Bedford-Stuyvesant [April 2013]
The result of three intense days of shooting in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Images by Stephane Missier aka Charles le Brigand All rights reserved. Une production de Brigand © 2013
Round-Up 2012
A round-up of my favorite pictures in 2012. Happy New Year and thank you, to everyone. Images by Stephane Missier aka Charles le Brigand All rights reserved. Une production de Brigand © 2013
Eerie Lunar Landscape In Queens
Man-made sand pyramids await replacement on the parking lot at Jacob Riis Park in The Rockaways, Queens. The dunes are made out of sifted sand from the surrounding area, by workers who shoveled the sand from the streets after Hurricane Sandy’s passage. Polished by the cold winter wind, these artificial cones formed an eerie lunar … Read more
Ravaged Rockaway Beach Homes
Beach Homes in Rockaway beach, ravaged by Hurricane Sandy. This is what’s left of the Silver Gull Beach Club, which first opened in 1963 and was used for the filming of the movie “The Flamingo Kid.” The popular summer getaway was completely devastated by the storm. Images by Stephane Missier aka Charles le Brigand All … Read more
Hurricane Sandy: The Aftermath
Here are some distressing photos of the Rockaways, a few days after hurricane Sandy’s devastating passage. Images by Stephane Missier aka Charles le Brigand All rights reserved. Une production de Brigand © 2012
The Soul of Summer
Block Parties are the quintessence of the summer season in New York where youngsters and geezers mingle together in an outburst of freedom and shared happiness. I still remember my first experience with a block party back in 2007. I had just moved to New York on a beautiful block in the heart of Bed-Stuy, … Read more
100 Days of Summer
I’ve spent three summers pacing up and down the boiling blocks of Brooklyn and the Bronx trying to capture the playful festival-like energy of these New York City streets, and fire hydrants are what best exemplify this energy. When the valves are open, they release an incredible amount of happiness, pride and mischievous ingenuity. Water … Read more
The Bronx Riviera
By the time I got to Orchard Beach, I was jet-lagged and needed a moment to adjust and cope with the environment. It took me almost two hours to get there from Brooklyn. I first got on the G train, then the blue line for a few stops, then hopped on the 4 uptown express … Read more
The Freedom Tunnel
Under Manhattan’s Upper West side, runs the “Freedom” Tunnel. Built in the 30’s by Robert Moses, the passage boasts legendary graffiti murals and piles of debris remaining of the past homeless city era. After using it for only a couple of years, Amtrak discontinued the line and left a massive cavern which later became a … Read more
Hasidic Brooklyn
Walking in the Hasidic portion of Williamsburg in Brooklyn is a bit of a surreal and anachronistic relish. I found this isolated neighborhood, home of the ultra-orthodox Satmar community, particularly photogenic as it seems suspended in time and contrasts heavily with the continuous metamorphosis observed in adjacent neighborhoods. On Saturdays, during Shabbat, bearded men wearing … Read more
The Ruins of an Empire
Motown has ran out of gas. The city looks like a ghost-town or a place that has been hit by a typhoon. Some areas even look like war zones. As I drive around downtown Detroit and in the adjacent neighborhoods below the infamous 8 mile road that defines Detroit’s northern border, I have post-apocalyptic visions. … Read more
Winter Faces
The winter being particularly clement this year, the streets of Brooklyn are busy and filled with interesting and photogenic visages. Here are some of my favorites so far. Images by Stephane Missier aka Charles le Brigand All rights reserved. Une production de Brigand © 2012
Best of 2011
Here is a look at some of my favorite images of the year taken in New York city, Berlin and Paris. 2011 in numbers: 3422 frames shot, edited down to 689 images uploaded on flickr. Images by Stephane Missier aka Charles le Brigand All rights reserved. Une production de Brigand © 2011
The Atrium: Abandoned Palace in Downtown NY
After reading that this magnificent 9-story abandoned building will soon become a luxurious hotel called the Beekman Palace, I have decided to contact the developer to see if he would eventually let me in…which he did, after throwing him a couple of bucks. I have to say that legal urban exploration is definitely not comparable … Read more
Le Ciel de New York
I paid the Lady Finger a visit yesterday with the idea to capture “The Sky of New York”. The rooftop of the south elevator tower is the highest point in South Brooklyn and probably gives the best 360-degree view of the big apple. From there, you have a full frontal view of Lady Liberty, the … Read more
Wings (with me)
I had the opportunity to follow my friend Chris Arnade this summer during his favorite pastime: chasing pigeons and meeting pigeon keepers. Getting up on the roofs was quite a journey, but once up-there, it was an astonishing spectacle. It encapsulates everything I love about street photography. Poignant stories from raw characters, splendid urban sceneries … Read more
Romantic Reflections’ photo-shoot & behind-the-scenes
Two years after Audiocentric, Jason Minnis and I collaborated again earlier this month on his latest musical project: Romantic Reflections. Jason is a Brooklyn based producer & classical pianist and he asked me to take the lead on the visual concept of his classical piano EP. We did a ghost-dog style photo-shoot on a roof-top … Read more
The Grain Terminal
On the far side of Red Hook Park’s soccer and baseball fields, locked-up behind a fence made of enormous concrete blocks, lays the last vestige of Red Hook’s industrial grandeur: The New York Port Authority Grain Terminal. This massive 429-foot long and 12-story high beige-colored fortress was built in 1922 for the purpose of washing, … Read more
The Participatory Art of JR (in the Bronx)
French street artist JR partnered with Bronx’s Hunts Point Alliance for Children to present “Through A Mother’s Eyes,” a community art project which involves inhabitants of Hunts Point in South Bronx, in images taken by and of themselves. Participatory art at its finest. JR also recently wheatpasted some huge posters in Soho as part of … Read more
Lavender Lake
The Gowanus Canal is located in the heart of Brooklyn, bordering the neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens and Red Hook. When the canal opened in 1866, it quickly became the nation’s busiest commercial waterway and also the most polluted. The resulting growth of foundries, oil-storage facilities, dye works, printing plants, cement factories, tanneries, coal yards, chemical … Read more
Mount Edgemere
“Mount Edgemere” used to be one of New York’s favorite garbage dumping spots. Over a period of 53 years, the City’s Sanitation Department stockpiled tons of trash and when the dumping stopped in 1991, the city accumulated a 70 feet high hazardous waste site. The former landfill located in front of JFK airport on the … Read more
Ipanema
Besides safety issues, a much needed break from photography and Ipanema/Copacabana being a recurrent topic within photography, I purposely decided not to bring any of my equipment with me. It was a tough decision to make, but a good one in the end. I actually refreshed my mind and came up with new ideas. Also, … Read more
The Berlin Walls
In 2005, Berlin was designated “City of Design” by the Unesco. I looked-up on-line as I was curious to see which criterion and characteristics were taken under consideration by the specialized agency to appoint the distinction. According to them, it is a blend of cultural landscape fueled by design (architecture, urban planning, monuments, public spaces, … Read more
Bottle Beach
Dead Horse Bay aka “Bottle beach” is not precisely a beach where you want to walk barefoot. The beach is filled with thousand of glass bottles, old and new, intact and in-pieces. It is where bottles go to die. According to the NY Times Dead Horse Bay “sits at the western edge of a marshland … Read more
Abandoned Greenpoint Warehouse
Today, I managed to step inside an abandoned warehouse in front of the Greenpoint Terminal Market complex in Brooklyn. Although the building did not had abundant photographic materials to offer inside, the roof-top revealed an amazing view of the Greenpoint/Williamsburg East River waterfront as well as the famous “Save the Palestine” water tower located in … Read more
The Iron Triangle
Willets Point is a chaotic little piece of land on the outskirts of Queens, adjacent to the Citi Field, the New York’s Mets new home. This is where you go if you need to get your car fixed, get shiny rims or change your windscreen. Also known locally as the Iron Triangle, it is the … Read more
Glenwood Power Plant
Between the Glenwood Metro North station and the Hudson River lies the abandoned Yonkers Power Station of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, a massive building which was constructed between 1904 and 1906 to hold electrical generators to provide power for the electrfication of the railroad nearby. The plant ran into the early … Read more
Bushwick Industrial Train Tracks
Here are a couple of shots of the old industrial train tracks that zig zag through east Williamsburg, Bushwick and Maspeth in Brooklyn. I teamed-up with Billy on a cold and sunny Saturday morning to visit what used to be a thriving freight and commercial passage. Images by Charles le Brigand All rights reserved. Une … Read more
Deep Down In ‘The Hole’
The “Hole” is a bizarre place. It is the kind of spot that Joe Pesci would choose to stab a fella with a butcher knife. I am not familiar with southern USA, but this is how I would picture rural Alabama. Flooded fields, reeds, empty lots, abandoned houses, old cars and broken-down trucks. Few blocks … Read more
West Side Tennis Club
The West Side Tennis Club is a private tennis club founded in 1892 in Forest Hills, Queens NY. In 1923, when the United States Lawn Tennis Association National Championship (known now as the U.S. Open) moved to Queens, the club constructed a 15,00 seat – horseshoe shaped – stadium that still stands today. The club … Read more
