the night of April 23rd and April 24th in Armenia

Last night thousands marched to the Armenian Genocide Memorial holding candles and torches marking the eve of the 93rd anniversary of the Genocide. Many of marches had banners demanding Turkey recognize the massacres as genocide.
There were other banners saying: "Save Europe! Keep Turkey out of the EU!"

Today President Serzh Sarkisian attended the ceremonies in the late morning at the memorial. I elbowed my way in for position and got shots of him next to the head of the Armenian church who said a prayer for the dead.

I’m not great at estimating crowds but I’d have to say there were at least 500,000 when I was there (I left at 12 noon to upload some images and will return once this is posted). People wait their turn after walking up a long path in the bright sun to lay a flower by the eternal flame at the monument's center. The pile of flowers forming around the eternal flame was already waste high when I left- tulips, lilacs,and carnations making up most of the mix.

First blog entry from Edgecombe Ave.

 

From my friend's apartment on Edgecombe Ave in Harlem, I begin a blog. A place where I will write my travel/shooting adventrues and daily revelations  (when I have ones worth sharing).  

I am getting ready for a trip to Armenia where I will shoot at the Tsiternakaberd Memorial (genoicde memorial) on April 24th, Armenia's Rememberance Day. Jason Sohigian recently interviewed me about my upcomming trip for the Armenina Weekly in Boston and Hetq. online magazine from Yeravan.While in Armenia I plan to shot for some humanitarian organizations as well, including the one Jason works for, the Armenian Tree Project,  an organization that is reforesting parts of Armenia.

 Yesterday I rode my bike down and then cross town on 34th St. to meet the director of the Fund for Armenian Relief to talk about what I could shoot for them. At a traffic light I to took a cell phone shot of the Empire State Building. The city all new to me from the vantage point of my bike seat, my preferred method of transportion since returning to NYC in September last year. Later I ended up at the Strand bookstore where I found "The Last Survivor" on the history book table. It is the first book cover my photography graces. The book is about a man claiming to be a suvivor of Dachau, who hangs out there giving unofficial tours, who most likely is not a survivor at all, just a crazy person obsessed with history. My assignment was to capture the essence of the town of Dachau. At the same time I shot the museum and grounds of the former concentration camp for my project on Dark Tourism sites around the world.  Of all the books on all the many tables at the Strand, to find one of my images right before me was kind of special. Hence, I took another cell phone shot, with my sneakers included in the foreground.