TeeJay

“The date is fuzzy, but as near as we can figure it was 1991,” TeeJay says of the year she got her start as a tattoo artist.

Fuzzy, maybe. But one thing's clear. A respect for individual dignity—and disinterest in trends and critics—have served her well these past two decades.

Here, TeeJay works on her client, Alexander Fess. Every tattoo artist works at a different pace. But for TeeJay, most clients require multiple sessions. A sleeve—a tattoo that covers a forearm—can take between 20 and 60 hours of work. “A back piece is going to be a minimum of 40,” she says. Photo courtesy of Zappia Photography.A Rochester native who lives in Irondequoit, TeeJay entered the profession at Sailor Fred's Golden Needle on Lyell Avenue in Rochester. Today, she owns White Tiger Tattoo, with area locations in Greece and Webster. She shares those spaces with a handful of fellow artists, and relishes watching them grow into a craft she loves.

TeeJay has also made a name for herself across the country—with all kinds of folks. Each of them, a willing canvas.

“I have one client who regularly travels from New Jersey, and another who comes up at least once a year from Texas,” TeeJay says.

“Pretty much the only thing my customers have in common is they're all over 18 and want to have tattoos. Beyond that, they vary widely.”

The tattoos they want vary, too. A delicate origami design that seems to cast a shadow on the skin. Intricate patterns of motorcycle gears and chains. Birds. Banners. Portraits. Pocket watches.

Photo courtesy of Zappia Photography.And—in a category by itself—reconstruction. The kind that follows breast cancer procedures.

“My medical tattoo clients are even more varied—other than all being women. Many of them never wanted a tattoo nor expected to find themselves with one,” TeeJay says.

Her masterful hand gently recreates the colors and contours of a nipple lost to surgery. For many clients, it marks the close of a traumatic chapter in their lives.

TeeJay“I help them feel whole again,” TeeJay says. “I'm the final 'procedure' on a very long road.”

It's a life-affirming experience for her clients—and her.

“There are hugs and tears sometimes. And nervousness. Some of them have a great sense of humor about what they've been through, and some are desperate to move on. They allow me to be in their physical space and be a part of their healing process,” she says. “Some have become friends.”

But TeeJay has a permanent impact on every client, breast cancer survivors or not.

“There are moments I've shared with clients that have meant the world to me. I've had people come back years later and tell me that their lives have changed for the better based on some conversation we had during their tattoo session.”

Living proof that the mark you leave is in direct proportion to the hearts you touch. 

See more: whitetigertattoo.com and TeeJay's blog 

Say hi: teejay@whitetigertattoo.com and on Facebook

* * *

P.S. — TeeJay received her own first tattoo when she was 18. It's a small dagger on her ankle with a rose wrapped around it. “It was done by Debbie Cooper of Underground Tattoo Studio,” she says. “I don't know where she is now.”

Joe Guy Allard

The world of robots and zombies is full of weird creatures who have a glimmer of humanity. Just ask C-3PO. Or Shaun of the Dead. Or Joe Guy Allard: creator of a tongue-in-cheek world somewhere between brushstrokes and comics.

Joe has shown and sold his acrylic-on-canvas work at art festivals, galleries, coffeehouses, bars, and tattoo parlors, mainly in Rochester and Buffalo, but hopes to expand his presence in years to come. A graphic designer from Ottawa, Canada, he now makes his home in Rochester's Highland Park neighborhood with his wife and two kids.A full-time graphic designer, Joe first put brush to canvas when he moved out on his own—“to keep my walls from being bare.”

In the beginning, it was simply a matter of money.

“Since paint and canvases were cheaper than the actual prints and frames, I could just copy what I wanted to hang around my tiny apartment,” Joe says.

“I started experimenting with styles and techniques I'd read about. By repainting and repainting over the same canvases, eventually I found my groove.”

His earliest audience? Friends.

“At some point I started forcing custom pieces on my friends whether they wanted them or not,” Joe says. “And they were gracious enough to hang them, giving me the confidence to be more serious about what I was doing.”

After he got married, Joe's wife encouraged him to start showing his art beyond their living room and their circle of friends.

“I got into the Corn Hill Festival that year, put up a shabby-looking mess of a tent, and sold one single painting. It was amazing.”

And life-changing, he says.

“It was the first time a perfect stranger walked right up to me and essentially said 'I want to give you my hard-earned money for the piece you painted out of nothing.'”

Joe remembers his first customers well. Newlyweds moving to Rochester from Atlanta.

Joe“Their story, their faces, the sound of their voices. It was so awesome and surreal, I had a piece of the painting tattooed on my arm to commemorate the moment.”

Joe's horizons have broadened since then.

“I paint what makes me happy, so I initially pictured my audience to be exactly like me,” he says.

His fans today are much more diverse than he expected. Sure, Joe's work has a following among students—and parents looking for art to give their teenage kids.

Right now, Joe's working on a new series, “Villains,” that stars an anti-hero. Here, the characters are displayed as cutouts in the storefront window of Pulp Nouveau Comix in Canandaigua, NY.“But there is also the 37-year-old lawyer who has bought two of my paintings so far,” he adds. “And the South Wedge couple who liked my pieces hanging at Tap & Mallet so much that I now create all of the gig posters for their comedy shows at Boulder Coffee. It's a weird mix and I love it.”

His recent success keeps him motivated to grow. So do success stories from others.

“I can't get enough of reading about one- or two-person businesses that make it. Not necessarily making it big, but that they can make a living by doing something that didn't exist before they came along. I love those stories,” Joe says.

He's not sure what his next project might look like. But it may be clothing-optional.

“Nudes maybe? I never did go to art school, and I feel I missed out on the whole figure drawing business,” Joe says.

“Wondering what my nudes might turn out to be makes me laugh—which usually means there's a good chance I'll paint it.”

In a world of robots and zombies, it's only natural.

 Joe creates gig posters for a comedy series at Rochester's Boulder Coffee. 

See more: www.joe-guy.com, on Tumblr and on Etsy 

Say hi: joe@joe-guy.com or Facebook or Twitter

Brandon Alexander

Brandon performs the Spanish sequence from the Nutcracker with partner Tara Lally. When he was just 12, he won a full scholarship to Houston Ballet Ben Stevenson Academy. Photo by Rochester City Ballet photographer Tim LeverettThe story of The Nutcracker may not include any ghosts of Christmas Past, but for Brandon, performing in this holiday classic surely conjures old spirits.

Rochester City Ballet, his artistic home since 2008, is the third company where Brandon has danced in The Nutcracker.

After graduating from the Houston Ballet Ben Stevenson Academy, Brandon joined the Houston Ballet II, where he first performed in The Nutcracker. His next performance came at the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago.

And you already know No. 3.

It's one of the most beloved ballets in history, but for Brandon—as for many dancers—The Nutcracker is one chapter in a bigger story made of many moments. Some dreamed, some earned.

“I've been very lucky to have many proud moments, most of which I don't fully realize until after they've happened,” he says.

Most recently? Dancing his first lead role in a full-length ballet.

Brandon was chosen to play Dracula in the world premiere of The Blood Countess. This darkly erotic original tale by Rochester City Ballet artistic director Jamey Leverett debuted in Rochester last spring. The story imagines a fateful encounter between a notorious 16th century Hungarian countess and Dracula—before he was bitten.

Brandon

“I had to be able to tell the story of this guy and what happened to him at that time in his life,” Brandon says. “I had no other example to look at because I was the first one.”

This professional milestone wasn't without some anxiety. Even Dracula gets butterflies.

“I was definitely freaked out and stressed during the entire process,” he says. “The moment right before you go onstage can be one of the worst—but best—feelings. But it felt amazing to be able to develop a character and carry a story. I try to let my character speak for me.”

Brandon performs the Arabian sequence from The Nutcracker with partner Kaitlin Fitzgerald. While all ballet dancers strive for strength, every artist has natural limits. For Brandon, studying the performance videos of dancers helps—particularly those who have a build like his. He points to Italian dancer Massimo Murru, an etoile with La Scala Di Milano. Photo by Rochester City Ballet photographer Tim LeverettA new role stretches the artist. But rigorous rehearsals aren't always enough to build the physical strength he needs for ambitious choreography.

“I'm not a naturally flexible person,” Brandon says. “I do a lot of stretching. Need to keep at that. I've also done Pilates and Gyrotonics. Both helped me find new muscles and ways to use certain parts of my body."

In recent weeks, Brandon's workouts have been in preparation for The Nutcracker 2012. For all the companies where he's performed in this ballet, the Rochester production stands out for its active inclusion of young performers.

“The children have more involvement than in the other productions I've done,” he says. “It gives them the chance to perform in a big theater and wear a costume onstage for the first time.”

That experience can spark their interest in ballet.

“It could be that one special thing that makes them see that ballet can be a career, so they want to pursue it and keep the art going,” Brandon says.

For Christmases yet to come.

* * *

Brandon is in the final days of rehearsal for The Nutcracker, which opens Friday, Nov. 25, at Eastman Theatre's Kodak Hall in Rochester. For details on showtimes and tickets, click here.

See more: www.rochestercityballet.com

Say hi: on Facebook

Emily Winters

Emily's living room was very small and dark (below). She opened it up by exposing the original hardwood floors, painting the fireplace a lighter color, and installing a windowed door to the adjoining sunroom. She dropped the curtains, added blinds, switched the chandelier and changed the room's entire color palette.When she purchased her first house in 2009, Emily had a real fixer-upper on her hands. And she couldn't have been happier.

She caught the do-it-yourself bug early. Growing up in a farmhouse south of Buffalo in Derby, NY, Emily watched her parents steadily tackle home improvement projects on their home.

“I was exposed to gutted living rooms, kitchen tile, hardware and appliances from an early age,” she says. “I learned to embrace the benefits of an upcycled, do-it-yourself lifestyle.”

Shortly after she moved into her Rochester home, Emily started a modest blog to share her home improvement projects.

“My little blog was an easy way to keep my family across the country apprised of my home improvement projects,” she says.

The house, in Rochester's Charlotte neighborhood, has seen some serious action in the short time she's lived there. With a helping hand from her boyfriend, Pete Fazio, Emily has renovated huge sections of the house, inside and out. From the light-filled, vibrant living room to the open, modern kitchen to the pergola-crowned decks in the back—and many of the fixtures and accents in between.

In the beginning, her blog was mostly photos of her projects. Then in 2010, with some inspiration and encouragement, Emily expanded, started writing more, and Merrypad.com was born.

“I really just dove in, committed to doing a post every day during the week to establish some kind of frequency, and didn’t look back,” she says.

As her home began to take shape, so did the digital chronicle of her projects. The only problem? She wasn't loving her full-time job.

For Emily, do-it-yourself also means decorate-it-yourself. She fell in love with lighting fixtures she spotted at Anthropologie, and designed lighting of her own inspired by the ingenious use of “upcycled” cardboard.

“I always wanted to love what I do,” she says. “I took a big leap this past spring, leaving my steady job in advertising and opening myself up to new opportunities.”

The most recent one came just this week, as Emily landed a contract position with the popular online DIY Network, as their first featured blogger. (See her video announcement below.)

“I’ll be posting on their blog weekly in addition to maintaining Merrypad,” Emily says. “I don’t really know where I’ll go from here, but I’m enjoying where I am.”

Emily

And where is she? Everywhere. Merrypad already has an international following, with most readers in the U.S. and Canada. It's found a broad appeal to budget-conscious apartment dwellers and homeowners. They like what they see—and they write back.

“I love getting personal emails from my readers,” Emily says. “It’s fun to learn more about the people you’ve inspired, see their projects, hear about their experiences, and just know that you’re reaching someone.”

By cutting layers of cardboard rings and stacking them into a shade, Emily produced a lamp that emanates “mad-eco-recycled love."You'd think Emily might run out of material sooner or later. Especially when her house has already been transformed into an eye-popping showplace.

Happily, her to-do-it-yourself list is plenty long.

“I’m hoping to tackle some bigger projects this winter,” she says, listing a bathroom renovation, door replacements, and a few pieces of furniture.

Still, for all the doorknobs, paint jobs and pergolas, Emily's biggest, boldest renovation project has been Emily.

“I’m diving into this business of reclaimed happiness.”

Put a barn-wood frame around that.

See more: Merrypad.com, and on Facebook and Twitter 

Say hi: emily@merrypad.com

Sarah Mattison Staebell

If you've ever watched the FOX TV series Glee, you already know how life-affirming it can be for kids to take the stage and sing their hearts out. Lucky for Sarah, she gets to help them do it—day and night.

Sarah serves as vocal director at Artists Unlimited, a Rochester theatre group that casts special needs performers in its shows, staged High School Musical in 2007. This November, the organization returns with a production of Annie.An Eastman School of Music grad who teaches voice at Brighton High School, Sarah is active in the Rochester theatre community.

Since 2006, one of her favorite groups is Artists Unlimited, a theatre company that provides a creative outlet for people who have special needs and a dream to perform.

“Our cast members have such passion for performing, and so many special talents,” Sarah says.

Talk about full circle: As a five-year-old piano student, Sarah alreay knew she wanted to be a music teacher. Today, her first piano instructor from all those years ago volunteers with Sarah at Artists Unlimited. “There's no better feeling in my field than helping people develop the tools to express themselves and then giving them an opportunity to perform and feel pride in their work.”

Sarah, of Rochester, first heard about the organization because her brother attends School of the Holy Childhood—a school for students with developmental disabilities that many of the cast members attend.

Drawn to a group that would give her brother a chance to perform, she's been the vocal director for Artists Unlimited ever since.

In her time with the group, Sarah has helped produce High School Musical, The Wizard of Oz, Cinderella, Willy Wonka, and this year's production, Annie, which opens at 8 p.m. Nov. 4 at Theatre on the Ridge. Rehearsals are underway, as captured in a recent photo essay that appeared in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Sarah expects a good crowd for this season's production, which marks the group's tenth anniversary. To date, the organization has sold 12,000 tickets to 60 performances.

“We sell hundreds of tickets to each show,” she says. “Because people come to see a quality performance.”

That success has attracted more potential performers than any single musical can include.

“We have more interested people than we can physically fit on our stage,” Sarah says.

So, to welcome as many budding performers as possible, Sarah and her colleagues launched Voices Unlimited in 2009. It gives more people a chance to participate.

A scene from Artists Unlimited's 2009 production of Cinderella. From choreographers to costume and set designers, Artists Unlimited has an army of behind-the-scenes volunteers who help produce each show, Sarah says.Voices Unlimited singers perform in concert each spring. Their playlist ranges from classic rock, to Motown to pop.

“We meet in the off-season so people who are in the shows can participate in both,” she says.

Some kids practically burst with talent, like the cast of Glee. Or the title character in one of Sarah's favorite musicals, Billy Elliot.

But there's something to be said for bringing out the brilliance of undiscovered stars. Sarah sees them all around her.

That's what really lights up her nights.

“It’s such a gift to be able to help people work toward a great performance,” she says.

A gift to the performers, too.

* * *

Artists Unlimited, Inc. presents Annie Nov. 4-6 and Nov. 10-12 at Kodak Theater on the Ridge, 200 West Ridge Rd., Rochester. Advance sale tickets are $11 and are available at select Wegmans That's T.H.E. Ticket locations. Check your local store. Tickets are $12 at the door. For details, call 585-219-5188 or email contact_us@rocartistsunlimited.com.

See more: rocartistsunlimited.com, and on Facebook
Say hi: staebell.sarah@gmail.com

Igor Lipinski

Igor first came to Rochester by way of Buffalo, where he had a role in a play about Polish composer Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Years earlier, at a piano competition in Kasna Dolna, Poland, named for that same composer, Igor won the Grand Prix for Young Pianists at 12. On another related note, Paderewski frequently visited Rochester decades ago—his final public performance took place here in 1939.

It was serendipity, he says, that brought him to Rochester.

“Or, if you wish, a chain of lucky events,” adds the pianist from Poland.

Eight years ago, at his high school in Tarnow, Igor heard that a theatrical director from the University at Buffalo was at a theatre across the street, looking for a pianist to play a role of a young musician in his upcoming play, Paderewski's Children. The play was about a Polish composer.

Igor introduced himself to the director, played the piano for him, and was cast in the role. He arrived in Buffalo in February 2004 to prepare for the play.

“A day before the dress rehearsal, a friend of mine took me to Rochester to visit Eastman School of Music,” Igor says.

While visiting Eastman, he met the chair of the school's piano department, who encouraged him to join the school's summer piano festival.

So, Igor came back to the U.S. for the entire summer. The following year, he auditioned and was accepted at Eastman as a piano performance major.

Serendipity.

Igor“The rest is the history,” Igor says. He received his Bachelor's Degree in 2009 and finished his Master's Degree this year.

His studies have helped him fine-tune another passion, too: Igor is an accomplished magician who's been entertaining audiences since his teen years.

“Ever since I was a little kid, I was fascinated by magic,” Igor says.

“I actually learned English in order to read books about magic since there wasn't enough literature written in Polish.”

For his Senior Project at Eastman, Igor even combined music and magic. And after a successful premiere in 2009, he took his one-man show on the road. During each performance, he invites audience members to the stage when he performs, incorporating sleight-of-hand card tricks into his concert.

“You may hear tango music or Liszt or Chopin mingled with illusions, everything to provide not only auditory, but also visually memorable experience for my audience,” Igor says.

He recently premiered the show in his native Poland, his first performance there in five years. He hopes to go back for more this fall.

Click to listen to "Letters," an album of original compositions by concert pianist Igor Lipinski.As if he didn't have enough to write home about in his time living in the U.S., Igor has also recorded an album of original work, titled Letters. Each is sweet, often sad, and all are filled with ineffable stories.

“(The album) literally features letters I have never sent,” Igor says.

“I wrote my first 'musical letter' when I was still in high school. The music is usually a reaction to a special event or an important person I have met in my life.”

Letters with a signature you can hear. Now that's magic.

See more: igorlipinski.com, and on amazon.com, iTunes and Spotify

Say hi: on Facebook or Twitter

* * *

P.S. — From the piano world, Igor loves Chopin, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, and Bach, among others, he says. But with each artist, his interests tend to zero in on a particular work.

“My interest usually isn't focused on a specific composer, but one specific piece," Igor says. "Try listening to an hour long work by Henryk Gorecki: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. It will change your life.”

Hannah Betts

Hannah's fondness for vintage glamour sparkles from this photo shoot with first-time model Jenna Rusnak. “I love capturing my subjects young or old, and setting them in a time or place that doesn't exist in the present,” she says.Flea market treasures. Preschool punk rock. Femmes fatales. Digital savvy and faded film. Welcome to the collision of worlds that is Hannah and her camera.

This Rochester photographer got her start her senior year in high school when she received her first equipment from her dad. A short time later, she was studying commercial photography at FIT and capturing images on the streets of New York.

“I learned a lot living and studying in New York City,” Hannah says. “But mostly I learned that I wanted to photograph people in a more honest light.”

Which could explain why she briefly considered photojournalism. And why she has a remarkable eye for the human spirit in her fine art photography.

Hannah's stories have a clear modernity to them, but her fondness for romance and nostalgia shines through.

Among her inspirations? Vintage toys. Polaroids. Classic movies.

“I have a fascination with all things old,” she says. “Especially the simplicity of the times before me. I think in a lot of ways my work is an attempt to recreate a lot of those simpler times of the mid-20th century.”

Hannah, who is also an art director at a Rochester photography studio, often collaborates with her husband, St. Monci (né Michael Moncibaiz). 

HannahThis past spring, they joined forces for a show titled “Stories by Streetlight” that combined Hannah's offbeat photography of kids in archetypal outfits and St. Monci's drawings. The show appeared at A Different Path Gallery in Brockport last May.

The pair have another show planned for September.

"Violet," from the series "Stories by Streetlight."Her command of digital photography is as current as any pro, but Hannah still turns to film for an artistic spark.

“I love film,” she says. “I've adapted a bunch of old film cameras and use them daily to capture my ideas. I love the anticipation of not knowing what you've captured until you've developed it in your kitchen.”

A sense of wonder is a beautiful thing.

See more: www.hannahbetts.com

Say hi: hannahbetts@gmail.com

BELOW: “Fly Away Mae” from the series “Stories by Streetlight.”

BELOW: To mark the recent engagment of her friends Kaitlin Gray and Bryce Doty, Hannah captured the couple with the added charm of vintage View-Masters. Hannah says she doesn't typically shoot weddings because they don't offer her enough room for creativity. But Kaitlin and Bryce are a different story. “It's rare that I find couples who say I can do whatever I want and they completely trust me. So when I do, I jump at the chance,” she says.

LEFT: Hannah's interpretation of the Bride of Frankenstein, a piece featured for a Halloween show at the 1975 Gallery at Rochester's Surface Salon in October 2011.

Pepsy M. Kettavong

Pepsy stands beside the centerpiece of his installation, "Lynching in America." Photo by James Bogue 

His work has captured some of America's finest figures and darkest days—from grand bronze statues to grim, abstract art installations. But in every piece, the common thread is this Rochester sculptor's passion for social justice.

It's fitting that some of Pepsy's best-known works—monuments to local historic figures such as Nathaniel Rochester, Frederick Douglass, and Susan B. Anthony—are on permanent exhibit in local parks.

Why? He admires the philosophy of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead, the designer behind Rochester's Highland Park, Manhattan's Central Park, and many others.

Pepsy“Olmstead said, 'you know what, I'm going to create a park where the richest person and the poorest person can walk the same path,'” Pepsy says.

In that spirit, Pepsy's studio sits on Anthony Square Park. His workspace is a stone's throw from his public sculpture of Douglass and Anthony sitting down to tea, as well as the Susan B. Anthony House itself.

The neighborhood is also home to the recently opened Frederick Douglass Resource Center, where Pepsy's most recent work, “Lynching in America,” was shown last winter, the first in a series of three shows Pepsy envisions. The next two will focus on starving children and human trafficking, respectively.

“My goal is to bring out some dark issues and have an impact,” he says.

For the first installation, Pepsy lined a cavernous gallery with actual photos of early-twentieth century lynchings that show people of all ages celebrating as corpses swing from trees. In a startling twist, he interspersed the photos with the accessories of a Sunday picnic—checkered cloths, apple pie, dishes. A thought-provoking commentary on the bliss of ignorance.

To build the giant noose for "Lynching in America," Pepsy and his team painstakingly applied thousands of strands of twine to the sculpture, effectively simulating oversized rope. Photo by James BogueBut the centerpiece of the show was a breathtaking, 20-foot noose suspended from the rafters that took weeks to construct and position.

His heart for the plight of the oppressed undoubtedly springs from his own childhood. Born in Laos, Pepsy and his family fled the country in 1980, living in a Thai refugee camp for two years before immigrating to the U.S. in the winter of 1982. He graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology in 1995.

But it was Pepsy's move to a diverse city neighborhood that awakened his desire to make art that reflects many perspectives and moves people to action, he says.

Pepsy believes so strongly in making his art accessible to people that he first looks to his audience to inform his work. He often invites people from the community to explore the meaning and the potential impact of a planned project.

People help shape the installation, and also become a living element to it: Pepsy captures the conversations and presents them in a short film to provide context for folks who come to the exhibit.

“I want to be a student and learn from my audience.”

See more: An interview with Pepsy on WXXI

Say hi: pepsymk2@yahoo.com



Luke Copping

“Hollywood Geisha,” an editorial assignment featuring model Kerry Quaile. Luke's photography has an offbeat intensity and rich texture that makes fabric and skin sumptuous. In creative professions, there's long been a tension between commercial success and artistic freedom. And the field of photography is one of the clearest examples.

When is a photo a work of art? When is it an assignment? And are the two mutually exclusive?

Not for Luke.

“I'm a firm believer that a contemporary photographer needs to straddle the line between commercial aesthetics and making their own statement,” he says.

“I make no distinction between my professional and artistic works, as each style is greatly informed by the other.”

Part of that has to do with the necessity for photographers to be businesspeople as well, as Luke sees it.

“Photographers can no longer be merely technicians,” he says. “They have to be both an artist and a business person.”

LukeCanadian born, Luke is a 2003 graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology who currently lives in Buffalo. He specializes in portraiture and style photography and was recently nominated for Best Photographer for the Artvoice Best of Buffalo 2011 award.

From Luke's “Pigment” series. Model: Aaron Ingrao. Luke's work often brings out a deep luminescence in his subjects' eyes. “Eyes are an important detail in the communication of emotion and expression regardless of how they are or aren't rendered.”He's also president of the Western New York Chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers, or ASMP.

Of his camera work, Luke says he captures people “without looking away.”

“It comes down to seeing beyond my own preconceived notions of what an image should be. There's a certain expectation of images being overly flattering, which I think is not necessarily a requirement these days.”

He believes the most interesting images of people capture their uniqueness—including their flaws.

“That may seem weird coming from someone who is mainly known for style and beauty photography,” Luke says, “But if you look at my Pigment series, I think that stands as a good illustration of my point.”

Luke also finds inspiration in foreign and classic film, which shines through in the dramatic lighting and expressiveness of his work.

“Entangle,” an editorial assignment featuring model Katherine Johnson. “Everyone has their own story and their own interesting details that might be eye-catching or interesting,” Luke says of his photography subjects.Some of the movies he's found most striking are Kurosawa's Ran, Polanski's Chinatown, Fritz Lang's M, G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box, John Huston's The Maltese Falcon, and Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain.

The common thread? They're storytellers, just like Luke.

“It all comes down to the story I want to tell, I suppose,” he says. “Yet at the same time, I enjoy telling different stories."

“I dread being one of those photographers who takes the same image over and over.”

No danger of that here.

See more: lukecopping.com

Say hi: flavors.me/lcopping

and on Facebook and Twitter

 "DJ Lil Joe," from an advertising/PR project, featuring Joe Chalifoux.

Mike Governale

Long before the rise of Midtown Plaza, or the Inner Loop, or the suburban two-car garage, electric trolleys carried Rochester residents from here to there, below the sidewalks.

But by June 30, 1956, the Rochester Subway was dead—if not yet buried.

Mike created this modern-day Rochester Subway map with fellow RIT alum Otto Vondrak, who helped him identify all the old routes—the actual and proposed ones that never got built. Vondrack also wrote an inscription that appears at the bottom of the piece.Nearly forty years later, Mike moved here from Long Island to study illustration at RIT. He began digging into Rochester's past, stumbled upon the story of a dark subterranean corridor, and fell in love.

“Who'd have guessed that this sleepy town of a few hundred thousand people would have had electric trolley cars rumbling beneath its streets? Amazing!” he says.

As a graphic designer, he imagined what Rochester's subway system might look like today—and set out to create a map.

“Thought maybe I'd apply some Vignelli-esque style to it,” he says, referring to the designer of the iconic New York City Subway signage (and namesake of the Vignelli Center for Design Studies at RIT).

When he was done, Mike never expected anyone to take an interest in his pet project.

“The map hung quietly on my living room wall and I figured that's where it would stay, collecting dust,” he says.

MikeUntil he put his first house up for sale.

“My real estate agent told me that everyone who walked through the house was more interested in where I got that great Rochester Subway map than in the house itself,” he says.

Mike, who now lives in the Rochester suburb of Irondequoit, decided to launch RochesterSubway.com and sell copies of the map. As the website gained traffic, he started blogging about Rochester's history—and future.

Developing a passion for the region has inspired him to get out there and get involved.

“Last year I wrote about a couple of people on Rochester's north side who are buying and fixing up abandoned homes near Clifford Avenue entirely with their own free time and money,” Mike says. “It's a fantastic story.”

It's hard to imagine that these tracks once carried shoppers and commuters across town. Until 1956, they did. Photo by James Bogue, All Rights Reserved.He also recently started a transit advocacy group, Reconnect Rochester, to educate locals about the importance of a robust public transit system.

“The overwhelming majority of people who live and work in the Rochester region either don't have access to quality public transit, or if they do, they don't utilize it,” he says.

As you might guess, Mike considers public transit central to civic progress.

“Sustainability, economic development, equal access to jobs and services—even our national security—are all tied to the success of our public transit systems.”

There may never be another Rochester Subway.

But Mike's What-Might-Have-Been map could well be the first stop—on a way forward.

 

See more: RochesterSubway.com

Say hi: info@rochestersubway.com and on Facebook



Below: graffiti fills the passageway where the subway once passed through a former Erie Canal aqueduct. Photo by Chris Luckhardt, Some Rights Reserved.