Digital Ink'd

  The Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, one of Paterson, New Jersey's earliest industries, lies in ruins beneath the majestic Great Falls of the Passaic River. As tourists from all over the world flock to witness the Falls' breathtaking beauty, a monument to Samuel Colt, the inventor of the Colt revolver gun, languishes in a state of disrepair. Samuel Colt's newly patented repeating firearm became a vital tool on the American frontier, and the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company produced roughly 5,000 musket rifles and revolvers. The Gun Mill, a four-story structure, was erected on the original site of a failed nail factory and rolling mill. In a nod to its purpose, the Gun Mill property was adorned with wooden gun picket fences, and even a weathervane shaped like a gun capping the belltower. However, poor sales led to the company's demise around 1842, and it was taken over by partners John Ryle and G.W. Murray, founders of Allied Textile Printing (ATP), who began produc...

 

   Starting a photo series showcasing the varying facades and abandoned real estate I come across on a daily basis. In the past year and a half, I have been documenting a good set of them and I wanted to showcase them since they are starting to collect dust in my photo archives. Here is the first one in the series and hopefully a continuing series well into the future.

  Today was a very special day for the "Teflon Don" in New York's Lower Manhattan Court where he pleaded not guilty to 35 counts of felonies. Outside a mix of supporters and his critics held court across the street at the park milling about as news media personnel stood up under the lights and broadcasted live ad nauseam to their respective 24-hour news channels. Reps. Marjorie Greene Taylor and George Santos ran out of town when she forgot that a partisan crowd that leans left would not be socially amicable to right-wing conspiracies, idolization, and vitriol. We New Yorkers like substance just like our cream cheese and bagels. They soon hightailed it out of town to jeers and whistles. Inside and around the Manhattan building, people of all stripes, flavors, political leanings, religious zealots, and social media people looking for their five minutes of fame milled about and made their passionate statements and protests. You could find everyone under the sun inside and o...

Neponsit Hospital in Rockaway, Queens. Walled-off cellphone users graffiti by an unknown artist. I recently tried my hand at AI tech by using ChatGPT to create film simulation recipes for my Sony A7R IV Picture Profile. After reading about Fujifilm Film Simulation Recipes on PetaPixel , I decided to give it a shot and was impressed with the results. Although I typically don't shoot in black and white, I recognize the power it can bring to a photo. Black and white photography can be incredibly impactful, as evidenced by Devin Allen 's historical and poignant 2015 Time Magazine cover that captured a pivotal moment in the Black Lives Matter movement and protests. Now, thanks to AI tech startup innovator and disruptor ChatGPT, photographers can prompt the platform to create film simulation recipes based on past great film stock without the cost of film cartridges. The results are astonishing and intuitive, offering valuable insights into color temperature matching, clarity, contras...