video. Feel free to ask for clarification in the comments if there’s anything in particular that you want to know more about. The embedded version is pretty small; click here for a slightly larger streaming version on Vimeo.com, or download a larger version directly from my server.

This series of blog posts follows the process of creating an image from the beginning through to the final print. When I’m done, I’m going to give the print to someone who has commented on one of the posts along the way.

Click here to read other posts in this series.

I’ve been wanting to take a photograph of this building for quite some time now. A few interesting historical notes about the Litchfield Villa: it was the home of real estate and railroad tycoon Edwin Litchfield, condemned by the city in 1868 (an early case of eminent domain) to make way for Prospect Park. The building now houses the headquarters for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Once upon a time, Litchfield’s property ran all the way down to the Gowanus Canal, and also included the now-landmarked building at the corner of 3rd Avenue and 3rd Street in Gowanus.

Link: The New York Times story about the renovation of the Litchfield Villa in the 1980s. I don’t think the stucco renovation ever happened—at least from my observation, it’s still brick.

Google Map

This weekend has been a pretty lousy one for photography. I had planned on making the trip out to Sheepshead Bay at least once, if not twice, but instead, the best I could do was head up the slope to Prospect Park yesterday in the rain. It wasn’t a nice day to be out, but I took a few decent photographs, which makes it worth it. I haven’t been able to go out and shoot nearly enough so far this year, hopefully that will change soon.

This photograph is quite closely related to this one from Baltimore two weeks ago.

Google Map

Shot with black and white infrared film.

Yesterday was a great day to be in Prospect Park. A rolling fog came in and covered the whole lake. Except for the sounds of the geese and ducks, it was so quiet – as if the fog drowned out all the traffic and other nonsense of the city.

More photos from this day are available on Flickr.