Fresh Loaf

This photo was taken at 7 Forsyth St N.W. on May 22. Red Clark is working on one of his regular clients Dante. Red estimates he has given 30,000 haircuts in his 10 years working as a barber. He says he got the cross tattoo on his arm to remind himself “to keep the faith.” I chose the photo for this week’s Time and Place because to me it captures the intimacy of getting a haircut. How often do you see two men interact in public in this way?

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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May 18, 2009, 12:36 p.m., 1201 Peachtree Street

This photo was taken at 1201 Peachtree St. on May 18. Adam Perdue works as a delivery driver for a local Deli and he stops at Colony Square two to three times a week to make deliveries. On this day his car was booted while he was inside the building delivering someone’s lunch. Jason did not have any money on him to pay for the boot removal, so he had to call the store he worked at and ask them to send over the $50. “Its gonna cost me $50 to get this thing off my car and so far today I have only made $30,” he said.“Unbelievable man, I am just trying to make a living.”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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May 11, 2009, 10:02 a.m., Fairlie and Marietta streets N.W.

This photo was taken on Marietta Street May 11. It is a picture of a homeless man named William Gazaway. William is disabled and can barely walk. He shuffles around on a walker. William has been homeless ever since he got out of prison ten years ago. The night before I took this picture he slept on the street near Grady Hospital. “I got so many health problems it’s not even funny,” he said. He stopped receiving his disability check a while ago and now gets nothing, he does not know why. He has been in Grady Hospital recently but says they didn’t do anything for him but keep him doped up. “Its horrible being homeless” he said, “you never have any peace of mind.”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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May 1, 2009, 6:46 p.m., 1345 Piedmont Ave. N.E.

This photo was taken at the Atlanta Botanical Garden on May 1. It was the member preview night of their new exhibit of Henry Moore sculptures. I started taking pictures of these human-like sculptures at the entrance to the exhibit as soon as I saw them. I am kind of familiar with Moore’s work and I was thinking to myself as I looked through the viewfinder that I did not know Moore did such realistic sculptures. Right then a woman who was looking really closely at one of the sculptures suddenly shrieked “it’s breathing” and started laughing hysterically. It was only then I realized that the sculptures were actually alive. A short time later these children walked up to the sculpture. Their expressions captured my sense of disbelief.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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April 19, 2009, 5:48 p.m., at 1993 Memorial Drive S.E.

This photo was taken on Memorial Drive inside a house which looks like it recently burned down. I drive by it almost every day. I chose the photo for Time and Place because I like how the frame of the window appears like a picture frame and the green outside becomes like a picture hanging on the wall. I like the green contrasted with the black of the frame and the abstract patterns all over the wall. It is sad and beautiful.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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April 6, 2009, 10:58 a.m., at 177 North Ave.

Like a little kid I am strangely attracted to shiny objects. In my photographs I like to portray a multidimensional existence. This photo to me feels like the woman is leaving one reality and entering another. The photograph was taken on the edge of the Georgia Tech campus. It’s a picture of a mirror for cars pulling out of the parking lot so that they can see around the corner. I was taking pictures there when this woman paused at the edge of the mirror as if she was trying not to ruin my photograph by entering it. By stopping she made the image possible. She stood and waited for me to finish taking my picture before continuing down North Avenue.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Good times were had at the Old School, New School Sock Hop Cabaret March 27 at the atrium on Sweet Auburn. I can’t remember the last time I saw such amazing dances in action such as the Bop, the Stroll, the Hand Jive, and even some stuff I have never seen before. The wardrobe came off just as cool as the dance moves. You just can’t get any cooler than poodle skirts and hush puppies.

(Text and photo by Matt Miller)

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The ladies were looking great at the Full & Fabulous Spring Fashion Show at Greenbriar Mall.  Ms. Sophia of V-103 hosted the event and got the crowd pretty pumped to see the “Vogue” fashions.  Models rocked the runway in attire ranging from casual to church wear.  The fabulous ladies got many cheers from the crowd every time a new model walked out.

(Photo and text by Lauren Gore)

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March 7, 2009, 2:06 p.m., at Piedmont Road N.E. and Miami Circle N.E.

This week’s Time and Place photo was taken at Piedmont and Miami Circle on the edge of Buckhead. I was on my way to a photo shoot at a gallery that was closing after more than 30 years of being in business, and I saw this man on the corner holding a gigantic sign that said, “Going Out of Business.”

I pulled over and jumped out of my car and started snapping photos. The words “Final Days” attracted me; the red in the words would make the photo jump out. I shot a few different images but ultimately chose this one because it felt direct and, for me, poignant.

I have always been deeply inspired by the photography of Garry Winogrand and his ability to make pictures deeper and more profound then the moments in which they occurred. Winogrand said in a 1982 interview with Bill Moyers:

“When I’m photographing, I see life. That’s what I deal with. I don’t have pictures in my head. I frame in terms of what I want to include, and naturally, when I want to snap the shutter. And I don’t worry about how the picture’s gonna look — I let that take care of itself. We know too much about how pictures look and should look, and how do you get around making those pictures again and again. It’s one modus operandi. To frame in terms of what you want to have in the picture, not about how — making a nice picture. That, anybody can do.”

See a couple more photos from this series after the jump.

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Atlanta Ballet’s Dracula has always been my favorite ballet. So I pretty much could not have been more excited to have the opportunity to photograph the show’s rehearsal. It’s interesting how different it looks up close over viewing it from several rows back in the Fox Theatre. The dancers are impressive actors and the choreography is stunning in its complexity.

This shot is just one of many from the hour Joeff Davis and I spent at the Atlanta Ballet studios. Check out the photo gallery here. And go see the show. Seriously. You won’t regret it.

(Photo by TL Pixley)

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When I arrived to photograph Diana Crumb, a person who was involved in a 24-hour blindfolded dance in response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I wasn’t too sure what to expect. I shot for about half an hour and once I put my camera down and start packing up, found myself just sitting — watching and reflecting. It was a truly beautiful, continuous, fluid motion and made quite an impact on me.

(Photo and text by Matthew Miller)

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Dec. 24, 2008, 9:45 a.m. at Grant Park

On my way to work, I spotted this guy with a full, white beard, dressed in white warm-ups jogging up Atlanta Avenue carrying a Confederate battle flag. His name is Alan Keck and he lives in Grant Park, although he’s not a native Atlantan. A few years ago, he told me, he got interested in Southern history and realized that the Confederacy had gotten a raw deal in the Civil War. Recently, he said, he’d gotten up the courage to jog with the flag and has even carried it in the Peachtree Road Race.

(Photo by Scott Henry)

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December 8, 2008, 4:26 pm, at 1265 Lee Street SW

This week’s Time and Place photo is from a series of images I took of a couple of guys working on a car in southwest Atlanta last week. I chose the image because of the weirdness of the guy laying on the ground. To me the difficulty in deciphering what exactly he is doing makes it an intriguing image.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Dec. 8, 2008, 9:40 a.m. at Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive SW and Central Avenue SW

This week’s Time and Place photo was taken in front of the Fulton County Justice Center on Central Avenue in Atlanta. The photo is of Dean Gottschalk who was holding a sign that read “Honk for 50/50 shared parenting.” The sign refers to a movement he is a part of that advocates equal time for parents in instances of divorce that involve minor children. Dean explained his recent experience that led him to standing in front of the Justice Center with the sign. “Thanksgiving week I was falsely accused of abusing my children and the result is a presiding judge, without asking for proof, took the allegations at face value and leveled a punishment on me and my children. This year was my court-ordered year of Thanksgiving, so this is my year to have the kids and the ruling prevented my kids from having Thanksgiving with me.” Dean explained another man named Gregory Eisenhauer took this type of news harder and killed himself two days after Thanksgiving. According to Dean, Eisenhauer had received an order the day before Thanksgiving limiting his time with his children to 15%.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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The Fair Tax rally at the Gwinnett Center had a diverse meeting of people all supporting one idea. As I scanned the crowd, doing my usual people watching, I noticed this family tricked out with anti-IRS paraphernalia. The second I saw these kids with signs against taxes I had to take a photograph. I think this photo sums up the type of support Fair Tax has. The idea sounds great but to see it put to use could be different. It was enlightening to hear there are other types of taxing systems.

(Photo and copy by Addison Hill)

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It was hard to breathe last Tuesday night on the campus of Morehouse College. The election season often felt like someone was pushing our head into and out of water. But then the time came to sit back and watch the tide of electoral votes come in. This community of black men was confident that the right thing would happen. However, no matter how beautiful we saw the potential waves of change, we feared being yanked down by the undertow of history and deep-seated inequality.

Thankfully, the only threat of drowning that we faced that night was the inundation of tears by even the most manly of men — black men who are usually depicted as devoid of emotion.

We have a unique culture on our campus. No matter the individual’s socioeconomic background, we live with a reminder of how far we can fall if we slip on any side of the narrow path. We assume our cool and sometime violent posture to save face in a hostile world. We live embattled from all sides. Hope is not a campaign slogan. Hope has a more significant meaning for us who everyday look at the face of nihilism, sometimes in our peers, sometimes in the mirror. The tension broke when we saw the electoral count tip in Obama’s favor. I have never in my life seen such eruption of pure elation that broke out on the Atlanta University Center campuses. This was not just an election. For us, Obama’s win was a victory for the affirmation of human dignity. And for the first time we took off our “face” and our cool, and some of us cried.

November 4, 2008, 11:26 p.m, at Fredrick Douglass Hall, Morehouse College

(Photo and Text by Wendell Hassan Marsh)

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This image was taken on Halloween on the edge of Henry Ivy Park in Downtown. These girls try to figure out the clues given them during the Undead Invasion scavenger hunt.

The moment was pointed out by my partner. I was hesitant since I felt the image might be a little rude, however, I took it anyway. As he said, butts are always funny

(Photo and text by Stefani Byrd)

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This past Saturday the BET Awards saw a bevy of well-dressed men and women swarm the Atlanta Civic Center. Fancy pants as so many of these people were, every non-celebrity had to walk through the metal detectors. Which is not so fancy. This man was waiting his turn as, right out of the frame, another guy was getting yelled at by several guards for trying and nearly succeeding to slip a camera past them.

(Photo by Tara-Lynne Pixley)

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This week’s Time and Place photo was shot at 11th and Peachtree Street NE. For me, one of the benefits to living in the city is that the mirrored buildings create living canvases that change dramatically throughout the day. I like this photo because it combines that element of the city with another of my favorites — the workers who dangle fearlessly from buildings while they complete their daily jobs. To me, they are heroic. I also like the multidimensionality of this image — how the reflected building forms one world and the surface of the lines of steel form another dimension. The worker, seemingly walking at the top of the reflected building while touching the sky, forms yet another.

(Photo and text by Joeff Davis)

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October 2, 2008, 9:35 p.m. at 502 Amsterdam Ave. N.E.

This weeks Time and Place photograph was taken off the television screen at the Amsterdam Café. When I go out on an assignment I try to previsualize an image before I arrive at the shoot and for this one I was thinking of somebody drinking in front of the television screen with the Vice Presidents debate going on behind them but when I got there that image felt a little too contrived so I started taking photos of just the television screen with a long lens and came up with this Palin shot.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Thanks to my spousal equivalent, I attend all sorts of racing events that I would never even know existed otherwise. Though I’ve learned to differentiate the sounds of revving engines, get excited about F1 qualifying and understand the varying specifics of stock classes in autocrossing, I’m still not quite on board with the cycling. Being a rather unsuccessful cyclist myself, I fail to see the draw of riding, much less racing, a bike for hours.

This past weekend I went to the Festival of Speed at the Dick Lane Velodrome in East Point. It was hours of different ages, genders, races and nationalities riding around and around, fast, slow and in-between. There were odd games and rules, races with funny names and through it all a cheering, smiling crowd.

I almost get it now. I think. Sometimes all it takes to appreciate something is to surround yourself with people who are insanely jazzed about said thing. Unless it’s politics — that’s a whole other story.

(Photo by Tara-Lynne S. Pixley)

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This photograph was taken in front of The High Museum, where a gallery show titled History Remixed: Road to Freedom and After 1968 was on display. I couldn’t help but try to get a shot of these two men holding hands walking past the gallery’s sign on the museum, which depicts Martin Luther King Jr. holding hands with fellow peaceful protesters. Alas, I wasn’t quick enough to get the shot. Instead, I decided to simply capture a moment between the two of them.

(Photo by Dustin Chambers)

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Wordsmith’s Bookstore held a fundraiser in Decatur last weekend. I arrived as The Sea Lions, a fantastic local indie/pop band, were just beginning to charge through the second half of their set. The two members of the band both take care of lead vocals and switch guitar and bass usually after every other song. The true charm was that all of their drum tracks were being played off of their iPod. Instead of shooting the band, I decided to turn my camera to the eclectic group of audience members. About half young hipster-folk, and the rest older women and men. Some drawn into the bookstore by the band, some there with the sole interest of saving the bookstore. The vibe was strangely harmonious. No rebellion from the younger folks and complete understanding and acceptance from the older folks. Truly something that could only be found in the neutrality of a bookstore.

(Photo by Dustin Chambers)

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While on assignment for Best of Atlanta, I got harassed by an unreasonably incensed and idiotically aggressive someone claiming to be the owner of a nearby bar. Apparently, taking photos on a rooftop is a crime against humanity.

This was the last photo I took of the night, after deciding that DJ Asagi’s spinning abilities and the laid-back vibe of Cenci was too cool not to take advantage of.

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This wildly efficient (Smart?) car was sandwiched between a semi and The Varsity, well known as being the largest fast-food restaurant in the world. I doubt the irony would escape anyone, but I’m sure we could all learn a big somethin’ from the little guy.

(Photo by Dustin Chambers)

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