Al Pacino Pictured in the Nabe

Atlantic Yards photographer and friend Tracy Collins caught Al Pacino yesterday at the 78th Precinct.

A Chat with Tracy Collins

A while back I got to spend some time with Tracy Collins, a photographer who lives next door to the Atlantic Yards footprint in Dean Street (check out his Flickr stream). He has produced a work-in-progress, print-on-demand book, Atlantic Yards: [De]construction of The Neighborhood, with proceeds going to the Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn legal fund. Tracy is also planning an Atlantic Yards group photography show and accompanying book. Q. What was your first camera? A. My first real camera was an Olympus OM1 that I bought used from a friend of mine who was in Asia. He could get a really good one cheap over there. I think the real bug came in high school. I took a photography class where you developed your own films and made your own prints. The hobby [grew] from the early 80s on, and just in the last few years I quit my engineering job and moved to New York. Q. How much did you know about Atlantic Yards when you came here? A. Almost nothing. I heard rumours. After I bought my place, I thought it might be nice to walk to a pro basketball game, and to see something other than the rail yards: shops, restaurants, open space. So initially I was pro-Atlantic Yards. Once I learned more about what was actually planned, I felt it was way out of scale for the area. And I wasn't happy about the process in which it’s been pushed forward. I’m against the use of eminent domain. It’s going to be a lot more costly to the public than what’s been stated publicly. Over time, the amount of money being ponied up by the city and state has seemed to edge up over the amount of benefits the public is going to get -- the housing and jobs -- slowly eating away to the point where it’s like, Why are we subsidizing this one guy with so much money? We haven’t even had competitive bids for what could go there. Why is this the best plan, why is this the only plan? It feels very undemocratic. As I understand it, the local community boards have no say at all legally in what happens. Q. How did you go about finding out more about Atlantic Yards? A. I just set up a Google Alert for any news about the neighborhood, and with those alerts I found blogs like Norman Oder's AY Report and No Land Grab. I started plugging into those outlets as well. I started going to block association meetings, the few community input meetings [laughs] hosted by the developer and the Empire State Development Corporation. Q. How did you feel about those meetings? A. I felt it was just them going through the motions, so they could say, 'Yes, we did solicit community input.' It felt very much like, 'The plan has already been decided on, but we need to sleepwalk through this process because that’s what we’re supposed to do.' It didn’t feel as if any meaningful changes came out of it. Q. Did your photography or your aesthetic change when you moved to Brooklyn? A. I’m definitely doing a lot more color than I used to do. That may be more of a function of the digital camera; color is so much easier to do than with film. There’s definitely more of a purpose now; I don't know if much has changed aesthetically, but the subject matter is clearly about changes in the neighborhood. I'm trying to capture things that I feel might not be around for much longer, trying to record the sense of the space. Q. What's the latest on your book project? A. I’m a babe in the woods right now. I guess it comes down to how much ownership I want over the project. It started out as an adjunct to a photo exhibit that I had. But now it looks like it could easily grow into something much bigger than that. It would be nice to have input and help; I’m not a great copywriter or copy editor. And Atlantic Yards is a huge space, 22 acres, plus all of the surrounding communities. If you are interested in getting involved with the Atlantic Yards exhibition and book, you can contact Tracy through his blog, Not Another F*cking Blog. His online portfolio is here.