An hour in Brooklyn.

The Organist


During hockey season, organist Paul Cartier plays Saturday mass for Our Lady of Hope Church, in Carle Place, before hopping over to the Coliseum to play the organ at the Islanders' game. Produced by Mahala Gaylord

Anthony Naimoli, a shipping company owner, was in Haiti on business
when the capital was leveled by Tuesday's magnitude 7.0 earthquake.
Videojournalist: Mahala Gaylord, for Newsday

Long Island Haitians pray at St. Anne Church in Brentwood Wednesday night for the safety
of their families and all the people in Haiti suffering from the effects of Tuesday's earthquake.
Videojournalist: Mahala Gaylord, for Newsday

Toes from Mahala Gaylord on Vimeo.

My first video made with the new camera, it is a D300s with a 60mm lens

music: Staying by Mark Allaway

falling in love should be like dancing with magic
not formulaic and logic-filled

it should be ecstatic and unexpected
utter anticipation

make me laugh till tears squeak through my lashes
i'll stare at your face, simply unable to look away

i, in no way, want it to be ordinary, or Starbucks, or club's bars
or movie dates, or sex in cars

let love land lightly in the night
or let it crash its heavy hand into me,  unable to breath

know me by letting your soul find mine

Jessica Buttner will donate her bone marrow to her twin sister, 6-year-old Leukemia patient, Julianna. Videojournalist: Mahala Gaylord for Newsday.

I have continued to cover the journey of Julianna Buttner as she battles Leukemia. It is very touching to be able to continue working with this family. They have been so welcoming to allow me again to intrude on their lives. The two girls love to play with my cameras. Julianna always wants to put on the headphones while i'm interviewing the rest of her family so she can listen to them talk and watch them on the back of the video camera. And Jessica continually wants to grab my d700 to take pictures. (you can imagine how tense that makes her parents as they imagine the thousands of dollars they would have to replace if she were to drop it!)  She won't though, and she is being so brave to become her sisters bone marrow donor.

Thank you

I had the opportunity to do a shoot for Shut Up! Magazine over the summer. Here are the final selects the magazine used. I mostly do photography along the lines of journalism so it's always fun to mix it up and do some fashion or editorial shooting. I can get pretty nervous when it's just me, a beautiful girl and my camera. and it's completely up to me to create the action, the atmosphere, and the moment.

One person who has helped me an infinite number of times to overcome that fear and make the picture, is my friend and fellow photographer AJ. I used to be so confused by our photography relationship, because he would assist me time after time on my shoots. I always used to feel that he got nothing out of it while I was gaining everything by having him there. He always made sure the lighting I imagined came to fruition. He would make sure all the cameras were working, and even lend me his camera when I did dumb things like not bring a back up. He would let me bounce ideas off of him and tell me I was doing great when I started to doubt myself. I would inevitabley come out with a sweet photograph, and always wonder but what did he get? So really this post is about saying thank you. Thank you to AJ for always lending a hand and making me look like a smooth operator. I hope you got as much out of working with me as I have from you! Just look at these pictures! damn! AJ is as much the creator of these photos as I. And, for that matter, there was a hair stylist, makeup artist, clothing designer, model, and art director, who put in just as much effort as anyone to create these.

Sunset on the Southern State. taking pictures one handed with a heavy camera in heavy traffic. always a good idea!

face of homelessness

December 28, 2009, Deer Park: Michelle Tingle and her son Zuriel Mason, 9, have been living in a homeless shelter in Deer Park since February. Newsday photograph by Mahala Gaylord

I took this photo for Newsday for an article about the rise of homelessness on the Island and how shelters are unable to handle the new high numbers of people in need of a place to stay. Contact was made with a woman who is homeless and willing to be photographed. I went to the shelter where she and her son are staying and made a portrait. (above) The newspaper was all set to run this picture A1 with the story, but upon receiving the photo from me, and seeing that she was black, they decided not to run it on the front. They cropped it down and stuck it a couple pages back in the paper. WHY? because the paper didn't want to portray the face of homelessness on Long Island as being black. How do you feel about this?

Is it right to NOT use someone's photo because they are a minority? Normally the paper is pushing photographers to find people of color or ethnicity to put in the paper. But this time things about-faced very quickly.  I felt put off when I saw what they did with the picture. But I'm not sure if my feelings are stemming from the fact that I took a cool portrait and they cropped it and shrank it and stuffed it on the inside of the paper.

Would most people be angry to see a black homeless person on the front of their newspaper as a picture portraying homelessness in their area? Would they feel that the newspaper was making a statement about homelessness that was not neutral? I feel that the newspaper's not using the picture was also a statement. A statement that they're worried about what people think of the paper, that they fear they are not a neutral news source. As you can see by my rambling statements above, I'm not sure how I feel, or what decision I would have made were I in charge. I'd love some feedback