Check out Bianca Vasquez Toness article on gentrification in Jamaica Plain, I tagged along to shoot some images.

For recipes check out Chef Barbara’s Lynch ‘Mom-Inspired’ Thanksgiving Dishes visit Here & Now

I’m spending some time I don’t have this week updating my website to display some of the current content that I am producing and created in Istanbul. With a new version of Slide Show Pro Director, there is a new multimedia section which content will be added daily this week and photography galleries will be updated soon, so check back!

nicholasdynan.com

I’ve been interning at WBUR, Boston’s NPR News Station, this is a video i shot and produced for their website. Working out the kinks right now with some technical issues, should be more videos in the future.

There have been a lot of questions regarding the setup for this system. I’m using a 5D Mark II with a 35mm F1.4L lens mounted to a Cavision shoulder pad system. Audio is recorder by a Rhode NTG-2 Mic mounted on top of the camera on the flash shoe with a Pearstone DLX universal shock mount. The audio is converted from XLR to mini jack and put in an external recorder that is attached to the shoulder pad.

The trans sex working story was picked up by the Huffington Post via Global Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/31/istanbuls-transsexual-bro_n_700312.html#comments

The story was then taken re-written without consent by: http://www.gazeteport.com.tr/YASAM/NEWS/GP_755971 a news service in Turkey which then spread it to : Radikal, Milliyet, Yaşam, and Ensonhaber

So now, I guess a number of the images are running in the Turkish press. . . more updates soon when I figure out what to do.

A new photography essay of mine running on GlobalPost: Here

The following is a set of rough images from the workshop explained in the previous post.  Most didn’t make it into the final edit but I still wanted to show them, please click on the images to view in gallery, the gallery might take a minute to load:

I’ve just finished a two week long roller coaster of a photography workshop in Houston, Texas with Sara Terry of The AFTERMATH Project and Jeff Jacobson author of My Fellow Americans , Melting Point, and is currently finishing edits on The Last Roll. They are a huge inspiration to the work that I got to make over the last 2 weeks. The following work comes from a collaboration between Tufts’ University [EXPOSURE], The AFTERMATH Project, and Yates Highschool. Essays from the Workshop will be available through the Exposure website in the following months. The work focuses on the Aftermath of Slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and Segregation in the Third Ward of Houston, Texas.

A Search For Home

“As you float now, where I held you and let go, remember when fear cramps your heart what I told you: lie gently and wide to the light –year stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.”
– First Lesson, Robert Booth

I came to this workshop following a six-month internship at a newspaper in Turkey. There, my life was wrapped up in the grind of seeking accomplishment through work. I created images in which the viewer was merely the recipient of information. I felt my heart race only at possibility of danger; when police attacked protesters and rioters lit fires. I saw my next step as combat photography. I was driven by the opportunity to create an image where no photographer would go.

Arriving in Houston, I threw myself into a project focusing on the lack of job opportunities in the Third Ward. Specifically, I followed residents who lived in the community, but worked beyond its borders.

There is a saying in the photographic world that goes, “Every good photograph is about at least three things: the photographer, the subject, and photography.” As the photographer, if my choice in focusing on a story about employment tells anything about me, it was of my desire – just like that of my subjects – to achieve. Yet as my images emerged throughout the week, it became clear that they were not only about achievement, but also about how detached I felt.

I found myself making images in cars on endless asphalt highways, coming and going between the worlds of employment and home. It was the experience of transience, I was unsure of where my foundation lay. For so long, as I was striving for achievement and a sense of worth.

Halfway through the workshop, I put my camera down. I spent hours in front of paintings at museums here in Houston. I searched for what it meant to feel for myself. How were emotion and feeling transmitted through an image? How did these paintings, as representations of emotion, make me feel? I was searching myself, for my core – or for what others call home.

During this process, I started to find that home within myself. Strangely enough, one place it became clearest was in the home of another – that of the Barnes family. Having gone to the Barnes home a week before during an arrival dinner, I was graciously welcomed back. Over the next three days, I created images of their family; their interactions, and the space they lived in. The motivation for this work stems from a desire to create a dialogue regarding the perceived expectations of Black families living in the Third Ward. The images that I made during this time are not the same as I hoped to make in Turkey, they ask questions, provide little answers, and challenge viewers. At the same time, my desire to experience their emotions, maybe a longing for childhood and family, also drives this work. There, under their roof and in their presence, my heart beats not due to possibility of danger and violence, but rather for their love for each other.

I can only offer these images and my sincere thanks to,
The Barnes, Matt, Anne, Benjamin, Olivia, and Ellie and,
my instructors, Sara Terry and Jeff Jacobson

Please check out: Hürriyet’s Site for the article and multimedia project, related projects, & audio pieces. We are also happy to announce that we have been given a front page button to promote the multimedia & stories. The piece includes, an embedded audio slideshow, two photo galleries, linked stories, 3 audio with photography interviews:

Also a quick plug for my event photo service on Thumbtack.com, a service like craigslist but better: Boston Area Journalist*Event*Wedding*Photographer