Even after the glitter fades

I photographed the most insanely beautiful apartment yesterday- the apartment of William Basinsky, an avant-garde composer. He has been living in the Helca Iron Works building on North 11th in Williamsburg for 20 years in this gorgeous 4,000 sq. foot apartment. Billy and his boyfriend are moving to their Los Angeles apartment full time as the rent has just become too much, and the neighbourhood changed beyond recognition. While the vaulted ceilings might be decaying and falling apart, the apartment is one of the most glamorous spaces I've ever been in- a place with so many stories to tell.






The original ironwork in this closed up staircase is just incredible- Helca also did the ironwork on the Flatiron Building and many other New York landmarks.

All photos Copyright © 2008 Laura Helms

Sinking Down

While this is meant to be my blog about my photography, and photography in general, there are sometimes going to be things that I will feel like I have to post about them. I've been depressed by the the way meet is raised in CAFO's in America for a long time, and the article about the end of catfish farming in the Mississippi Delta in today's New York Times just adds to my sadness over the situation. My boyfriend is from Mississippi and all of his stories about growing up are about the intense poverty of the area so it is awful to hear about another mainstay of the local economy disappearing, but it is disgusting to think that we are raising catfish on pellets made of corn and soybean products. I have a huge problem with the idea of raising animals to eat something that they are not biologically meant to eat, whether they are cows, pigs or fish. A good article about the after-affects of our attempts to play with nature is Michael Pollan's Our Decrepit Food Factories

Copyright © 2008 James Patterson for the New York Times

She dreamed of her wanton luxury

Most days I spend my time retouching gorgeous photographs by the photographer Robert Polidori. I always loved his work and somehow ended up working with him, which is fantastic as I am always surrounded by beautiful images. For the past few months we've been working on a project on Versailles- he's been shooting there for 25 years and, while he published a book on Versailles in 1996, a new book of his images will be published by Steidl around Christmas. The book and shows of the work have been occupying most of our time- he just had a show at the Edwynn Houk gallery in New York and there are upcoming shows in Paris, Toronto and London. It can get rather exhausting to work on thousands of images of the same place, however beautiful they are, which was why it was rather good that I happened to watch Marie Antoinette again last night. I've seen it several times before, but it was more fun to intimately recognize all of the rooms and to see how they connected to one another (it has been a long time since I've been to Versailles in real life). It's such gorgeous building. And don't even get me started on the clothes in the film!




All Photos Copyright © Robert Polidori

Hardware Art

The hardware art show I have some pieces in (that I spoke about a few weeks ago) was covered in the local section of the New York Times last Sunday. You can read it here.The show has been extended due to a high amount of interest so if you're in the area you should check it out while at the same time picking up any supplies you might need for your home or garden.

Let me put you on ice

I've been rather busy the last few weeks with work and figuring out some things in my life. I haven't been shooting as much as I'd like, but I've been doing a lot of scanning which is always a good thing. I finally got around to scanning some photos from when I was in Blackpool three summers ago- looking at these photos and seeing Bizarre Eats and No Reservations doing shows on Britain has made me so incredibly homesick, more homesick than I've been in awhile.




All photos Copyright © 2005 Laura Helms

The wonderful Jeska at Lobster and Swan did a post on my photography last week. You can see it here.