The thrill of street photography to me is that while you kind of have an idea of what you’ll encounter, you can never be 100% sure. Also what you kind of go looking for is not always what you find. Maybe 2 ways of saying the same thing??

Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers-Along Came Betty I had the privilege of seeing Art at the Village Gate-famous jazz club in Greenwhich Village, NY.

How much better does it get than one great musician honoring another? In Walked Bud is a tribute by Thelonious Monk to great bebop pianist Bud Powell. Monk’s contribution to bebop was to add some space helping to deconstruct it some. Space needs deconstruction from time to time.

In my perfect photographic world there is a face that is partly in light and partly in shadow. Why? I couldn’t begin to say other than that evokes a feeling of visual perfection. Light and dark, maybe good and evil? I really don’t know other than I’m on a never ending quest to capture those faces. Chiaroscuro is my journey, you heading there too?

We like things in neat little sanitized packages of bloodless convenience. Sure-no screams , no feathers, no commercials. All news-all the time. The Buck stops here-I know couldn’t resist

Chicken Strut by the Meters with very cool video/dance production.

When I saw this shot in my view finder-the first thought that went through my head was-Man in Black. There is something so cool and badass about all black. Like a desperado on the high plains or something like that. Johnny Cash is known as the Man in Black probably because he always dressed in black and  performed a song called “The Man in Black” as well.

I will confess that my two favorite kind of people types to photograph are small children and old people. I guess it’s because of the energy and newness of the young, while it’s the character and history of the old. Put down the pitchforks I like shooting young good looking people as well just speaking generally here.

Art Tatum is one of the most gifted piano players that ever lived. It often sounds like he’s playing with four hands. Here he is doing his rendition of the classic: Tea For Two.

Glance quickly and you see a scene an image a visual impression. What is left: light, shadow, tone…some random thoughts.

Music is from XTC a heavily Beatles influenced power pop band. I had the privilege of seeing them live back in the 80′s on one of their rare tours. One of their members had extreme stage fright. The song is At the Hop because it is cool and rhymes with “At the Stop”, the name of this post

Here it is-the magic is happening. Romance,dance and poetry has fallen like a spell yet some how it doesn’t move you. It isn’t a language you understand. It’s like watching that David Lynch movie and you know it has some meaning but you’re just not getting it. It’s quite liberating actually.

Odd Man Out

Because I dare to stand alone
they look at me suspiciously
It is as if they’ve never known
they could act independently.
They strive their hardest to conform
Afraid of acting differently
The closer they are to the norm
the happier they seem to be.
What is it drives me to rebel

insist on being different.
There is no sure way to tell
perhaps I’m just an accident
My individuality
Is all I have to prove I’m me.

by Ivor Hogg

The images here offer different textures and moods-maybe even some complexity. One artist that does the same but via music is Charles Mingus. The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is such a piece. He had a fascinating musical life and wrote a wild autobiography:Beneath the Underdog that I read while I was still young and impressionable. Now I’m just impressionable…

Urban images from ChienKuo Market and Taichung Train Station-Taichung, Taiwan. I just concluded watching the Wire one of the best motion picture stories I’ve ever watched. The theme song Way Down in the Hole was sung by 5 different people including it’s writer-Tom Waits. This is the version from season 5 sung by Steve Earle who played Walon the recovered drug addict.