Mad Props to Damon Winter – New York Times Photographer

©Damon Winter/The New York Times

Off to a crack-o-dawn shoot this morning…. so here’s an early post: If you haven’t done so already – check out Damon Winter’s Neighbors Lens series – something that I think truly separates Damon from most newspaper photographers out there. It’s absolutely inspirational – not only is it old school – but man does the guy have … well … you know… cojones. Double exposure on 8 X 10 sheets of film – two exposures on one single sheet of film over a 4-8 hour period – an entire day’s work… wow.

I’m just humbled by the attempt and result. I mean, I just shutter at the idea of showing up early in the day, setting up a clunky camera on a heavy tripod – and stressing out the entire time about having a single person (or myself) bump the camera prior to my second exposure… as they show up to see the movie that night. (Damon – tell us: are you really exposing only one sheet of film for the entire day… or a few just to be safe?)

Simply fantastic – and what photography should be all about. I particularly love “Metropic” “Double Take” and well – frankly – every single one of those photos from his series…. (make sure to click on “previous lens series” towards the bottom of the page to see every double-exposure Damon has made. It’s well worth it!)

Here is another slideshow of his produced by The New York Times – it’s of Damon’s coverage of Barack Obama over the past few months. It’s one of the strongest slide shows on politics I’ve seen by a single photographer on the nytimes.com site.

Kudos to Damon (you can see his personal site here), and Michele McNally for making this hire – one of many excellent hires the Times Photo department has made in recent years. Damon previously worked at the Dallas Morning News, and the The Los Angeles Times – and now New Yorkers are lucky to have his work land on their doorsteps every day.