About Me

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Catherine Kirkpatrick is an award-winning graphic artist based in New York City. She has done work for Citibank, the Ford Foundation, Applied Semiconductor, Pianophoria!, and Literally Alive's original production of The Ugly Duckling. Her photographs have appeared in the Tulane Review and Camera Arts Magazine, and have been exhibited widely. Please visit www.catherinekirkpatrick.com to see her work. She is currently on the board of Professional Women Photographers and is launching the PWP History Project that includes an oral history and blog focusing on the experience of women in photography from the 70's to the present time. It will touch on the changing role of women in society, the changes in the City of New York, and the rocketing forward of photography into the digital age. She is also working on a series of urban landscapes. This blog is about her photographic journey through the industrial areas of the city. You can see more of her work at www.catherinekirkpatrick.com.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

In the Beginning...

In the beginning, I didn't like taking pictures in New York City. Maybe it was too familiar. It certainly was too crowded, dirty, threatening, and everything seemed to have been photographed a gazillion times. But in 2001 the day my mother died, my father had a heart attack. He recovered and went on to have a very peaceful and content old age (he lived to 93), but I had to give up my own apartment and move back in with him to take care of him.

Since he needed constant care, I was very tied down. I couldn't take trips, I couldn't just go off. I had the afternoon when his aide came to do whatever I needed to do. So I started to take some pictures near the river (I live in Peter Cooper--oh, yes!). I would see Queens not too far away, and one day hired a car to go over and explore a bit. I soon realized it wasn't the Wild West, and that the 7 Train was a good deal cheaper. So I came to love the waterfront and areas where the industrial past pokes through.

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