amy winehouse | Barcelona Street Scraps

I had to dig back in the archives as far as May to get a few of these shots–a difficult task as my dropbox photo cloud approaches 6,00 photos. It was worth the effort though, as I was able to find th photo I was looking for, as well as a few extras that hadn’t made it to the blog. All of this post’s images are of famous people, some of them real celebrities, while two others are famous characters from the small screen. The two fictional faces come from two of the most popular series on TV, The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. They come to us from artist Axe Colours, who was previously featured for his portrait of Walter White from another popular TV show, Breaking Bad. In the third image you can see the artist at work. The other three are pop culture icons in real life, Annie Lennox, Anthony Perkins, and Amy Winehouse–with who I think might be Rihanna in the lower right corner. Another image shows a curious mashup of Mickey Mouse and a scowling Madonna.

As a teacher here in Barcelona, I generally get holidays around the same time as schools and universities. One of the more important ones is the Holy Week break, which is basically spring break, culminating in Easter. This year I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and book a short trip to my old stomping ground, New York City. I had a few bureaucratic issues to take care of, but I was also quite interested in rediscovering and reconnecting with the place I had called home for so long. My departure from NYC predates my interest in street art, so exploring the streets of Gotham became one of my main objectives. I was able to snap nearly 800 shots, way too much to put into a single post.

Instead, I’ll be spreading it out over a series of posts.

This first one will be rather small, and just a small teaser.

These first shots of the late Amy Winehouse and the great Jerry Seinfeld were both found on the same East Village alleyway, while the larger than life mural in memory of David Bowie was found on Kenmare Street, on the Lower East Side.These photos are quite special to me as they highlight one of the peculiarities of living in New York: the possibility of seeing some of the most famous faces in the world going about their daily business. Any true New Yorker, outwardly, wouldn’t bat an eye at sharing an aisle at Whole Foods with Madonna, but of course we all notice, and tell our friends about it later. I suspect with the advent of mobile technology some will even dare a discreet photo.

The other three photos are also quite significant as they are two political figures which have managed to inspire more passion and engaged more people politically than I can remember. The figures are Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Both very different ideologically, but equally passion-inspiring to their followers (and detractors). Which one do I prefer? Shouldn’t be too difficult to guess…

PS: check the captions for locations

Artist credits:

Amy Winehouse and Jerry Seinfeld by SacSix

Trump the turd by hansky

David Bowie the graffiti room