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Tom Scola (@heyscola) · DIRTY

Tom Scola

@heyscola

Photographer, Brooklyn Buffista

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Tom Scola@heyscola· 19d

Park Slope, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #Ektachrome100

Photograph of a planter on a window sill of a brownstone in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, the first of a diptych. The sun hits the scene at an acute angle, giving it an extremely dramatic appearance. The bed of the planter is covered in green leaves, while two small bright red flowers shoot upwards. The Internet tells me the plant is some kind of germanium hybrid. Of the two photos in the diptych, I much prefer this one, although the Internet disagrees with me.

The second in a diptych of photos of window sills of brownstones in Park Slope, Brooklyn. This window sill has no flowers on it. Instead, it has an abandoned mostly-empty cup of iced coffee sitting on it. Again, the sun is hitting the scene at a dramatic angle, and the window is quite dirty. The way the sun bounces off the dirt on the window gives the whole photo a dreamy, painterly appearance. People sometimes tell me my photos look like paintings. Eventually I noticed that when they do, it is always a picture of a dirty window in direct sunlight. I guess there is something about photos of dirty windows in sunlight that reminds people of paintings.

Even though I firmly believe that the first photo is objectively better than this one. This photo outperformed the first by a wide margin on social media. Maybe I don’t like this photo as much because I don’t drink coffee.

Tom Scola@heyscola· 22d

Park Slope, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #Ektachrome100

Photograph of the front façade of a commercial/industrial building in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. The building has a big rolling gate for trucks to enter, with the words NO PARKING stenciled onto it. Looking at this site on Street View, the entrance also has a curb cut which is painted bright yellow, and there is a bright orange traffic cone out front with another NO PARKING sign attached to it, and of course, a car parked right there. Next to the truck entrance is a doorway for humans. It was once painted a pleasing color of pumpkin-orange, but the paint has started to flake off, the door is weathered and dented, and has started to rust. To the right of the frame, the building’s cinder blocks are painted in a mosaic of pastel colors, which is the kind of vernacular architecture shit that I LIVE for.

Tom Scola@heyscola· 24d

Boerum Hill, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #Ektachrome100

Photograph of the front façade of a home in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. This is a former 19th century carriage house that has been converted into a residence. The large swinging doors that were used to park a rich person’s horse and carriage is no longer functional, and the present owner has decorated it with plants. This building is charming as fuck, but it’s also a waste of space, since this lot could fit apartments for many people, instead of the pied-à-terre for one family. Since the block it is on is landmarked, it can never be torn down.

Kodak had recently re-introduced Ektachrome in 2019, and I got my hands on some here in 2020. I liked the results, but the extra expense wasn’t worth it to me. Plus, my piece of shit scanner and software had a surprisingly difficult time with this. Just reproduce exactly what appears on the slide, how difficult can that be? I had to tweak the hell out of these scans to get decent results, and a bunch of frames were wasted because I couldn’t fix them in post, even though everything was correctly exposed.

Tom Scola@heyscola· 26d

Tribeca, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #UltraMax400

Photograph of the front stoop of what was once an industrial building in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan. Everything is quite Spartan in appearance. The stairs are made from diamond-pattern steel plates. The doors are a bland grey metal. There is a column next to the doors, again painted a dull grey. There is a warning sign attached to the column warning about the building’s freight elevator. In spite of everything being drab and functional, this is some of the most expensive real estate in the world. I haven’t looked it up, but I don’t doubt that apartments worth tens of millions of dollars sit above this inauspicious entrance.

Tom Scola@heyscola· 29d

Tribeca, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #UltraMax400

Vertical photograph of a bright red wall in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan. This is really, really, red. I overexposed the UltraMax by two stops to bring out the red even more in the bright sunshine. This is way more red than your monitor can handle. On the sidewalk in front of the wall is a metal barrier, with vertical bars, and above, out of frame, is a fire escape, whose shadow projects horizontal bars across the top half of the frame.

Since 2020, this wall has been painted black, part of the conspiracy to remove color from all our lives.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jul 15

Current Air Quality
AQI 155
Unhealthy
Brooklyn, NY
1 PM EDT JUL 15, 2026

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jul 14

Red Hook, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #UltraMax400

A vertical photograph of a fenced-off lot in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. Sitting on the sidewalk in front of the fence is one of those free newspaper dispensers you see all over the city. This one has been absconded, painted red and black, and has been repurposed as a Little Free Library. However, it looks like the LFL has failed at its new purpose, and now sits empty and abandoned, next to a small pile of trash.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jul 12

Canal St Station, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #400TX

Black and white photograph of the interior of a NYC subway car. This is an R62 subway car, built c. 1984. Forty-two years old, and going strong; due to be replaced in the next 5–10 years. The interior is mostly stainless steel; perfect for the black and white rendering. On the wall is a posting in the NYC Subway Poetry in Motion Series:

Faithful Forest: an excerpt by Alberto Rios b. 1952

The leaves liked the wind, and went with it.
The trees grew more leaves, but wind took them all.

And then the bare trees were *branches*, which in their frenzy
Made people think of so many ideas—

Branches were lines on the paper of sky,
Drawing shapes on the shifting clouds

Until everyone agreed that they saw horses.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jul 9

Brooklyn Heights, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #400TX

Black and white photograph of an old wooden building in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. This is purported to be one of the oldest buildings in Brooklyn, built some time between 1790 and 1826. However, I googled this address, and dug up a document filed with the Landmarks Preservation Committee, which goes into a much deeper history of the building.

This particular section of the building was (re-)constructed in 1938. This was during the peak of the Colonialist Revival movement. So this is kind of a Disneyland representation of what people in the 1930s thought 18th Century buildings were supposed to look like. I’m giving those wooden shutters the side-eye. They’re completely non-functional, and they seem pretty kitschy to me.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jul 7

Chinatown, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #ProImage100

Photograph of the front stoop of a building in Chinatown, Manhattan. This place is technically Little Italy, but that really isn’t a neighborhood any more, and only exists as a tourist destination. Indeed, this façade is now covered in awning, and is now an establishment that sells tchotchkes to tourists. At this time, however, the door and the rest of the building was covered in layers of red paint to cover up the graffiti, resulting in splotches of different shades of red. Some time between 2021 and 2022 the red door was replaced by one with large glass window panes, which is less likely to attract graffiti.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jul 5

LES, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #ProImage100

Photograph of some translucent plastic awning outside of a bodega in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The awning is quite dramatically lit from behind by the sun, rendering the colors of all the graffiti that is spraypainted on the awning quite spectacularly, including the helpful words WEAR A MASK, as this photo was taken during the height of the lockdown in 2020. If you zoom in, there is another flyer wheatpasted onto the awning that says “Think about the old folks please!” Above the awning is an Orwellian-looking security camera aimed down on the sidewalk.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jul 2

LES, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #ProImage100

Photograph of an empty store front in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The sign reads SAM’S KNITWEAR. The front window is covered in paper, and is closed off by a set of scissor gates. The front door has its own rolling gate housing, which is painted orange. Everything is old and dented and fading.

All this signage and gating would be ripped down over the next few years, and is now a boutique that sells phenomenally ugly clothing to vapid Dimes Square millennials. It will go out of business in the next couple of years, as all of these NYC scenes inevitably disintegrate, and then thirty years from now, people will look at the faded BIG BUD PRESS signage and empty storefront and wonder what that was all about.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 30

Brooklyn Heights, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #UltraMax400

Photograph of a planter next to a set of doors outside of a building in Brooklyn Heights. The sun strikes the scene at a dramatic angle, bathing the colorful flowers in the planter in bright light. It appears the building was once a commercial building; the planter sits on what seems to be a loading dock. The dock is covered in diamond-plate metal, and it is raised off of the ground for easy loading and unloading. But this building is no longer an industrial site, it has long since been carved up into apartments, valued at something in between $2 million and $6 million each. But this does give hints to a time when this neighborhood had temporarily de-gentrified in the early 20th Century, before it re-gentrified starting in the 1970s to the present.

In 1926, exactly one block from this site, noted racist H.P. Lovecraft lived in a cheap boarding house. He absolutely *hated* the neighborhood, especially its immigrant population, inspiring to write the short story _The Horror at Red Hook_.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 28

Cobble Hill, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #UltraMax400

Vertical photograph of a stoop along the side of a brownstone in the Cobble Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. The doorway is on the second floor of the building, but the stairs aren’t visible in the photo; they’re off to the right, out of frame. The stoop itself is made of brownstone, has a prominent but non-functional arch carved into it, and is stained green from the lichen that grows in its porous surface. The top of the stoop is closed off by some wrought iron railing, so that you don’t step out of the door and then fall five feet onto the sidewalk — that would hurt. Next to the door is a large and stylish vase, with some sort of grass growing out of it. The bottom of the stoop has some railing off to the left, providing some visual harmony with the railing above.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 25

Red Hook, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #ProImage100

Somewhat close-up photograph of the side of a building in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. The building is clad corrugated metal, which is covered in layers and layers of graffiti. All that spraypaint must not have been good for the galvanic coating of the metal, for now it is seriously rusted, all the way through in places, which is then patched with other sheets of corrugated metal. This patchwork of rusted metal had been going on for decades, making this one of the most visually interesting and photogenic buildings in the area, until finally, the siding was completely replaced earlier this year. I’m sad to see it go.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 23

Fort Greene, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #UltraMax400

Photograph of a metal box outside of a bodega in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. The box is red and rusted, and looks like it is starting to disintegrate. It is covered in stickers, most prominent is an ad for chewing tobacco products, with a prominent warning that using that shit can cause mouth cancer.

Behind the box is the store window, showing shelves filled with products for sale.

This is the third in my Metal Boxes Outside of Bodegas series, which I took in quick succession in 2020. In the past six years, I’ve taken lots more pictures of boxes, but almost all of them suck. I’ve only added two more to the series since then. It’s kind of humbling to see how much serendipity plays a part in my photography, and how difficult it is to make photos happen.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 21

Brooklyn Heights, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #UltraMax400

Photograph of a concrete planter along a side street in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. The planter is in sad shape. The front of the planter is covered in blue splotches, which covers up the graffiti underneath. I mean, seriously, if the graffiti is that bad, then just go ahead and paint the whole surface a uniform color. The splotches just end up making it worse. Surrounding the back of the planter are some railroad ties, which have reached the end of their useful lives, and have started to rot. A similar story can be told about the wooden fencing behind the planter. It, too, is starting to rot, no doubt being slowly eaten away by the ivy that covers it.

Out of the planter, however, grows a single deep pink tulip, at peak bloom, adding a slight hint of hope and renewal amid this scene of decay.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 19

Vinegar Hill, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #UltraMax400

Photograph of the side of a building with retail space on the first floor. At one point, this building contained a florist shop, because you can see that the shop window has been covered over with plywood, which has the word FLORIST and a lovely picture of some flowers painted on it. To the right of the window is a wrought iron fence, which at one point had a vehicle or other heavy object strike it because it is all curved and gnarly. The fence has a gate with closed off with a chain and padlock, which seems kind of pointless to me, since it does not look very difficult to step over the fence, or even just knock the fence over and put it out of its misery. Above to the right a fire escape is mounted onto the building, and you can see its shadow projecting a lattice pattern on the wall below it.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 17

Vinegar Hill, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #UltraMax400

Photograph of a corrugated metal fence surrounding an industrial site in the Vinegar Hill enclave of Brooklyn. The fencing is painted gray, and has an imposing amount of razor wire strewn along the top. To the right, is a tall rolling fence to allow trucks into the yard, and there is a doorway cut out of the fence. The doorway has a decal of an American flag carefully stuck on it, and there is another American flag on a pole behind the fence.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 15

Brooklyn Heights, 2026 #BelieveInFilm #ProImage100

Photograph of the front of a bar in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. This bar was Floyd’s, which closed last year after about 25 years in business. This photo was taken during the lockdown, when the bar was closed for several months. It eventually reopened, but New York had a dumb law that only bars that served food could reopen, so you had to order a slice of reheated frozen pizza with your beer, which you consumed at the tables they set up on the sidewalk. The space has now been sitting empty for over a year, far longer than it was shut down during the lockdown.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 11

Boerum Hill, 2026 #BelieveInFilm #ProImage100

Photograph of the front façade and window of a residential building in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. The façade is made of bricks, painted yellow-orange, although the paint has chipped off in some places. The image is punctuated by cage imagery: Above the window is a fire escape, which is not visible in the frame, however, the grid-like shadow of the fire escape and its ladder is cast below it. At the bottom of the frame is a cast-iron fence, which casts its own fleuret-capped grid across the frame. And the window has a metal pantograph shutter behind it, which also has a grid pattern. As this photo was taken a couple of weeks into the lockdown, the allusions to cages makes the photo seem a little more profound, at least to me.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 9

Boerum Hill, 2026 #BelieveInFilm #ProImage100

The next photo in my aborted Metal Boxes Outside of Bodegas series. This is a photo of a metal box outside of a bodega in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. The box has a slanted cover, and is covered in red and green spraypaint. The sun hits the box at an advantageous angle, with just the right amount of light and shadow. One problem I’ve been having with this series is that most of the time when I come across one of these boxes, the light is terrible. The other problem is that the boxes are disappearing. This box was removed in 2022.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 7

Brooklyn Heights, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #ProImage100

Photograph of a metal box outside of a bodega in Brooklyn Heights. I have a frustrating relationship with metal boxes outside of bodegas. I took this photo, which is *awesome*, and then another *awesome* photo of a metal box outside of a bodega on the same roll of film, which will be the next photo I post in a couple of days. And then on the very next roll of film, I took yet another *awesome* picture of a metal box outside of a bodega, which I will also post soon, and I said to myself, oh hey, I guess I’m working on a series of photos of metal boxes outside of bodegas now. And then, *nothing*. Over the next few years, I took lots of photos of metal boxes outside of bodegas, and they all *sucked*. Eventually, I got one more photo of a metal box outside of a bodega that was OK, but the rest were *garbage*. It didn’t help that the metal boxes outside of bodegas are all disappearing. This box is gone, as the next box in the series is. I’m not entirely sure what the boxes are for; I surmise they were for the overnight deliver of newspapers, so the bodega could get the early edition of the paper without them getting stolen, and that the reasons the boxes are disappearing is that nobody reads newspapers anymore.

The lesson here is that the more I *think* about the photo I’m taking, the worse it is. I just have to shut off my brain and shoot photos. So sadly, I’m never going to finish my metal boxes outside of bodegas series.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 4

Brooklyn Heights, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #UltraMax400

Closely-cropped photograph of the front façade of a home in the neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights. The façade is made of light-blue stucco, and the front window sill is made of red bricks. The window itself is mostly framed out of the photo, but you can see a little of its venetian blinds. Underneath the window, is a concrete planter. Growing in the planter are some green shoots, one of which has bloomed into a single yellow tulip, perfectly framed by the blue background. This photo was taken in the early spring of 2020, just a couple weeks into the lockdown. The warm yellow bloom, surrounded by cold stony surfaces recalls the mountainous regions that the tulip species is native to.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 2

Red Hook, 2026 #BelieveInFilm #Ultramax400

Photograph of a storefront closed off by two rolling gates, with a bench seat from a vintage automobile placed in front, in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. Surrounding the seat are some planters, which are either filled with dead plants, or are entirely empty. As this photo was taken in late March a few days after the start of the lockdown, the dead plants are to be expected. The bench has acquired a graffiti tag, as would be expected, and has a rip in it, revealing a bit of the yellow foam rubber underneath. This photograph is a good illustration of the bleak, empty sense of loneliness that exemplifies the early days of the lockdown.

This photograph has a slight but noticeable magenta cast in the shadows. I did quite a poor job of color-grading this film scan. I’m sorry. I promise I will pay closer attention to my green levels in the future.

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 1

Tom Scola@heyscola· Jun 1

Tom Scola@heyscola· May 31

Red Hook, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #UltraMax400

Photograph of a small, red, two-story building surrounded by brownfields in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. The building is clad in orange-red vinyl siding which stands out in front of a deep blue sky with wispy cirrus clouds. Next to it is a hunter green temporary construction fence, covered in graffiti. That empty lot is now occupied by luxury condos, that just recently applied for an occupancy permit. Sadly, the *awesome* red siding has been replaced with boring white siding, another victim of the conspiracy to erase color from our lives.

Tom Scola@heyscola· May 28

Red Hook, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #UltraMax400

Photograph of some fencing behind a sidewalk in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. Sticking up behind the fence are some school busses, which are a little bit taller than the fence is. In the foreground on the sidewalk is a fire hydrant, which is surrounded by bollards, presumably to protect the hydrant when busses drive in and out of the lot. The fencing has a copious amount of both barbed and razor wire at its precipice, indicating that the owners are *serious* about deterring trespassers. A section of the fence has some graffiti, which has been painted over, with some more graffiti on top of that, in black and red and purple, along with a few wheatpaste posters for good measure.

Tom Scola@heyscola· May 26

Brooklyn Bridge Park, 2020 #BelieveInFilm #UltraMax400

Photograph of a construction office trailer at a pier along Brooklyn Bridge Park. The photo depicts an active construction site along the waterfront with ropes, and pipes, and other construction materials, with a notable number of acetylene tanks, indicating that the construction work involves a great deal of welding. In the water next to the pier are a couple of dinghies, with a ladder leading from the pier down into the water next to the boats. There is a single bright orange lifering mounted on the trailer, providing a bit of punchy color to what otherwise be a drab photograph.

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