I am a fan of neither "Spiderman" nor "Superman," thus the "Jimmy Olsen," "Peter Parker," and "Clark Kent" comments mean nothing to me.  My inspiration is drawn not from fictional characters, but rather from the real people who documented life in New York through the mid-20th century.

    Their black-and-white images speak for themselves, but I've always sought to learn as much as I can about the people behind them.  Much has changed since the era of the Speed Graphic.  Advances have been made in technology—the news photographer's technical ability to create, edit, and send images has never been so great—but, in other ways, the profession has regressed.  Society changes, and so too do its characters.  Look at a picture of an average "perp walk," circa 1940.  It's sometimes hard to tell the difference between the detectives, reporters, and the criminal.  The perpetrators of horrific crimes somehow managed to look presentable.  Perhaps through the fog of six decades, even a cigar-chomping lensman, angling for a shot, looks downright classy, too.  There is an unmistakable air of gentlemanly conduct in those pictures, something that commands respect in the midst of chaos.

    Over time, the press and the perps became more and more casual.  Dress codes, for they did exist at newspapers, were abandoned.  Today, little effort is made on the part of photographers to dress as though they were going to anything but a wilderness excursion.  I can't help but wonder if the change in how members of the press present themselves is, in some way, responsible for the decreasing opinion held of them by the public.  If it is, I'm doing my part to change things.

    The old-timers who lived and worked "back in the day" seem to agree.  "We always wore hats and ties," or "people took you more seriously when you didn't look like a bum" have been related to me many times.  When I go out to work, it is my job to photograph people at their jobs, and I try to be respectful of them, as a visitor, observer, and documentarian.  There is no such thing as being overdressed at a fire, while there is such a thing as being underdressed when visiting a grieving family.  In New York, at any given moment, you have to be prepared for one, the other, or both. 

    After several years of casually dabbling in video and post-production, I picked up a still camera in 1996, at the age of 14, and have been hooked ever since.  Having known my local precinct cops and firefighters in Brooklyn while growing up, I was naturally drawn to breaking news coverage.  By subway, bus, taxi, or as fast as my legs could carry me, I would go where the sirens and radios led, and in the spring of 1997, I began contributing to my local weekly newspaper.  That summer, I received my first Working Press card from the New York City Police Department, and started submitting photos to "New York's Picture Newspaper," the Daily News.

    In the intervening years, my work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Post, the Brooklyn Papers, the Chief-Leader, the Brooklyn Eagle, and the New York Law Journal.  Currently, I cover the Manhattan courts for the Daily News, and continue to contribute to the Eagle, as well as the Brooklyn Heights Blog.  My photos appear in various official print and web publications of the New York City Fire Department, and I am a proud member of the Fire Bell Club of New York.  I also belong to the New York Press Photographers Association, and am a candidate for its board of directors.   Some of my Daily News pictures are archived and can be purchased through DailyNewsPix, while others can be obtained through Polaris Images.

    This website showcases mostly work from 2007 through today, with some oldies thrown in for good measure.  My current arsenal consists of a Nikon D3 with a 24-70mm 2.8 lens, a Nikon D700 with an 80-200mm 2.8 lens, and an SB-900 flash.  In the past, I have used a D2X, D200, D2Hs, F4s, N90s, N8008s, and FG cameras.  For historical work, I use an array of 4X5 Graflex Speed Graphic cameras.  My traveling companion, the intrepid "Cindy Belle," is a 2008 Chevrolet Impala.  Any number of Motorola and Bearcat radios, along with the built-like-a-rock BNN Advisor pager, tell me where I'm going.  My only GPS is a well-worn spiral-bound atlas, and I use public phones whenever I can.