International Center for Photography

My impressions of the ICP walking in for the first time was nice. It was a little underwhelming but it was a good vibe.

The main show on display was the Weegee exhibit. It turned out to be the show I was the least interested in. All of his photos were great but I've seen enough violence in my own life to have satisfied that interest.

The building is really nice. I made a friend in one of the security guards.

He allowed me to take a few shots. But not of the images. I snuck a few.

I was particularly struck by the Loving Family. The three photos that are at the top of this post. A mixed race marriage shot by Grey Villet. The photos document this family. Richard Loving and white man  and Mildred Loving a mixed African and Native American woman. They were tried and found guilty of loving each other and having been wed in DC in 1965. They were sentenced to 1 year in prison or 25 years banishment from Virginia.  They brought their case to the Supreme Court in 1967 and forever changed the face of marriage in America. Their story hit home with me. Coming from a mixed race family I
Identified with this story.

It made me a bit sad how far we've come and how far we have to go.

The images had a wonderful intimacy. The camera seemed ro be invisible to the subjects. I want to learn how to be that unnoticeable. I want to be a fly on the wall but at the same time to be accepted and allowed to exist with my subjects.

I'm including a few photos of my parents. My mother met my Aunt Nancy at the elementary school that they both taught at in Northern California in the early 1960's. My mother was setup withy Uncle Denny for a date. When that didn't go as well as Nancy had hoped my mom was set up with my father Gary. They hit it off.

I've often been surprised by people's reaction to me being half Japanese. At first as a kid I just felt weird and different. The older I got I found pride in that part of my history. Especially when people in the 80s became obsessed with Japan and everything Japanese

I still get pretty strange reactions from new Yorker. Where they haven't been as exposed to as many half Japanese people as Californians have.

I've posted few photos from my visit to the ICP and a dragged a few from the Internet that were particularly interesting to me.