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It’s been quite a while since I created a new postcard. Well I’m making up for lost time by putting four different designs out there!
Some of you are already on my mailing list and will be getting card in the coming days, weeks and months.
But for those of you who are new send me your mailing address and I will send you a limited edition, hand signed postcard!
I will send out just ten of each design to those who email me (the rest are reserved) so act fast!
  Watching you, watching me...  Who's watching you? So many cameras, so little time… Home is a pretty fungible concept for me at this point, doing as much traveling as I do. But there is something about New York in general, and Brooklyn in particular, that will always signify home for me…  Greenpoint, Brooklyn. After a long delay I’m finally getting around to revamping damaso.com! So I will be off the grid for a while a slave to my computer while I make everything nice a tidy…  Cologne, Germany 2007  Remembrances of things past. Barcelona 2012 March 23rd, 1995 is a day I’ll always remember. I was a junior in high school who enjoyed photography but wasn’t totally committed to it. Probably a week before I heard there was going to be a big demonstration around cuts to education in New York and I thought it would be a great opportunity to go out and take some pictures. As the New York Times recounts: “Thousands of university and high school students, accompanied by professors and teachers, walked out of their classrooms yesterday to protest proposed budget cuts to education, drawing instant rebuke from Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Gov. George E. Pataki. “At a rally in front of City Hall, the protest turned into a skirmish when police officers in riot gear tried to keep demonstrators, mostly students, from marching down Broadway. Some officers sprayed pepper gas at the protesters; some protesters threw black paint at the officers. Sixty people, mostly students, were arrested, and 16, including 11 police officers, were injured. All of the injuries were minor, the police said.”  Ten years later I was still photographing protesters. London, April 2005. I remember the huge crowd and the raw energy that seemed to come out of nowhere as the conflict erupted. I had never experienced anything like it in my life. For me the biggest disconnect was between what I experienced and what I saw reported in the newspapers the next day. I can’t say my images were amazing but the people I met were and I would spend the better part of the next year joining them in organizing protests around this issue. A year later, after organizing a small protest of high school students that resulted in a small turn out, I came to the conclusion that I could do more to influence the way people saw the world through my images. That earlier disconnect I felt had never left me and it was at that point I decided to dedicate myself to photojournalism. I can’t say how many, if any, lives I’ve impacted through my work. All I know is that I have and will continue to try… Looking twice at the once.
A church that became a mosque and then a museum. Sounds about right…
I can’t say I’ve ever been in a city with so many feral, and apparently well fed and friendly, cats as there are in Istanbul.  Prrrrrr.... It’s an old trope but as an American it’s hard to go to a City like Istanbul and not be impressed by how old everything is. Our host Erol told us how every time the city starts on a new public works program, like say a new subway line, they come across some ruins. Sometimes it’s a fully preserved ship with all kinds of cool stuff in the hold. Other times it’s the oldest working port ever discovered.  The "new" Mosque is still about 500 years old... I can see how that would slow things up but for a history buff it’s amazing to think about how long people have been walking on the particular spot you happen to be on… So did everyone but me know how hilly Istanbul is? Were you just not telling me? Of all the preconceptions I had of this town it never once occurred to me how hilly it is, and should be, after all it straddles two continents. As a New Yorker I insist on walking everywhere so invariably anything I wanted to see or do was up a hill. And not some little incline but a huffing and puffing mini-mountain, or so it seemed.
But I digress. I really loved Istanbul, weather aside (who knew how cold it could get there? Or that is snows in Istanbul, I had no clue) it is a lovely city and watching ships go by on the Bosporus at night is something I’ll never forget.
And… I’m Off! To Istanbul for a bit to do some research and get to know the city a bit. It will be my first time in Turkey so I’m very much looking forward to it. As the European Union expands the question of whether or not Turkey should join is the central question. It will be interesting to hear the perspectives of the people I will meet there. Stay tuned for a full report!  Bye, Bye!  Barcelona. March 2012. |
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