School Play

The very first week of middle school, in the overwhelming haze of new place, new faces, new patterns, Dakota's drama teacher asked for volunteers to go with him one evening to a process drama workshop at NYU. 20 Kids would be allowed to come, first come, first serve. It was a feeding frenzy. Dakota called me from school, I would have to meet him out front precisely at dismissal so that I could sign his form and he could return it as fast as possible. That evening, those fortunate kids, those who didn't even know each other at all, performed improvisational drama for a group of graduate school students. I would have been incredibly intimidated. They literally exposed their souls. Such bravery. 

Now, a few months later, those same kids (along with the entire 6th grade drama department) take the stage to perform an interpretation of Hansel and Gretel. 

I know I'm a proud dad, but, these kids are fearless, deeply talented artists. 

2017, the year of the Fire Rooster.

"The Year of the Fire Rooster is the tenth year of the 12-year zodiac cycle, and the characteristics associated with it are ambition, pride and the desire to be admired." - NBC News

"The Chinese people say that this year people will be more polite and less stubborn, but they will have the tendency to complicate things." - Chinese Horoscope 2017

Hmm...

Ratto Bros. Farms, Modesto, California. 2013

Waking up, Midtown Manhattan

I leave my apartment a bit before 5AM. The streets are empty, canyons of like-colored traffic lights, tuning. The subway platform is scattered with a nervous, eyeing tension as overnighters mix with the early shifters. The weight in the air is much different than it will be in two or three hours, when the chorus overwhelms these tunnels. 

Every seat is taken on the Q. Most are off to begin their long days, traveling from their distant homes to a distant city. Most are quiet, rocked by the overheated, pulsing rhythms of the slow moving train. At each end of the car, someone sleeps under a blanket of overused shopping bags. More than one are stumbling through this quiet congregation, sinister glint in their mischievous eyes. Don't make eye contact, don't offer an introduction. They are ready to pounce.

I exit at 57th and 7th. And now I descend, following the light flow into Times Square, across 42nd Street. As the sun rises, the orchestra is done tuning. The symphony is about to begin. 

WINNER - Tokyo International Foto Award

Thrilled to win Bronze awards (3rd place) in both Advertising: Food and Portfolio: Food categories. What an extraordinary honor to be mentioned amongst this truly tremendous group of international photographers. 

The photos I submitted were taken at the Springdale Farm food stand in Austin, Texas. 

You can see the winners by clicking HERE.

Women who have lived

My mother used to tell us all the time, "I've lived." As kids, it used to make us cringe. I had no idea what she meant. She's been gone for more than sixteen years now. Every day I have a better sense of her words. I begin this project as a tribute to my mom, Janice Faye Causey Amar, and to these spectacular women who have agreed to spend a little time with me. Together we take these moments to celebrate the lives we have lived, are living. 

Eben Bull | Craftsman | Musician | Artist

What is the measure of a person? What is the measure of how we live? 

Recently, I spent a few hours inside the handcrafted sanctuary of Eben Bull. There is not one inch of that space that isn't thought out, that doesn't have Eben's imprint. To be in that space is to know a lot about that man. It is complex, it is warm, it is quiet (though haunted by the echoing noises of those who live above and around him), and it is rich with layers and the unknown. 

Collapsible Shoulder @ The Stone

On a clear and crisp Saturday night in October, I spent a few hours in an Alphabet City sanctuary, The Stone. Thanks to John Zorn, since 2005, this magical place has offered the experimental and avant-garde a home in New York City. On this night, in the club with no sign on it's door, an insider audience gathered. The brilliant artist and music-maker Brian Chase was in residency, performing two sets. His first show was a duel with the legendary Anthony Coleman. His second show featured these guys, Collapsible Shoulder. CS is a rock band with a "long-history." Chris Cochrane (guitars and vocals), Kevin Bud Jones (synth and all things electronic), Kato Hideki (bass), and Brian Chase (drums). They live what they do and you can feel that in their music. It penetrates and moves you. 

Grand Army Plaza

Grand Army Plaza is a gateway to Prospect Park, really a gateway to the Brooklyn that lies outside of the shadows of it's more notorious cousins. When you rise above it, and look back, it all seems so small, this epic theater where we immigrants have come to prove something to ourselves and the world. 

Celebrating Students and Alum @NYiT - The latest from Photographer, Jeremy Amar

Ready for Their Close-Up: NYIT Students and Alumni Star in New Marketing Campaign

NYIT has great stories to tell—and starting this August, the university is finding new ways to tell them, with an assist from its new marketing agency, Oberland. (and Photographer Jeremy Amar)

In August and September 2016, look out for:

  • Ads on bus shelter kiosks and newsstands around the Manhattan campus.
  • An NYIT wrapped double-decker bus that circles Manhattan (going past the Fifth Avenue museums, Columbus Circle, and Lincoln Center, and traveling as far south as Wall Street). 
  • A 30-second video about the university (see below) that will be distributed digitally in Manhattan and within a five-mile radius of the Old Westbury campus.

This effort is only phase one of an integrated brand campaign across traditional, digital, and social media, which is designed to showcase our outstanding faculty and the ways in which our inventive, curious, and creative students and alumni are making a difference and determining their own destinies. Stayed tuned for more.

An everyday joy

Bill Brand’s MASSTRANSISCOPE is considered an important work in the history of public art. It won a prestigious certificate of merit from the Municipal Arts Society and it still resonates as an important piece of New York City history. Based on the principle of the zoetrope (a 19th century toy), MASSTRANSISCOPE consists of a series of 30” high images housed inside a long wood and steel structure with narrow slits, through which the images are seen. MASSTRANSISCOPE is unlike a movie where the film passes through a projector while the audience sits still. Here in reverse, the film is stationary while the train moves the audience past the film. The MASSTRANSISCOPE image content shifts fluidly between abstraction and representation.  The colorful pictures evolve, transform, expand, contract, explode and metamorphose from simple primary shapes to recognizable balls, people, rockets, plants and landscapes.

First installed in September 1980 but unmaintained for many years,

MASSTRANSISCOPE was restored in 2008 and again in 2013 by Bill Brand with the cooperation of the MTA Arts for Transit which has incorporated it into the permanent collection.

Bill-Brand-masstransiscope-sketch
Bill-Brand-masstransiscope-sketch

MASSTRANSISCOPE can be viewed from the Manhattan bound  or  trains departing from DeKalb Avenue.

http://www.bboptics.com/masstransiscope.html

Tibi Spring/Summer 2015

Over the past few years, Tibi has become known for its clean, minimalist-with-a-twist aesthetic, but this season designer Amy Smilovic went for a worldlier look by turning to Asia and South America for inspiration. "I tried to bring together the modernity of Japan with the craftwork from Peru," she said backstage. "The reason is, I love all their organic fabrics, but there's a fine line, because we're not all just at the beach or shopping at the natural-food market. You live in a city and you have to work."Focusing on rich fabrics such as supple suede, leather, and linen, Smilovic fused together elements from each country in a modern way. She opened her Spring show with quilted, tied sweatshirts and biker jackets etched in artisanal fringe, and touched upon the idea of kimonos with fluid robe trenches and starched wrap blouses reminiscent of men's sleep shirts. In the same vein were tentlike pleats found on full skirts, which echoed origami folds. Elsewhere, the Southern Hemisphere influence came into play with beautiful hand-crocheted tops backed in stiff cotton that lent them structured appeal.

While eveningwear has been all but absent on recent Tibi runways, there was a certain return to dressing up this time around. Among the highlights were ribbon-printed silk frocks that had terrific movement, as well as a pair of one-shouldered numbers cinched around the waist that didn't feel too formal when cut from crisp poplin and styled with cool, flat gladiator sandals. - Brittany Adams (Style.com)

Click to see the Full Show

Gurung Honey Hunters

Andrew Newey Photographer
High in the Himalayan foothills of central Nepal Gurung honey hunters gather twice a year, risking their lives to harvest the honey from the world’s largest honeybee. For hundreds of years, the skills required to practise this ancient and sacred tradition have been passed down through the generations, but now both the number of bees and traditional honey hunters are in rapid decline as a result of increased commercial interests and climate change.