The Doors got their name from the book, The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley. The title was a reference to a William Blake quote which said,
“When the doors of perception are cleansed, things will appear to man as they truly are…infinite.”
(photos by Henry Diltz via)
[Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn]
This photo was taken in Brownsville, Brooklyn, on a corner where there have been multiple shootings and stabbings in the last two weeks.
“Do I look beautiful?”
Monday, January 10th: Caused a commotion at the McDonald’s in Jamaica, Queens. A kid asked me to take his photograph. When I started to, 20 of his friends started climbing over tables, trying to get in the picture. There was a lot of screaming. $1000 in cash was pulled out of a sock. The cops were called. Everyone in this picture was escorted out two minutes later.
My name was Lawrence, she used to call me La.
When she died, I changed my name to Bala.
You made me realize that my imagination can run free beyond the constraints of my mind. Thank you for some of my fondest childhood memories.
“I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more.”
-Maurice Sendak
Nina, Michael, and their number one fan, Georgia
Tristan and Nina kicking ass!
Nina and Michael
Me and Georgia
Vlad and Trist
My boy
Tenaya and Gaia at Storm King
“The friendships that you form when you’re a teenager are among the most intense you will ever experience.”
— From Cherie Currie’s memoir [Neon Angel]
“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”
— Edna St. Vincent Millay
Fabrice Nadjari and Cedric Houin, French photographers and adventurers, travelled to,”Afghanistan’s remote and inhospitable Wakhan Corridor. Tucked away in the country’s northeastern corner”. They brought their poloroid cameras and began instantly photographing the people they encountered.
“The portraits they took with Polaroid cameras developed oddly, and degraded rapidly, because of the high altitude and harsh conditions. But this made them no less valuable to their subjects, many of whom had never seen a photograph. “
Kyrgyz woman, Boazai Gumbaz
Yeja, Ishkashim
BibiHarum, Borak Summer village.
Amonali’s Family, Ptukh
(via)
This reminded me of my own trip to Tanzania, East Africa three years ago. I too, brought my polaroid camera. The way the villagers behaved around the camera was incredible. The fact that I was giving them a photograph of themselves, their families, and their friends, many for the first time,brought smiles to even the saddest faces.
I went on a homestay during my trip and the family I lived with consisted of an eighty seven year old grandmother and her five grandchildren. I asked if I could take a photograph of her with all of her grandchildren, and she agreed. After the photo developed, all the children huddled together and their smiles grew emense. As soon as it was fully developed I showed it to the grandmother and she burst into tears. The photograph I took, forced an emotional bond between myself and my subjects. It was a very touching moment for me and that was when I realized the power of a photograph . I let the grandmother keep it.
Throughout my stay in Africa I took several more polaroids and kept some for myself, but many I let the people keep. Unfortunately I didn’t take them like Nadjari or Houin, with their main subject holding their photograph. However, here are a few of mine.
School children in Elerai, Tanzania
School children in Elerai, Tanzania
Makundi, Ureoh, and Baba Yangu in the village of Elerai, Tanzania.
Market in Arusha, Tanzania
Nothing better for a day like today then a little Otis, a cold beer, a grassy field, and some good people.
Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay- Otis Redding
“Oh it’s such a perfect day
I’m glad I spent it with you
Oh such a perfect day”
-The Velvet Underground: “Perfect Day”
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” — Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan
A woman hugs a wounded relative inside a mosque used as a hospital during clashes in Sana, Yemen on Oct. 15, 2011
Chieko Matsukawa shows her daughter’s graduation certificate in the debris in Higashi-Matsushima, Japan. April 3, 2011
Maria, a drug addict and sex worker, in between clients in a room she rents in Kryvyi Rig, Ukraine. August 31, 2011
Tahani, in pink, who married her husband Majed when she was 6 and he was 25, with former classmate Ghada, also a child bride, outside their mountain home in Hajjah, Yemen. June 10, 2010
“I’ve memorized all the fish in the sea
I’ve memorized each opportunity strangled
and
I remember awakening one morning
and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love
and I’ve memorized
that too.”
— Charles Bukowski, “Memory”
