Ken Burns Comes to Holyoke

"A Walk Through Holyoke" is a collection of photographs by Jerome Liebling. Jerome photographed Holyoke at various points in and around the 80's. His work was honored last night by 200 or so people that came out to view some of his never before seen images. An amazing collection of images hung inside Open Square. His worked was admired and discussed. Film maker and Director Ken Burns addressed the gallery of people that came to support Holyoke Points of View and the Holyoke Public Library. This exhibition was the first after Jerome's passing within the last year. Ken Burns delivered a powerful statement using soft words. His tone carried through providing a strong message about people, Holyoke, and Jerome Liebling. It was a great event to support a great cause, The Holyoke Public Library. 

Jerome Liebling's photograph show a different period of Holyoke. They are windows in to what he saw, felt, and interpreted. There was a lot of energy in the room, combined with the family, friends, and photographs, Jerome's presence was among us. It was an immensely positive event that drew in a crowd. It was an honor to hear Ken Burns speak about Jerome. Art and photography have the power to change the world, this is one stellar example of how the community can benefit from art and photography in the social context. For a full list of the arts related events for the month of April, please visit http://www.hpov.org 

State Representative Aaron Vega and Ken Burns 

Nearly a year...

Wow... It has been nearly one year since I have made a post on this blog. There have been so many great projects over the last year, lots of work. It is an exciting time in Holyoke and I am working hard to promote the visual image of the city. I strive to capture the most appealing, most flattering, and most honest views of Holyoke. There is a lot to see, a lot being shown, and a lot of changes taking place and on the horizon. The city of Holyoke is as beautiful as it ever is, but the landscape is changing. Holyoke is an ever evolving city.

Here is an image of Holyoke, the most recent city scape that I have made, which is from last night.

By proclamation of the Mayor and with the help of Treasurer Jon Lumbra, April is Autism Awareness Month in Holyoke. City Hall will glow blue for the second year in the row. 

The moon rose slowly over the city river a few nights ago. 

The colors of winter. This was from about two weeks back. 

I am proud to say that I will be dedicating a great deal of time to promote this site and the work that I have been doing. I urge all of you to get out there and photograph the city. In the last few weeks I have met quite a few photographers whos cameras have been focused on the city. 

I leave you with the following images. There will be A LOT more to come. 

Elements removed from the roof of a building. 

The week of March 30 I had an exhibition opening. It was a goal to launch my site on the same day as the exhibition. I was very successful in doing so by the extreme help of Jim Chevalier  Jim knew I was struggling with code and getting the site live. He stepped up and produced a site for me over the course of less than 50 emails and helped me usher out my portfolio. The site is live, living and is every changing in terms of the work I am featuring. There is a link to a projects page, on that page is a link to my Holyoke Gallery  Enjoy!

JeffreyB Photography.com

Take a step, take a walk, take a stroll, explore what you do not know or recognize. See how the view changes once you are in the space. What is foreign to you at first, will become familiar the more you explore it. 

It has been a while....

That is so very true, it has been quite some time sine I have written anything for this blog. It is not that I have forgotten, been to busy, or decided not to, its just so very complicated to get blogger to function well with my MAC's. In fact, it is incredibly hard to manage a photo blog using a mac. I have used software to help write posts, but it kept failing. Each piece of software I would try, inevitably would just fail me. The other issue being that I am using blogger and not wordpress. Everyone knows that wordpress comes with ease when you sign up, but I had chose to work with blogger when I began this blog back in 2009. I was using a pc platform with windows live edit, I believe. That made posting images simple and easy. No confusion. No Fuss. Just images and posts.

Moving forward.. We are halfway through January and Holyoke is going through some major changes. For the first time in years, I mean a long time, Holyo

ke is being discussed, very frequent thanks to Alex Morse, the City Council, and the citizens that have a vested interest in creating a New Holyoke. Holyoke being a former Post Industrial City is moving forward seeing better and brighter days. As a beacon of light emanates from the Holyoke, every other city in Western Ma should be envious of the strides that Holyoke is taking. A city with much more possibilities for growth, reward, and prosperity, Holyoke outshines every other city at the moment. That is not to say that Holyoke is better than any where else, it is a statement that places value in what Holyoke has to offer. Unlike other cities, Holyoke is a diverse community with active citizens that are dedicated themselves to creating positive change and boost the city to a higher plateau. Holyoke is coming from grey-er days. Days of violence, arson, high unemployment rates, high teen pregnancy, and abandoned buildings. I have met many more optimistic people than pessimistic people, but there is still a school of thought that is lead to such beliefs, Are we going to see a better Holyoke. Well, if you can't see that the answer is yes, I would strongly recommend a second look. Perhaps a closer glance at how Holyoke is really is a diverse community comprised of people creating and generating a change. It has been happening for years now. One of the greatest things that I have heard in a while came in conversation today, "People are no longer afraid to come down here. They are no longer afraid of the down town section." And it is true. More and more people seek to view the beauty that is Holyoke. And there is a lot of beauty. Not just because I see it once and a while or because there is a few features that are pretty, but because there is so much beauty in the city, that you can see it at just about any time of the day. But of course, you have to make an effort to see it, understand it, and most importantly, appreciate it.

As a Professional Photographer I am concerned with how images represent and speak about their subject matter and content. Each composition has a story, a visual narrative that can speak and create an understanding with its viewer. I have been in the process of organizing my images as I am setting to launch a website in the next two weeks. It has been a long time coming, but the site is almost already. There of coures will be a Holyoke section listed under Social Documentary. However, I am providing a link here, Holyoke On Flickr, that has a small collection of my images. I implore you to investigate, read, study, and visualize the city in which we love so much. The city that we are a part of. The city we call home. Photography is a vehicle for communicating, sharing what we see, and creating a visual dialog. For me it is pretty simple, I am visually representing the city that I see. The city that I hope we can all see. The city we are all a part of.

Photos Copyright Jeffrey Byrnes

jeffreybphotography.com

Thank you.

Holyoke Canal Walk "Fair"

To be fair (no pun intended) is to say that the turn out on the Canal Walk Fair, was, well just that, "fair." You can say it very simply as, poor advertising and marketing of the event. It was great day for such an event. It was sunny, it was beautiful, it was slight unseasonably warm, yet a great day to have been able to make it out. Last year our studio was located right there on the Canal Walk and we knew about this even well in advance. Our studio is a block away now and news never made it down there. I found out late on Friday that the event was taking place. I had not seen a word of it advertised on the web. Facebook of course failed to notify me of such event. But, I must say, it was a good turn out in terms of vendors. I expect the Holyoke Sun will have a nice article about it. I snapped a few photos while I navigated around and spoke with familiar faces.

Alex Morse came out in support. He was quickly engaged into a conversation about his ideas and views.

Alex was handing out buttons that say: "I Love Holyoke" I first saw this button on his shirt when Alex was at the Crush Block Party. I was pretty happy when he handed me one.

 

Among the vendors were a number of artists. Each artist had their works available for purchase. One portrait artist was also set up to draw a rendition of you for a fair price. Everywhere you turned there was a little bit of creativity being marketed and sold. One such vendor, Elton Braithwaite was sculpting and carving into wood. Standing in the sun, Elton carved away with his tools as people stopped and admired his skill and craft as he turned, tapped, hammered, and brushed away the wood chips leaving behind an image imbedded into the wood.

Pausing for a moment, Elton looks at his piece with admiration.

 

I get all the frames for my studio and our clients done from a local framer in town. Debbie, the owner of The Muse Custom Framing and Gallery was a vendor for the Canal Fair. If you are not familiar with The Muse, I urge you to take a visit. She does more than just frame your works, photos, art, she has an entire line of custom matts, gifts, and Holyoke memorabilia. She is located at 220 S Water St, just under the 391 Underpass, off of Main St.

I firmly believe that something beautiful can be amplified by where you place it. This car stuck out and was the subject of a few quick conversations. I took liberty in making my way over and making a few portraits of this fine automobile. Including one little panorama.

 

All in all, it was great day in Holyoke. To end a beautiful day, I joined friends for a little football and food.

Holyoke Townie Stickers

Have you ever seen those clever little stickers that say Townie Holyoke, MA, and thought, "I want one of those?" Well you can get one by clicking this image on the right hand side of the site.