Gus Powell Eats Food and Makes Pictures.

A week or so ago, I read on the Brian Ulrich blog about the photographer Gus Powell.  He has just published a book coupled with a show at the Museum of the City of New York.  The book is called In the Company of Strangers.  A few short days ago, Raoul described one of his photographs to me, an image of men on a scaffolding in the shadow of a large Gap store sign. A day after that, my dad called me from New York to tell me about the lecture he just attended by Mr. Powell himself.  The next day, my mother returned from New York and handed me his book. 

It has occurred to me that I might be interested in work by Mr. Gus Powell.

His sentence may be "he shot street photography in color during his lunch hour."  He shot, as I did/do, with a 35mm Rangefinder, exploring Manhattan as a street photographer often does, with a wide angle lens-picking a location and waiting for the decisive moment.  I find myself as interested in his process as I am with his photographs.  Inspired by the poet Frank O'Hara, who would write poems during his lunch break, Powell used his own lunch hour to make pictures.  "Each day he would step out of his mid-town office, walk his way to the Olivetti typewriter showroom, and bang out a poem about "the noisy splintered glare of a Manhattan noon."  I think that is a great story.  

If you reside in the city by the sea, you can view his show at the aforementioned Museum of the City of New York until March 15th.

As for me, it looks like I'm working on Wednesday, thank god.  Hopefully work will start coming in more often from here on out as we approach Spring.  These god-damn frozen months put me further and further from my goals and I find it endlessly frustrating.

Creatively I have some things in the works.  You'll see what I mean.