Cacti in New Jersey?!*

It took me over 41 years to learn today that the prickly pear cactus is indigenous to all lower forty eight states. Who knew?

July 9, 2009  Gateway National Recreation Area   Sandy Hook, NJ

July's 19th Century Photograph

Panorama of the World's Columbian Exposition  (The White City)   Chicago 1893
compiled by Brian Karpuk     (best viewed when open and enlarged)

Mammatus Clouds

Last week I noticed that the light was really beautiful outside so I grabbed my camera and went out to the pier where I have been doing a lot of shooting lately. I was lucky I did as I was rewarded with some of the most unusual clouds I have ever seen.
You can read about them here.

Happy 4th of July

Battery Park, New York, New York July 4, 2009

renaldi.com - censored

A few months ago I met with the Department Head of Photographs at a major art museum to show them my new book Fall River Boys. During the meeting I asked if I could show another more recent body of work that appeared on my website. They obliged and handed me a laptop to bring up my site. When I entered the url a message was returned that my website was blocked due to adult content (likely due to a handful of nudes in one of my series titled hotel room portraits). This was regarded as no big deal by the curator. I was told that there were many artists whose websites were blocked because there was some form of nudity in their work. I however was flabbergasted for many days afterwards - that a world class museum of art had internet filters preventing curators from viewing images of the naked human body. To this day I wonder if they are able to view their very own collection online?

Happy Gay Pride

40 Years 1969 -2009.

Girlfriends    June 27, 2009



Angel    June 26, 2009

for Michael

Mormons

I recently was on assignment for Time shooting a story on Mormons in Alameda, California. The story grew out of the recent battle over Prop 8 and how the Mormon Church was instrumental in it being passed. The story focused in particular on a Mormon ward in the Bay Area that had struggled somewhat over supporting prop 8 - though in the end they eventually did. Ironically the editors at Time choose a gay photographer to shoot this story. I had some initial apprehension about photographing a subject where I regarded the particular religious group involved with some genuine anger. I thought that apprehension through and came to the conclusion that the reader/viewer should make their own judgments and that I should treat this subject as I would any other assignment or personal project. I believe the photographs I made attest to that. I did find myself engaged in a sit down at the kitchen table conversation with the main protagonist of the story about gay marriage. He had asked if I was following prop 8 out in NY and I had replied I certainly was as I was gay and that my assistant Seth was also my partner of 10 years. Needless to say no minds were changed but I do think the conversation served some value. For me it pretty much boils down them to not wanting gays in their club and a fear of the government taking away their tax exempt status for not doing so... See the story here.

Times Square Friday June 19,2009

Shout Outs

Check out this interesting blog of Prison Photography by Pete Brook. There is a lot of strong work compiled there. I was especially impressed with the work of Melania Comoretto on Women Prisoners.



(c) Melania Comoretto


Andrew Phelps has a forthcoming book on his stunning new work from Japan titled Not Niigata and a special edition to boot.





Head over o NYU to see Will Steacy's exhibition of his engaging and dramatic new project Down these Mean Streets.








Ian Van Coller has an exhibition of his work in Philadelphia at Sol Mednick Gallery, University of the Arts. The show is titled Looking Forward, Portraits of South African Women. It is sure to be a great show as I love the portraits he has done of domestic workers in South Africa.








and to Tom Sachs for making this...

Thomas meets his cover

Fall River, MA. June 13, 2009

Richard Renaldi traces transitions in 'Fall River Boys' by Mark Feeney

Check this...

I recently emailed an introduction and a link to some of my recent work to the NY Times Lens Blog. I received this rejection email in a very large and bold font - "Thanks much for considering the Lens blog, but we currently don't have space for such projects. Your ability is apparent, though, and I would suggest you continue to send your projects to us -- but if I may make a suggestion: refraining from shots where the subject is looking at the camera will increase your chances of us wanting to do something with your work." I thought it was so funny that I had to post it here. Beware photographers that look into their subjects eyes!

June's 19th century photograph

Japanese Prostitutes of the 19th Century
photographer and date unknown

Book Signing at the Fall River Historical Society Fall River, MA. June 13 12:00 - 2:30

John and his zen sand patch

We met this lovely character out at Revere Beach on Sunday. He was very much committed to bringing the art of sand raking to his neighborhood urban beach. How cool is that...






Revere Beach Boston June 7, 2009

Testimonials about Fall River Boys… from Fall River Boys…

This two emails really touched me.

“I bought the book last week, and I just wanted to let you know that I think you did a really nice job. The photos look great. I often see work by photographers on the underclass, on the outcasts of society that treats the people in the images as foreign or exotic — sometimes reduced to objects. Being from Fall River, maybe I’m overly sensitive to this approach, but that never comes across in your work. There’s a real humanity here. With respect to your main theme, someone could walk down a neighborhood of the kind that’s abundant in a place like Fall River, see these boys, and just see thugs. What they don’t see is that the tattoos, the clothes, the smirks are often masks for deeper insecurities. They’re trying to be men, but a lot of them just don’t know how. I think you’ve captured that.”
-Kyle Marum

“I just found out about your book from my roommate. I just want to let you know that the book looks amazing. Me myself a 19 year old born and raised in the riv could totally relate to the photos, shit I grew up with a lot of those kids. I could name a bunch of them, a couple I am actually good friends with. Those photos bring me back to the days, a couple years ago walking in the rain to work after school. Ice cold, totally gives outsiders a view of life in Fall River.”
- Ellis Rua

Getting Goofy

Not sure if it is due to the recession or what but last week I saw two really funny scenes on the streets of New York.
The first "incident" was a man walking along Union Square West with a cat on his head. The cat was completely calm and perfectly balanced and as you expect this being NY this did not seem to attract much attention. The other pecular incident happened the very next afternoon - a man walking another man on a leash. Mind you this is the west village but not any particular event was going on that day - just a master walking his slave...

2:53 PM F Train between East Broadway and York Streets

Richard Renaldi at Toale Projects

If you happen to be in the Boston area please join us for a pop-up exhibition of Fall River Boys and signing this coming weekend at Toale Projects at 450 Harrison Avenue.
The dates and times are Friday June 5 5:30-7:30 and Saturday June 6 11:00-3:00