the view from my window

This is a photo from the summer. We live on a pretty lively street corner. I'm amazed at how fearlessly boys play soccer in the streets with the traffic.



This was shot for a series called Soccer On Holiday for the June issue of Norman Einstein's Magazine.

i heart my neighborhood, part iv

Along with the many mechanics of my neighborhood, we have a plethora of rusting cars all over the streets. It is one of the reasons why I moved into this neighborhood. I have a thing for rusting cars. These three cars sat at the end of my street for the first month I was there, missing seats and innards but looking as pretty as could be. And then one day all three of them simply vanished.



The city is mysterious like that.

mechanic central

My neighborhood is about 60 percent mechanics. A lot of the old-school workshops have trenches in the ground where the mechanics go to work on the chassis, rather than having a lift of some sort.



Ingenious.

i heart my neighborhood III

We had the ultimate find the other night, a restaurant just two blocks from our apartment! It is only open on the weekends, so that could possibly explain why I've never noticed it before. It's called Il Vero Mangiare, and when you walk in one of the sons (family-owned) is standing at a station by the door, making pasta.



What's even more incredible is that this restaurant is actually in this other photo from the blackouts. It's the corner storefront directly to the right of the trashfires in the intersection.

i heart my neighborhood II

I love this photo for so many reasons. Mostly because of the dog. Secondly, because it was taken in such darkness, and you know how much I love night photography. Third, it has both my roommates in it. And fourth, inside that rusted out shell of an automobile on the right lives a man who drives me crazy.



More on this car-shelter later, hopefully. But I feel like I have to be careful about taking photos of it--and the man who resides inside.

feel the noise

I don't know how much I've told you about my neighborhood but it is, for the most part, chill. I live by a large, walled cemetery (photos to come, you know it!) in the middle of a netherworld consisting of solely auto-body shops and their suppliers. All of the businesses shut down from about 2-4 pm. It was a very welcome change from when I first lived downtown and life was always littered with street musicians, drunks, and traffic.

That said, it can be noisy in a different way. Next door, they have been constructing...something...forever. Huge trucks will pull in carrying nothing but sections of metal pipes. They will throw each bundle of pipes down to unload the truck, making a terrific racket in the wee hours of the morning. Then, once the pipes are unloaded, they'll move each bunch individually to another pile. Because there are so many repair shops, I constantly hear incredibly noisy two-stroke motorcycles tearing down the street as the mechanics test them out. And there is one dude in a caramel-colored shirt who seems to be attempting to build the loudest motorcycle ever. I alternately love and hate him.

There is also random noise like this. I woke up one morning and it sounded like someone was right outside my window, hurling a metal beam repeatedly against the curb. That's the way you think when it's early and you feel like the world is just trying to torture you. Usually I try to ignore things, but I had to see what was going on.



Yep--there was a man right outside my window, hurling a metal beam repeatedly against the curb.

i heart my neighborhood

When I first moved into this house, there was this big trash pile on the corner filled with building supplies. The trash collectors come EVERY NIGHT to pick things up, but they ignored the pile for about two weeks. Then one day it vanished. I had this idea to take a picture of my corner every day. Some anthropological studies are based solely on what people throw out.



Did you know that in Canada women can go about topless, same as men? I wonder how many months out of the year it is warm enough to do that.

meat market

Next to the verduleria (vegetable stand) near my house, there is this abandoned market. One side is open where there is a snack bar. Empty stands line the perimeter of the big room, and everything is fading and peeling and withering away. Imagine my surprise when I went to buy some vegetables the other day and standing behind the central stand was a butcher in his white apron and cap, like he had always been there. He had two cuts of meat in the case in front of him.



I went home to get my tripod because the light was very low and came back to shoot inside. There were some sanitation workers in back playing cards. I was even more surprised when a guy came in to buy meat. Where did this butcher come from? Why have I never seen him before? It was all very strange.

back to school

Kids went back to school this week. Here is a photo of parents waiting to get their kids at the school in my neighborhood.



The kids all wear these big white overshirts over their regular clothes as their uniform. It makes them all look like little pharmacists in lab coats.

Neighborhood Watch

This might be my favorite small-format photo from Tuesday night. I hope you can see it okay. I rarely compose vertical shots.



While there was the massive noise-making happening on the main avenue, they were diverting traffic to the street one side over. Then, another block over, the neighbors were blockading the street. I guess they didn't want to suddenly be on a highway? Or they just wanted their own party. You can see the traffic coming at them. What a weird night.

Blackout Aftermath...not talking about booze...

While the streets were filling with water, the power also went out. About 24 hours after losing electricity, the people in my neighborhood took to the streets and were banging pots, pans, buckets, iron balconies, and street signs. Then they started burning trash in the middle of the intersection, which was empty because police were diverting traffic to streets with light.



It was so surreal. The burning trash smelled fantastic! But it was totally a party atmosphere. There were kids and families and everyone was just...you know...pounding casserole pans. In fact, my roommate told me they call these kinds of "demonstrations" "cacerolas."

More Flooding.

The power went out in the middle of a storm Monday night. It was around 10 pm, pitch black. When I went out to buy some candles, this is what I saw:



We were in the middle of a lake!

Street Fighting

No, I'm not one of those obsessive graffiti photographers, but I do like to take photos of street art that I find especially interesting. Like this one.



There is a ton of street art around Buenos Aires. There are lots of different styles, ranging from sweet cartoon-like muffin-heads to anti-capitalist stencils. But I like this one a lot. First of all, it's huge. That is an industrial-sized garage door. Second, these tiger-faced guys are recurring characters around the city, particularly in my neighborhood, which is also my third reason--this is in my neighborhood. I like these guys. I like characters with some fight in them.