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Photographer Finds His Groove Capturing Legendary Musicians
Photographer Finds His Groove Capturing Legendary Musicians

For years, Bernard James kept his film photographs of legendary musicians, from B.B. King to Aretha Franklin to Miles Davis, in photo albums few ever saw. The North Carolina resident eventually framed these images that he shot at music festivals during the 1980s and ’90s, and some were showcased in group exhibits at libraries on his native Long Island. Now he’s taking more steps to share them with the world. 

Artist Theodora Zavala Captures the Essentials
Artist Theodora Zavala Captures the Essentials

Theodora Zavala paints in multiple genres and diverse subjects, and therein lies a lead to what fundamentally drives her as an artist.

Parisi Rides Nostalgia to Bulk Vending Success
Parisi Rides Nostalgia to Bulk Vending Success

Frank Parisi’s office showcases machines that speak to his life in the bulk vending industry of gumballs, toy charms and plush toys.

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Village Cheese Merchant Pivots Its Way To 5th Anniversary
Village Cheese Merchant Pivots Its Way To 5th Anniversary

As Chris O'Mara celebrates the fifth anniversary of her gourmet shop Village Cheese Merchant, she is preparing more new additions to keep growing the small business.

Lindbergh Flight Liftoff Recognition Starts To Soar
Lindbergh Flight Liftoff Recognition Starts To Soar

On an unmarked, pothole-riddled road that abuts parking lots and the back of commercial buildings lies a monument that is equally unassuming, given the significance of the event it memorializes. The approximately 5.5 x 8.5-foot concrete relief sculpture marks where Charles Lindbergh and his plane, christened the Spirit of St. Louis, first went airborne en route to Paris, the first nonstop transAtlantic flight in 1927.

RVC Works Weathers Pandemic Woes To Foster Connection
RVC Works Weathers Pandemic Woes To Foster Connection

After riding a proverbial roller coaster the past two years due to fears surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, RVC Works now has a wide range of members working from the co-working space.

Q&A: Hofstra's Mitch Tobol Urges Businesses To 'Buckle Up'
Q&A: Hofstra's Mitch Tobol Urges Businesses To 'Buckle Up'

Patch recently caught up with Mitch Tobol—an owner of the Amityville-based CGT Marketing and a program instructor at Hofstra University’s Entrepreneurship Assistance Center—to get a pulse on all things marketing, from the rise of influencers to Generations Z-ers as the next largest demographic to consumers' greater expectations since the pandemic.

Jazz Band Makes Sounds Of Love At East Meadow Library
Jazz Band Makes Sounds Of Love At East Meadow Library

The town's public library was rich with the sounds of love songs on Valentine's Day. The Paul Joseph Trio returned to the newly renovated library Monday to perform a program of tunes by Richard Rodgers, emphasizing the American composer's romantic-themed numbers.

​ Samanea New York To Debut Multiple New Tenants In 2022
​ Samanea New York To Debut Multiple New Tenants In 2022

Samanea New York is gearing up for a busy 2022, with multiple new tenants poised to open for business during the first half of the year and beyond.

Industrial Winery in Oceanside Brings Variety to Long Island
Industrial Winery in Oceanside Brings Variety to Long Island

Located on the edge of Oceanside's industrial zone, Insieme Wines was abuzz Sunday afternoon with patrons sipping reds and whites while seated at high-top tables lined alongside oak barrels stacked on racks.

Series on Roosevelt Field and Simon Property Group
Series on Roosevelt Field and Simon Property Group

My four-part series on the strategies that Roosevelt Field, one of the top-tier malls in the nation on Long Island, and its owner Simon Property Group, the largest owner of U.S. malls, have adopted to compete in general and in the age of Amazon in particular.

Martial Arts Gym Owner Fights Through Pandemic Woes
Martial Arts Gym Owner Fights Through Pandemic Woes

After absorbing a financial gut punch from the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdowns at his martial arts gym in Lynbrook, Christian Defiris dusted himself off and personally built a new facility in Oceanside.

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V&A’s Revamped Raphael Court and Cartoons are One
Art, Photography
V&A’s Revamped Raphael Court and Cartoons are One
Art, Photography

On entering the Raphael Court, I immediately understood that I was stepping into a special venue at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London.

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Art, Photography
Father Lends Son Helping Hand on Reedy River
Father Lends Son Helping Hand on Reedy River

A father and son ventured onto rocks where the Reedy River runs through Falls Park in Greenville, South Carolina, and I caught a short sequence of their travels on camera. 

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My First Photo Printed in a Book
Art, Photography
My First Photo Printed in a Book
Art, Photography



The Frankfurt-based Info3 Verlag recently published“Michael Bockemühl, Kunst Sehen, Michelangelo,” which features my first photo printed in a book, an image of a hand of Michelangelo’s David.

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Art, Photography
History Lives at Castle of Tomar and Convent of Christ
History Lives at Castle of Tomar and Convent of Christ

The Castle of Tomar and Convent of Christ shine atop a summit in central Portugal as one of the nation’s most historically significant sites.

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Salisbury 4 Ring in Holidays with Centuries-Old Songs
Salisbury 4 Ring in Holidays with Centuries-Old Songs

The Salisbury 4 quartet summoned sounds from the medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, bringing seasonal spirit to East Meadow Library on Sunday.

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Four Seasons Exhibit Inspires Another ‘Love Triangle’
Four Seasons Exhibit Inspires Another ‘Love Triangle’

Watercolorist Frederick Brosen’s painting process involves a bicycle. He typically starts cycling at dawn in his native New York, searching for picture-worthy deserted streets. After finding one, he sketches the scene, takes photographs, and later revises his original draft.

Six Steps to More Fulfilling Experiences with Visual Arts 
Six Steps to More Fulfilling Experiences with Visual Arts 

Cultivating greater enjoyment of the visual arts can profoundly change your life.

Art in general–from painting, sculpture and drawing to literature, music and movies–packs that degree of life-enhancing power. But while some people at museums can experience speechless awe when encountering a beautiful painting or sculpture, others can muster only enough enthusiasm to say: “There were some pretty pictures and nice statues.” 

Connecting Spiritually with Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Young Man
Connecting Spiritually with Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Young Man

This is a portrait by Rembrandt of a young man whose name and background are unknown.  Who is he? How might we tell by studying the portrait’s details and how Rembrandt presented them?

‘Capturing the World at Shutter Speed’
‘Capturing the World at Shutter Speed’

An icy-calm Merced River lined by evergreens leads the eye to the snow-covered Half Dome in Ansel Adams’ 1938 black-and-white of Yosemite’s picturesque granite formation.

My Year in Review 2022
My Year in Review 2022

Welcome to my second published year-end review since my inaugural summary in 2014.

What I'm Grateful for on Thanksgiving
What I'm Grateful for on Thanksgiving

While each Thanksgiving, I typically reflect on what I’m most grateful for during that particular year, there exists an ever-present undercurrent of gratitude that runs broader and deeper.

Featured
Autumn Journey in Central Park
Autumn Journey in Central Park

A walk through the 843-acre green in the heart of New York City during fall 2017.

Featured
Celebrating the Lives and Values of 9/11 Casualties
History, New York City, Opinion
Celebrating the Lives and Values of 9/11 Casualties
History, New York City, Opinion

When Islamic terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center (WTC) on September 11, 2001, I was a reporter on Long Island. It struck me, while writing dozens of obituaries and other stories of the people killed there, that their tales captured the root of the conflict between America and Islam, between the life-oriented and the avowedly antilife.

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History, New York City, Opinion
Barbara Corcoran’s Excellent Advice for Women in Business
Capitalism, Opinion
Barbara Corcoran’s Excellent Advice for Women in Business
Capitalism, Opinion

Barbara Corcoran of Shark Tank fame recently offered particularly sound advice to a female fan concerned about entering the male-dominated business world.

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Capitalism, Opinion
Thinking Critically about Climate Change
Environmentalism
Thinking Critically about Climate Change
Environmentalism

On a snowy day in the late 1970s, I walked home from middle school with my friend who relayed some alarming news: A new ice age was coming.

Scientists had concluded that our polluting automobiles, smokestacks, and industrial activity were damaging the planet.2 Somehow we were frosting Mother Earth, threatening her and the lives of her inhabitants. Who was I, a teenage student, to doubt these experts?

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Environmentalism
Washington Crossing the Delaware: A Beacon of the American Spirit
Art, New York City
Washington Crossing the Delaware: A Beacon of the American Spirit
Art, New York City

Unveiled in America at the Stuyvesant Institute in Manhattan in 1851, Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware attracted a level of interest and praise as noteworthy as the painting’s twelve foot by twenty-four foot dimensions.

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Art, New York City
St. Paul’s Cathedral is the fifth house of worship that was built atop Ludgate Hill in London since 604 AD, the year the congregation was founded.

The current church was constructed after the previous one was destroyed in  the Great Fire
I’m happy to announce that the newly rebuilt Oceanside Library will host my photography exhibit “Through My Lens: Skyscrapers to Surfers to Sunrises” in February. This will be my third library exhibit, and it is especially gratifyi
I was a reporter when I snapped this photo of a pigeon prancing across a train platform. Probably I was looking to capture stock images of the train station to feature in future railroad-related stories. 

Did the pigeon casually walk into my camera
“Leading lines” is a photography term that describes using lines in a scene to guide the viewer’s eye to an image’s main subject or area. Once I stepped into the courtyard at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
I love autumn leaves of various colors and textures that cluster in ponds and lakes that I pass during my walks in parks. #autumnleaves #autumnleaves🍂 #autumnleaves🍁 #autumnleaves🍁🍂 #fallleaves #fallleaves🍁🍂 #fallleaves🍁 #autumncolors🍁🍂🍃
Before snapping this photo, I stood before the Time Warner Center Towers at Columbus Circle, thinking: How can I fit more of the buildings’ lower floors into my camera frame? And so I stepped down to the bottom stairs at the circle’s sub
The sky was clear and blue as I snapped routine photos of surfers catching swells at sunrise in Long Beach, Long Island. Then, I thought to look behind me, turning eastward, and this explosive sky confronted me and cast a silhouette on girls gathered
Photographer Richard Berenholtz’s book “New York New York” energized me to open my eyes wider to the many visual wonders of my home city and the various perspectives from which I could capture them with my cameras. Among the book&
A small, curious crowd formed around a man sketching “The Vine,” a bronze sculpture by Harriet Whitney Frishmuth at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I knew this scene on the sun-drenched and shadow-crossed courtyard in the American Wing wo