i photographed red hook and gowanus areas of brooklyn in 2004, because that's where i lived then. i do not photograph new york at random, i document where i live. i photograph what i know, what has meaning to me. i used to live at the corner of court street and west 9th street between 2003 and 2005. i also had a yashica twin lens on it's last leg. this would be its last project before being shelved. i had shot hundreds of rolls of film with it since i had bought it new in 1988. i was very comfortable with it and i wanted to photograph the neighborhood before it changed. just by looking around, you could tell things could not stay the way they were: broken buildings and empty lots are a transition phase in new york. things change fast, i walked around the streets for about a year. well, i rode my bike mostly, a curious tourist in my own town. then i moved to a different neighborhood...