Columbus Circle, New York City, April 2015
Spring.
Simon Griffee
Department of graphic design, art direction, and photography.
April 2015
Manhattan Avenue, New York City, April 2015
Cap, cane, jacket, backpack, sunglasses and LED lights: A well-prepared veteran.
Mãe Voltando a Roma, Fiumicino, Italy, June 2010
My mother Odila — a very strong woman. Much, much stronger than I or anyone else I know! Mom gave me my first ‘serious’ camera in 1997, a manual Canon single lens reflex with which I learned the technical side of photography.
I’ve been learning the more difficult side — where to stand, where to point the camera and what’s in my heart — ever since! Cameras have taught me more about people, the world around me and myself than most anything, though it is best when combined with books, music and whatever you love.
Thank you, mom!
With Will at Grand Central, New York City, April 2015
Meeting an old friend after 10 years. Photograph by Amy.
I Heart Earth
Blue pixel in the letter ‘I’ is Earth as a pale blue dot photographed from around 6 billion kilometers.
Colorful jewels inside the heart is the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF), showing around 5,000 galaxies in a patch of sky about the size of the hole in a needle (our own galaxy is estimated to contain billions of stars).
Blue and green Earth is a satellite view of the Americas on Earth Day 2014.
Download this image as a 3.8mb PNG suitable for printing in A4 size, or get it printed on a variety of merchandise.
Beto in Argiano, Tuscany, Italy, March 2009
Que você ultrapasse os tempos e os ventos, meu irmão! Te amo!
Fortitude, New York Public Library, New York City, January 2015
The lion guarding the north side of the library is called Fortitude.
Visiting the library? Don’t miss Public Eye: 175 Years of Sharing Photography, which has so much iconic work on display that I feel nervous being there and often just hide, and William Meyers’ whimsical, lovely photographs from the Outer Boroughs.
Per Volquartz in Joshua Tree, California, January 2007
In January 2007 I attended a photography workshop with Per Volquartz and a mix of photographers in Joshua Tree National Park in California. Per was a master photographer and printer and a kind, joyful person.
When I searched for his website recently I was saddened to learn he passed away in 2011, so I went back to these pictures I took during those days and nights on the high desert.
These are for Per.
Broadway & West 32nd Street, New York City, April 2015
I WONDER IF we have ever asked ourselves what education means. Why do we go to school, why do we learn various subjects, why do we pass examinations and compete with each other for better grades? What does this so-called education mean, and what is it all about? This is really a very important question, not only for the students, but also for the parents, for the teachers, and for everyone who loves this earth. Why do we go through the struggle to be educated? Is it merely in order to pass some examinations and get a job? Or is it the function of education to prepare us while we are young to understand the whole process of life? Having a job and earning one’s livelihood is necessary but is that all? Are we being educated only for that? Surely, life is not merely a job, an occupation; life is something extraordinarily wide and profound, it is a great mystery, a vast realm in which we function as human beings. If we merely prepare ourselves to earn a livelihood, we shall miss the whole point of life; and to understand life is much more important than merely to prepare for examinations and become very proficient in mathematics, physics, or what you will.
Columbus Avenue, New York City, April 2015
The wind came suddenly in the morning and continued through the afternoon.
Geoff Dyer, Nikil Saval and Jenny Davidson at Strand Books, New York City, March 2015
One of my favorite contemporary writers, Geoff Dyer, in a Strand Books panel discussion with Nikil Saval and Jenny Davidson surrounding society’s impact on literature through Raymond Williams’ interviews in a new edition of Politics and Letters which includes an updated introduction by Dyer.
Dyer signed my copy of his book about photography, The Ongoing Moment that I warmly recommend along with his book about life on an aircraft carrier, Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George HW Bush, which includes pictures by Chris Steele-Perkins.
Fifth Avenue at 33th Street, New York City, March 2015
A customer departs a popular New York City eating establishment.
Sheridan Square & West 4th Street, New York City, March 2015
Cyclists in New York City often have their athleticism on display.