Portraits of Poets: 1910 – 2010 Exhibition, National Arts Club, New York, NY.
January 5, 2010 — Recently, I was invited to photograph the opening night of the Portraits of Poets 1910-2010 exhibit, as part of the Centennial Anniversary celebrations of the Poetry Society of America (PSA) — the organization responsible for the excellent Poetry in Motion subway series among many other poetry-celebratory endeavors.
The evening featured gripping performances by poets Galway Kinnell, Marie Ponsot, Yusef Komnunyakaa, Richard Howard, and Sapphire — the latter, whos novel is now the major Oscar-buzzy motion picture, Precious.
The exhibit, which will be up through January 15th at the National Arts Club in Gramercy, Manhattan, includes drawings, photographs, and oil portraits of distinguished poets from W. B. Yeats, Robert Frost, and Marianne Moore to Lorine Niedecker, Frank O’Hara, Etheridge Knight, Gary Snyder, Adrienne Rich, and Audre Lorde.
Even if you missed the opening night cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, I highly recommend checking out the incredible mansion-space as well as the wonderful works of art.
Before I’m about to jump on a 20-some hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, I wanted to share some photos of an event I recently photographed. The party was to introduce the eco-friendly fashion Web site, Ecouterre.com, from the spirited, green-minded folks at Inhabitat.com.
I got the call mere hours before showtime, but luckily was able to squeeze it in and get some good shots of the party people. The event took place at Kaight NYC in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, and included complimentary organic huckleberry vodka cocktails, vegan raspberry jam cookies and a raffled off handmade Andean Collection necklace made from ivory palm.
Additional writeups (and some of my bonus photography) are floating around the Web, including at PaperMag.com, Ecouterre.com and Kaight NYC’s Web site.
Stay Green!
Had a chance to catch up with some of my favorite buddies from the Los Angeles punk band No Age at Le Poisson Rouge in the West Village last night.
Just having both their full-lengths records named in Pitchfork’s Top Albums of the Decade list, Dean and Randy were in town this week playing four shows, including one as part of a Spike Jonze video exhibition at the MOMA and another accompanying the Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1989 film, The Bear at the New Museum.
Truly inspiring work from two awesome guys I grew up with in the Silver Lake DYI art scene. Listen to their new EP Losing Feeling on Sub Pop’s site.
Dave and Jenn are now married!
Last weekend at the Kum Gang San restaurant in Flushing, Queens I had the privilege of photographing Dave and Jenn’s colorful and inspiring Korean wedding. You might remember the lovely Lower East Side-based couple from a previous post where I had taken some pre-wedding photos. Now the day had come for the main event.
It would not be an overstatement to say the wedding blew my mind and expectations in every way. There was so much color and food and friends that I didn’t feel like I was just the hired help dressed in all-black. Instead, I mingled with old Condé Nast friends I hadn’t seen since our days of working together, I met Dave and Jenn’s lovely parents, family members and friends, and oh yeah, I took some photographs. Boy, did I take a lot of photographs!
Another reason it was a special day — as least for me — was because it would be my first solo wedding as a photographer. Earlier in the summer I had shot Ravi and Laura’s charming wedding at the Foundry with my good friend, wedding photographer extraordinaire Jacob Pritchard, in part to prepare for this event. (Jake and I are also shooting another wedding together in Connecticut this weekend. Stay tuned.) Perhaps that was one reason I shot so many frames — I knew Jacob wouldn’t be just around the corner in case I missed a precious moment or two. In fact, I inhaled my dinner while sitting by the reception desk with one eye and ear glued to the main stage and my camera strapped around my neck, and actually ended up having to jump in mid-oyster-slurp when Jenn’s mother was approaching the podium for the first toast of the night.
Despite the stress and craziness that all wedding photographers undoubtedly face — especially those without a second shooter, it was a lot of fun. And I have no doubt (and plenty of evidence, in fact) that Dave, Jenn and everyone else present at the ceremony also had a really good time. Here are a few glimpses of the amazing night. I hope they serve as wonderful reminders for Dave and Jenn and their families and friends, and perhaps future generations of the Cho-Ross household.
Colorful Outfits and Yummy Hors d’Oeuvres
I’m still going through the thousands (yes, literally thousands) of photos from last Saturday’s amazing wedding. Before I head to Cayuga, New York (of all places) for a weekend cabin trip, I wanted to throw up a couple of sneak peeks from the collection.
Stay tuned for all the rest next week!
