5 Pointz

5 Pointz is old school New York – a living changing graffiti museum in Long Island City. Every spare spaces, walls, street lights, doors, dumpsters is covered by art made by legends of the graff world.

On the side streets guys are cleaning the donut carts that serve Wall st types downtown in the morning – oblivious to their sourroundings as they fill trash bags with the last of the unsold donuts  and cofee grounds, and crush the kosher donut company carboard boxes – french and spanish rap music is blaring,  the trains are rattling overhead.

5 Pointz is a hub for graffiti artists from around the world, constantly changing and  also honoring the legends passed like Dondi White.

Scheduled to be demolished to make way for condominiums – please sign a petition to preserve this icon of NYC

Update November 24th 2013 : Early Tuesday, under the cover of night, painters quietly blanketed much of the walls of 5Pointz with whitewash, erasing the work of hundreds and seemingly putting the final nail in the long battle between the building’s owners, who plan to erect luxury apartments, and the artists who fought to save it.

“This is the biggest rag and disrespect in the history of graffiti,” said a teary-eyed Marie Cecile Flaguel, a spokeswoman for the group behind 5Pointz, which sprang like a rainbow from the gray sidewalks near Jackson Avenue in Long Island City. “He’s painted over the work of at least 1,500 artists.”

El Barrio Harlem Puerto Rican Day

Visiting a friend on Saturday in Harlem – stepped out of the subway on 116th Street into a street party for El Barrio on 3rd Avenue. People are partying, music blaring, street parade in full swing. Puerto Rican flags everywhere, family day in East Harlem.


Doin’ it in the Park

Walking home this afternoon, camera in hand looking for locations for next week’s photo shoot,  New York City is sizzling 90F – stop to watch a street ball pick up game happening on Bowery and Houston -guys asked me if I wanted to take a photo – yes!  I just saw ‘Doin it in the Park‘ a great movie which explains the history of street basketball. The first time I came to NYC back in early 1980’s I got off the subway at West 4th Street, the smell of popcorn and piss in the air, stood fascinated watching the game on the 4th Street court aka ‘The Cage’ on a hot summer day. Welcome to New York.

A day with Niko and crew

Last thursday Niko’s video crew (below) followed me taking photographs on the streets of New York. We met a bunch of stylin’ teens on Houston St (above) and a guy with the biggest boom box on 125th st, we went to the peaceful Adam Yauch Park in Brooklyn, a seedy alley where I had shot Brandon Boyd, RZA etc, and a bunch of other locations. New York’s city streets are constantly changing and always a surprise.

Adam Yauch Park

Adam Yauch Park is a peaceful oasis in Brooklyn under a highway on-ramp, kids play basketball and ride their scooters in the sunshine. Adam Yauch aka MCA, grew up here, playing in this playground and learning to ride his bike. The formerly named Palmetto Playground was renamed Adam Yauch Park to mark the one-year anniversary of his passing on May 4th.

“Born and bred in Brooklyn the U.S.A./
They call me Adam Yauch but I’m M.C.A.”

“No Sleep Til Brooklyn,” The Beastie Boys

Hassan Hajjaj London

I visited artist Hassan Hajjaj at his store in East London (above : Hassan (R) with his ‘bruvva'(L). Born in Morocco he moved to London in 1975, he seems to know everyone, the store is buzzing  with locals, musicians, artists dropping by for a chat and some tea.

Hassan is working on a photography project to do with identity. He says “I noticed that a lot of my friends in London come from places with very distinct traditional costumes that they wear for special occasions. When I’m in Morocco, I’ll wear a djellaba, but when I come back to London I wear Western clothes. When you see the different costumes side by side, you can really see the cultural differences. ”

I love his work,  beautiful images and video footage shot on the streets in London and Morocco, very real and from the heart.


Roberto Mata Taller Fotografia ‘Youth Culture’ class

Earlier this year I travelled to Caracas with Stella Kramer (Pullitzer Prize winning  editor and creative consultant) to teach a workshop ‘ Youth Culture First the Photographs then the Editing’  at the Roberto Mata Taller Fotografia.  The workshop was an intensive 3 days of portfolio reviews, locations shoots and editing – here is a link to some of the great photographs that the students shot.
Students with Robert Mata

Ben Sherman

In London to promote the Roger Daltrey Teen Cancer Trust T shirts that Ben Sherman made with my photographs of youth culture from back in the Brit punk days. Met the Islington Twins, featured on one of the T’s, at the Carnaby Street store with 2 of the kids who have been helped by the trust. One is now an artist the other studying at University. Good works

Punk, NY Magazine, the Met

The punk show ‘Chaos to Couture’ at the Metropolitan Museum inspired New York Magazine to interview me about my experiences back in the seventies London punk days.

Punk brought an anti-establishment raw freshness to music, art and style. It was about change, the idea that people should question authority and do it for themselves. Coming from an art school background. I loved punk, 2 Tone, reggae. rockabilly, I liked soul music. I liked all kinds of music. At that time in England, the economy was really bad and the whole “No Future Punk” thing was going on. Kids would come out of school and they couldn’t get jobs. People were rebelling against that. To me, punk was an attitude, a life style, that changed everything in the UK.

FYI  In 1994 London’s Victoria & Albert Museum had an exhibition called ‘Streetstyle: from sidewalk to catwalk’ which explored a similar theme to the Met show – they displayed a twelve foot high print of my photo of the Islington Twins at the entrance – the exhibition unpretentiously showed how street style, music and youth culture affect the world.

ICP class this summer

I will be teaching my ‘Youth Culture’ Portrait & Documentary Photography’ summer class again at ICP in July. Classes will be on Wednesday afternoons July 10 through August 7.

This year I taught a ‘Youth Culture’ workshop with Stella Kramer in Caracas- it made the New Yorker blog – we did 3 days of 12 hour classes – work !! the students took some great photographs.

Below is a photograph of a group of Mods at a festival in Scotland that I shot  for the iconic style and culture magazine The Face back in the UK Punk days.