When Erik Williams grabs his camera and journeys through the streets of his hometown of Hartford, he never knows who or what he will encounter. “Street photography is an uncontrolled environment,” says Williams, who also goes by the professional name Eaze. “You have to deal with a lot. The studio is a well-lit space and very controlled. But on the street, out in the elements, the weather can change, anything can happen. It is more of a risk.”

In Williams’ case, the risk has paid off with an artistic reward. On November 16th, Hartford’s Real Art Ways opened Erik Williams: A Sad and Beautiful World, the 33-year-old photographer’s first solo exhibition at the prestigious gallery. For Williams, the show is a special vindication of his career: he traded in the life of a construction worker six years ago to pursue a full-time visual arts career that has spanned fashion, event, and merchandise photography in addition to his fine art output.

The new exhibition offers a stunning display of Williams’ view of the grittier side of Connecticut’s capital city captured through an often-harsh, black-and-white spectrum. “I feel that a good image can get overlooked with too much color or saturation,” he explained on his preference for monochromatic photography. “When you strip away the color, the image comes through.”

Many of the Hartford people featured in Williams’ work clearly face life as a daily struggle, and they view their surroundings in various levels of ruefulness, numbness, bravado, and hope. Some sit in isolation, glued to their iPhones and seemingly unaware of the world around them. Others look beyond Williams’ lens, as if scanning the horizon for a better day. And some give the camera their complete and undivided attention, flashing smiles and finger signals in mute proclamation that they can withstand whatever life hurls at them.

“Ninety percent of my work is taken on the fly,” Williams says. “I just walk up to complete strangers and start a conversation. I see the power and humanity in real life, and I am always out with my camera.”

Williams is proud to see Hartford’s full spectrum of personalities and streetscapes on display. “I had to document it,” he says. “It might not be ideal for most, but it is home to me. I wanted to document the city and show a side of life that does not get exposure.”

After the RAW exhibit runs its course in January 2018, the photographer is considering travel to widen his artistic scope. He also is mulling a turn as a teacher to inspire the next generation of photographers. Citing his own career shift from blue-collar to fine art, he wants to encourage people to go after their creative goals while time is still their ally. “There is no reset button, no second chance in life.” 

Erik Williams–photographer
Hartford, Connecticut
Website
Instagram

All photos by Erik Williams.

The post Taking Aim at Hartford appeared first on Take Magazine.

Over the past two years, Jonathan Siksay has emerged as one of the most eclectic personalities in Connecticut’s indie music scene. Working as both an acoustic performer and backed by his four-member Siksay band, the 29-year-old singer/songwriter has been a ubiquitous presence in the Nutmeg State’s most prominent venues, including Hartford’s Webster Theater, New Haven’s Café Nine and Toad’s Place, and Stratford’s Main Street Tavern. He has a monthly gig at Tautog Tavern in Bridgeport’s Black Rock district, and his debut album What I Did Last Night is being readied for a September release.

Yet trying to categorize Siksay’s music can be something of a challenge. “I have been put in the country/rock and pop genres,” he says. “I’ve also been told that I have an alternative ’90s sound, with the raspy voice. But I have the rock influence, and I have a little bit of a hip-hop style and feeling.”

One of the most startling aspects of Siksay’s music is the intelligence and sincerity of his lyrics. His songs capture the full gamut of the human experience, ranging from physical and emotional isolation in “Lonely Road” to the cathartic serenity of a beachfront rendezvous in “Tennessee Whiskey” to the perplexity of failed self-analysis in “Howling at the Moon”—the latter punctuated with startling lycanthropic wails of despair.

Siksay traces his passion for music back to his youth. “When I was in first grade, my friends and I would put together song lyrics and sing them,” he recalls. “I started getting serious around high school, playing in an emo band and a metal band, and then I played guitar in a duo.”

While Siksay put performing aside in his late teens, he continued to create a canon of songs. In November 2015, he snagged a gig as the “house band” on the Connecticut-based PPRN Radio, an online show highlighting the state’s music scene. He made a very positive impression with audiences and the show’s guests, and soon Siksay began to receive offers to open for other bands. He recorded a single with New York-based rapper Five X called “Flying Again” and later had his music playing on the University of Connecticut’s radio station and the Connecticut-based online Cygnus Radio; video postings to his Instagram account generated feedback from, in his words, “some Grammy Award-winning producers.”

To his surprise, Siksay found several British online radio stations began playing his songs, which led to positive feedback from new fans around the world. “It’s definitely rewarding,” he says of his overseas airplay. “I have a few friends in London that listen to my music all the time.”

Jonathan Siksay, What I Did Last Night

Siksay cut back on his stage shows to get What I Did Last Night completed for an end-of-summer release. “For the past two years, I’ve played out almost every weekend,” he says. “I want to get the album out and then hit the shows even harder.”

Want to hear what Siksay is listening to when he’s not playing? Check out his Take a Listen Spotify channel. While there, look for what’s on the playlists of the other musicians we’ve profiled. Enjoy!

Jonathan Siksay–musician
Seymour, Connecticut
Website
Instagram
Twitter
Facebook

Top image by Phil Hall

The post What Jonathan Siksay Did on his New Album appeared first on Take Magazine.

From the outside, the headquarters of Vinegar Syndrome in the North End of Bridgeport, Connecticut, could easily be passed by without second thought—it would seem like just another nondescript industrial building. Inside, however, is an astonishing environment where film preservation and restoration takes place.

But not just any films. Beginning with its first release in 2012 of The Lost Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis, the company has restored and re-released cult films and long-lost gems of the grindhouse and drive-in eras from the 1960s through the 1980s. The company’s mix of horror and exploitation titles—Count Dracula’s Greatest Love, Psychic Killer, In Search of Bigfoot—may be a far cry from the more genteel classics that one associates with film restoration, but without Vinegar Syndrome these gritty and outlandish productions might disappear forever.

Vinegar Syndrome film restoration, Bridgeport Connecticut

“The exploitation genre in general is the second most amount of lost films, aside from the silent era,” says Brandon Upson, restoration artist at Vinegar Syndrome. And, indeed, the company’s name is a reminder of the fragility of film as a medium: “vinegar syndrome” refers to the rancid odor that occurs in the degradation of acetate film base.

“We’ve digitally preserved about 500 films in the past five years,” says Ryan Emerson, the company’s co-founder and director of production. “In our film archives, we have thousands of elements. And we own the rights to 300 to 400 feature films.”

Tracking down these films is no mean feat: in many cases, the original production companies and distributors went out of business decades ago, and the filmmakers may not even have prints of their works. Ralph Stevens, the company’s business development director, says that Vinegar Syndrome often scoops up films that would otherwise be thrown in the garbage dumpster.

“Labs that close down and clear out their inventory,” Stevens says. “We’ve found films in storage spaces where people are trying to get rid of stuff. We’ve also dealt with companies that foreclosed on storage spaces that have films, as well as private collectors. And films turn up in old movie theater basements, auctions, and on eBay.”

Psychos in Love film poster, courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome

The length of time it takes to digitally restore a surviving 35mm or 16mm film print or negative depends on the element, Upson says. “If we have the camera negative, we still want to take a good amount of time on it. A digital cleanup could take 40 to 80 hours of sit-down work if the negative is perfectly clean,” he says. “We’re looking for scratches and dirt that accrues on film. We have alcohol cleaners and sonic cleaners, and now, with digital tools at our disposable, that really helps in getting the dirt off.”

Vinegar Syndrome’s 50,000-square-foot facility serves multiple purposes for restoration, storage, and shipment. The internal temperature in the storage section is noticeably cooler than the rest of the building, as heat and humidity can have lethal effects on delicate film elements, and the facility is designed to aid in this process: in prior years, it served as a fur storage vault and a vegetable distribution center.

The company puts its restored works into retail channels via DVD and Blu-ray. Upcoming releases include Melvin van Peebles’ groundbreaking 1971 blaxploitation landmark Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, the 1986 sex comedy, My Chauffeur, and the Connecticut-lensed 1987 underground horror/comedy cult favorite Psychos in Love. In June, the company opened a retail unit that sells its DVDs and Blu-rays along with movie memorabilia and vintage vinyl albums. Emerson says the store, which is open on weekends, helps to connect the company with its neighborhood and with local like-minded film buffs.“In our first weekend,” he says, “we brought people here from all over Connecticut who have not been in Bridgeport in decades.”

Ryan Emerson-co-founder, Vinegar Syndrome
Bridgeport, Connecticut
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Twitter
Instagram

Top image, still from Psychos in Love, courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome

The post Saving Cult Classics in Connecticut appeared first on Take Magazine.