Davy and Peter Rothbart sing The Booty Don't Stop at their Found show in Brooklyn.Check out this great article about Davy and Peter in today's New York Times!
Socks. With stripes. As seen during a 1980s video shoot at Phoot Camp.Our Phoot Camp exhibit in Brooklyn has ended, but fear not — a limited edition of our photos are now available here: http://phootcamp.bigcartel.com/.
When do we first fall in love with our kids?
Photojournalist Michael Forster Rothbart tells his story.
This story first appeared in THE MOMENT, a book of wild, poignant, life-changing stories from artists and writers famous and obscure, published by Harper Perennial in 2012.
This collage may be my favorite picture from Phoot Camp last week. This little waterfall flows into Esopus Creek in Cathedral Gorge, a peaceful glen at Ashokan Center where we had Phoot. My 8-photo collage shows a 270 degree vertical panorama.
I've been re-obsessed lately with painter/photographer David Hockney and the collages he made. He said: "photography is all right if you don’t mind looking at the world from the point of view of a paralysed cyclops." Making collages, he "realized that this sort of picture came closer to how we actually see, which is to say, not all-at-once but rather in discrete, separate glimpses which we then build up into our continuous experience of the world.”
This is what Jean-Paul, a Frenchman, did on his first trip to America. I met him and his family last week at Blue Hole, a swimming hole in the Catskills, during Phoot Camp.
Apparently Jean-Paul mooned me. I missed it while photographing someone else, so he did the hokey-pokey and he turned himself around.
Almost everyone who sees this photo laughs when they first see it. But then they either love it or hate it, and I've been trying to understand why. Some viewers can't get past Jean-Paul's one-eyed trouser snake, but for me, it is the reactions that make this photo. Jean-Paul's girlfriend Gigi is shocked and embarrassed. Her daughter-in-law Dawn is just mortified. As a documentary photographer, I treasure such unscripted, genuine moments.
I've posted a censored version here. If you want to see what you're missing, follow this link.
I just got home from Phoot Camp. What a fabulous experience, hanging out in the woods with some of the most creative photographers I've ever met. Now we're gearing up for our Phoot Camp exhibit. It's part of the Photoville photography festival in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Our opening is this Fri 7 pm, but the festival opens at 4 pm June 22 and goes thru July 1.
Find our exhibit next to the NY Times exhibit. We'll be the ones with the hammock. Or tire swing. (Still working out details!)
Give me a shout if you want to join me for dinner Friday.
More event details here.
Blue Hole in Sundown, NY.
http://instagr.am/p/L86ADwvUMB/
http://statigr.am/p/215258473888413287_150188
That water was freezing.
Tonight is the first night of Phoot Camp! Take 35 photographers. Put them in the north woods. Add fire, LED lights and alcohol. This is what you get.
Things get crazier as the night goes on. Tube socks! More lights! Fire jumping! And this is just the first night...
Self-portrait with Jacob and scissors.
Third grade students in Joseph Collier’s class at Center Street School in Oneonta, NY, decorated their windows with an S.O.S (Save Our School) message. An Oneonta School District budget vote on May 15 will determine whether Center Street will remain open next year. Photo by Michaela Shipman.
A student locks his bike to the bike rack outside Center Street Elementary School before the school's Ice cream Social on May 4th, 2012. The majority, roughly 80%, of Center Street's students and parents walk to the school, according school principal Coleen Lewis. Photo by Alex Cookhouse.
Kindergarteners Gwyn Van Cott (left) and Miya Philpot at Center Street School in Oneonta, NY, work together on a class assignment in the classroom’s play area on April 29, 2012. Photograph by Devon Gonzalez.
Third grade student Robert Murray looks at a “Save Our School” sign in the cafeteria of Center Street School during a school open house on May 3, 2012. On May 15, a budget vote will determine the fate of the school. Photo by Michaela Shipman.
Two classes of fourth graders leave Center Street School on May 3, 2012, for a class field trip. The students walked around central Oneonta, learning about the different architecture of buildings in the neighborhood. As Center Street School awaits a May 15 budget vote that will determine its fate, daily life for the students continues as normal. Photo by Michelle O'Dell
There is room for about 2 more people in my next Nature Photography workshop, this Sat. May 5 from 2 to 5 pm in Cooperstown. We'll play with ways to find the beauty all around us.
Details and sign-up here:
http://www.oneonta.edu/academics/conted/noncredit/coursedescriptions2012.asp
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Viktor Gaidak shows his scar. |
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The city of Slavutych, Ukraine, celebrates its annual Day of the City with a parade and a concert on the central square. Slavutych is the city built after the 1986 Chernobyl accident to house relocated workers from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Slavutych was the last city built by the Soviet Union. |
I was happy to shoot my first assignment for the Boston Globe this month. I spent an evening at the little Nudel restaurant in Lenox, Mass, run by the amazing chef Bjorn Somlo. Second best burrito I've ever had. The story runs in today's paper.
At Nudel restaurant in Lenox, MA, customers can watch chef Bjorn Somlo and cook Andrew Trudeau work in the tiny open galley kitchen. Nudel takes its inspiration from the bounty provided by the local farms in the Berkshires.
“In the summer we buy from local farmers,” says Somlo. “Of course our beets will be better, three hours after harvesting, than someone else’s that have changed temperature three times. I don’t say we’re a farm-to-table [restaurant] because right now we would only be serving mud! But when we can’t buy locally, we buy ethically and sustainably sourced.”And delicious, I should add.
I am delighted to announce 3 new photography exhibits coming up:
In Vermont:
Today is the release date for The Moment, a new book of stories about moments that changed our lives.
I am happy to be one of the 125 "artists famous & obscure" to be featured in the book. (Yep, I'm here to represent the obscure).
I have a photo and essay about the moment I fell in love with my baby son Jacob, who is now 5 and very proud to be featured.
Check it out:
Editor Larry Smith is discussing the book today on NPR's Talk of the Nation.
Fellow contributor Shalom Auslander's piece was in the NY Times Magazine on Dec. 18 – in the Lives column.
Our first reading from the book will be next Mon. Jan. 9, 7 pm, at McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince St. in NYC. Details here. Hope to see you there!
