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Michael Grace-Martin

~ Photography, Art & Life

Michael Grace-Martin

Tag Archives: new york

2013 GrassRoots Festival, Trumansburg, NY

08 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by mgm in MGM's Photos, Street

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Tags

festival, grassroots, new york, photography, street, trumansburg

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[Note: reposting due to addition of several new photos..]

(From the Grassroots Festival website):

“The Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance started a long time back as a concert to benefit local AIDS support organization AIDSwork at the State Theater in Ithaca NY. Featured artists were Donna the Buffalo and pals The Horse Flies, and Neon Baptist.”

“Encouraged by the success of that night, members of Donna the Buffalo conspired to create a festival that would continue to raise money for the fight against AIDS and other worthy causes, provide regional and national exposure for excellent local musicians, and expose the local and regional music lovers to excellent national and international artists.”

“The idea proved a success, and with the help of zillions of volunteers, and the generous support of many friends in the musical community, GrassRoots came into being as an annual event.”

“In the intervening decade(s), GrassRoots has grown from humble beginnings to become a nationally recognized event, unique in its focus on traditional and contemporary roots music, and one of the few self-sustaining non-profit arts organizations in the state.”

I’ve now attended this festival intermittently over the past 4-5 years, and officially photographed it the past 2 years. To me, the festival is a great opportunity to do some street photography and to help the festival live on by providing the organization with photos of all the fun and quirky stuff going on.

I attended two afternoons this year, whereas I was at the festival for about a day and a half last year. If I photograph it again next year, I’ll probably pick a single day.

I was very conscious of trying not to repeat photos from last year. Sure, the people are different; but the buildings, structures, landscaping and some of the vendors were the same. Also, things like the firetruck coming out and spraying people with water (to cool down), the happiness parade, and collections of people doing hula hoops is repeated from year to year.

Let’s just say the “lay” of the event was quite familiar to me this year after spending 1.5 days photographing it last year, and I was fighting to keep my photographic eye “fresh” and the photos from being mere carbon copies of last year.

After a slow and somewhat uncertain first afternoon of photographing, something “kicked in” for me during the second afternoon on the last day of the event that made it a better day of photography for me. One thing that helped (I think) was I told myself I didn’t have to take photographs…that I might as well relax and enjoy myself and have fun with it. This seemed to help a lot…:).

Anyway, I’m going to start posting the 2013 photos in the gallery below. I’ve got 35+ to begin with, but more will be coming!

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Visit Michael's Art Photography Portfolio at SaatchiArt.com!

2013 Elvis Festival, Lake George, NY

03 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by mgm in MGM's Photos, Street

≈ 1 Comment

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2013, elvis, festival, lake george, new york

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Last June (2013), I took a trip up to Lake George, New York to take photos of the Elvis Festival. I also figured I’d do some “street photography” (unrelated to the Elvis theme) while I was there.

Ironically, I ended up taking *way* more photos unrelated to the Elvis Festival than I did related! This was partially due to the Elvis Impersonators being mostly indoors (bars, an auditorium…and the auditorium was quite dark) and mostly singing & performing when they were visible.

I wasn’t really looking to take dark indoor shots or performance photos. I was more interested in the “Elvises” walking around town and interacting with people; but there wasn’t much of that, at least the day I was there.

In any case, I liked some of the ones I got and put them into the gallery below…:).

(BTW, you can purchase the camera + lens I used for this series in my Amazon Associates store. The small amount I make helps to support this website! Thanks…:)

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Visit Michael's Art Photography Portfolio at SaatchiArt.com!

Destiny USA by Michael Grace-Martin

05 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by mgm in MGM's Photos, Street

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

carousel mall, destiny usa, mall, new york, photographs, street, syracuse

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Destiny USA
(photos by Michael Grace-Martin)

Destiny USA is a six-story super-regional shopping and entertainment complex on the shore of Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, New York.

When Destiny USA officially opened this year (2012), it doubled the size of the original mall–which was called Carousel Center (featuring a prominent and centrally located amusement carousel)–to 2.4 million square feet of retail space. The mall’s new larger size made it the sixth largest mall in the United States.

Carousel Center/Destiny USA is located on land referred to as “Oil City” due to the numerous oil tanks that used to reside there. Cleaning up the environmental contamination caused by the oil tanks resulted in numerous construction delays.

When Destiny USA was proposed, there were concerns that such a “one stop destination” would kill business in Syracuse’s central downtown area and surrounding suburbs. Despite these concerns, the project went ahead as planned.

In June 2012, it was announced that any further expansions to Destiny USA (including the glass enclosed park, water features, hotels and technology park) were officially cancelled.

From Destiny USA’s Facebook page: “Destiny USA is a destination for local residents, tourists, and travelers worldwide; a place to bring together friends and family for events and entertainment, a place to shop for the holidays, or a place just to spend the day shopping and relaxing. With all amenities provided under one roof, Destiny USA is your destination.”

Gigantic malls are a uniquely American phenomenon and have gone way past being simply a place to go shopping. They’ve become one-stop destinations where Americans can get food, entertainment, and social interaction. No need to go anywhere else! I attempted to capture some of the energy and magnitude of this commercial-social spectacle in photographs.

Two options:
1. View the Photos as a vertically scrolling page
2. View the Photos as a full screen slide show (click first thumbnail below)

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Visit Michael's Art Photography Portfolio at SaatchiArt.com!

New York Edited: Twelve Stories from the City (Book Review)

23 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by mgm in All, Book Reviews

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Tags

book, city, new york, photography, photos, review, street

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New York Edited: Twelve Stories from the City is a book containing the work of 12 different photographers from the International Center of Photography’s class of 2011, and edited by the photo editors’ class 2011/2012 at Ostkreuzschule fรผr Fotografie, Berlin.

This combination of having twelve contributing photographers edited by twelve different editors has yielded a strong photographic work.

Many of the photos are black & white street-type shots. But there’s some nice color and portrait work as well. Most of the images are quite dramatic and poignant.

Not only is the selection of images very good, but the way they’ve been sequenced and layed out on the pages is very well done.

The photographers are: Guilia Bianchi, Mike Fernandez, Kirsty Griffin, Romina Hendlin, Mads Holm, Orly Kaufman, Monica Kapoor, Marily Konstantinopoulou, Pepe Rubio Larrauri, Evi Lemberger, Asmita Parelkar, and Benjamin Petit.

The photo editors are: Anna Bianchi, Doreen Blaffert, Carmen Brunner, Suzanne Coleman, Christine Gundelach, Josephine Kaatz, Antonia Kausch, Susanne Lindner, Thomas Ludwig, Ingmar Nehls, Carla Rosorius, and Frauke Schnoor.

You can see a full preview of the book by clicking the book cover image below!

 

 



Visit Michael's Art Photography Portfolio at SaatchiArt.com!

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@MarkTheregan @emeriticus IDK, maybe no significance?

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@MarkTheregan @emeriticus so does Trump ๐Ÿคฆ

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@mschlapp Use "the power" to rid America of all the deeply partisan hacks like Schlapp.

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Ever communicated with a contractor and gotten strong "good ol' boy" bullshit vibes where you feel you're going to get blindsided by a big ol' bill because they keep talking how more & more is going to be needed and they don't put anything in writing?

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@Rogers22L @WalshFreedom Or flushed it immediately out of habit

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