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a passing feeling and a fair lawn.

I shot this the morning after the last A Passing Feeling show when a bunch of us woke up after sleeping about an hour and a half on this floor in their Brooklyn loft. I like it because of the negative space, the diffused window light, the prominence of James's 80's abstract vagina painting on the wall, and because despite the rough night of sleep and the small size of their faces in the shot, you can tell that everyone is smiling.

I snapped this on the way to a second-night Passover Seder in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Believe it or not, I didn't do much to alter the colors: the dusk was kind of eerie like this. I liked the fire hydrant, the fallen flowers all over the front yard, and the warm light coming from inside.

Sports Action & Sports Feature

Sports photos I shot for a weekly assignment in my Portfolio class.

(April 19, 2008-Boston, Mass.)
Sal Daher, 52, from Weston, stretches before a Squash game on Saturday morning at Boston Racquet Club. He joined the club in February of 2002. "This saved my life," he said, "without it I'd weigh 400 pounds."
(Photo by Sarah Beth Glicksteen)

(April 19, 2008-Boston, Mass.)
Johnny Iodice, 27, a trainer at Boston Racquet Club makes a serve during a Squash game against former trainee Jim Fox on Saturday morning.
(Photo by Sarah Beth Glicksteen)

[EDIT: I added two more from this shoot.] I like the shape of Johnny Iodice's legs and the lines on the court in this first one.


This is just a nice moment. John Fox, who you see here, had quite a few years on his former trainer and his shirt was covered in sweat even though Johnny, well, wasn't quite sweating. Fox won the match, though! It's always fun to shoot people who can laugh at themselves, and these guys were great.

If it's merely decorative it's a waste of time.

Albee plays are some of my favorite things to read, and last night I was lucky enough to see one live for the first time. It's only playing for another week, but I very strongly recommend you get student rush tickets to see Three Tall Women at the Lyric Stage of Boston.

I snapped this one as we were leaving. The play was quite an experience, and afterwards I felt a really strong sense of solidarity with the other audience members, especially the women, regardless of age. I think everyone felt it, because when I smiled at people they smiled back.


I also read this quote of his on the wall which I thought was appropriate for my photoblog:

Your data can never be too backed-up.

I'm in the midst of one of those sleepless weeks filled with schoolwork and editing, fueled by chocolate-covered espresso beans and whatever they've got in the vending machine in the COM basement. I've mostly been working on a multimedia documentary for a class and trying to recover from an temporarily-missing external hard drive (one of the two you see in the upper right corner). My partner, a very talented and patient broadcast journalist who has been sharing with me his vast knowledge of Final Cut, brought me a flower yesterday. I shot this as it died during our 3-hour class yesterday in a vague attempt at still life/self-portraiture.

Just Thom.

I live right across the street from the Planned Parenthood in Allston. There are often anti-abortion protesters on the sidewalk outside (not closer than 35 feet to the clinic entrance thanks to last year's buffer zone law), so it often looks like a circus to me. It's not unusual to see people waving signs, flyers and dolls, or shouting at each other on the sidewalk at any given time.

On April 12, though, this guy Thom was balancing on his double-decker bike in front of the place and I just had to grab his photo on my way out the door. At the time I didn't have time to run across the street to get his name, but since it's Allston, I ran into him on the street on up near Twin Donuts on Saturday night and he was friendly enough about chatting with me (though insisted his name was "just Thom".) He seemed excited about the photo, but I doubt he'll remember the name of my blog.

Une visite!

Last weekend my friend Emily Myerscough from Florida came to visit Boston. I'd barely seen her since we spent the same semester in Paris last year. It was great, though a bit cold for both of our Southern sensibilities.

This is her sitting in my room, blow-drying her hair.

(Edit: Looks like they could use some better white balancing. Coming soon.)

Portrait of a colorful and interesting person photographed in their environment using flash photography

The title was the name of the assignment for my portfolio class that inspired this portrait shoot about a week ago. I decided to keep it simple and photograph my roommate, Vanessa Gruber. I asked her what she was up to that night, and she said "Not much, I might take a shower later..." and I said "Perfect!"

These are staged. I took them in our tiny bathroom. She only put her hair in curlers and lipstick on and sat in the tub and brushed her teeth because I asked her to. I used an off-camera flash cord and bounced my flash off the ceiling, which created soft, even lighting effect is because the room is so small with so many white surfaces, so basically flash was bouncing off of all of the walls and the shower curtain too.

q t.

Today, while photographing the Ms. Wheelchair Massachusetts pageant for a project I'm doing on Ms. Wheelchair America for my Portfolio class, I saw exactly the kind of picture that I created this blog for (off-topic and visually-appealing).

This adorable little boy was sitting alone in the middle of the floor during the pageant. His name is Declan Donoghue, and he'll be 3 in May. And he had no idea his father was coming up behind him.

Well, welcome.

I decided to start a photo blog like many of my photo friends, and for many of the same reasons.

There is this quote, which I always think, even if I don't always feel this way:
"Our world abounds with endless possibilities when seen through creative eyes. If we all begin seeing new possibilities, just think of the worlds we could create. Part of creating is understanding that there is always more to do; nothing is ever completely finished."
- Rachel Lambert Mellon, landscape designer

Also, Dominick Reuter suggested to me during a short but much-needed heart-to-heart/break from the basement photo lab that I need to "force-feed myself curiosity," and that phrase kinda kicked around in my head for a while, probably because he's kind of right.

Hopefully this will be a good creative outlet, and an enjoyable viewing experience. I enjoy an open dialogue, so leave comments, questions, links and unrelated ramblings as you wish!