Mike Fitelson

Part of "Message Delayed"

Washington Heights photographer Mike Fitelson is taking Facebook status updates and instant photo sharing and turning them upside down.

That is, he is taking the process of sharing thoughts and photos online and slowing it down and simplifying it dramatically -- and bringing the whole thing off line. It's part of a year-long project he is unveiling tomorrow at a street festival in his neighborhood.

The effort began last June at the Carnaval del Boulevard festival uptown. Fitelson, previously an associate publisher at northern Manhattan's community newspaper, the Manhattan Times, stopped neighborhood residents passing by, took portrait shots of them, and asked them each a simple question: "What's on your mind?"

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As we reported earlier today, press aren't allowed inside the Sanitation facility on 57th Street where the city is storing Occupy Wall Street protesters' belongings taken during the Zuccotti raid. We'd heard reports of disarray and damage inside and had seen photos of smashed laptops, and now the Voice has gotten a hold of more complete pictures of the mess where protesters are expected to root around for their things.

(all photos via Kathleen Russell)

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Araceli Cruz

"If my parents told me I was born in an art gallery, I would think that's awesome," artist Marni Kotak says as she sits in a rocking chair at Microscope Gallery, the 500-square-foot carpeted space where she'll have her baby in the next couple of weeks. We visited Kotak at the gallery to discuss the media frenzy and onslaught of criticism that ensued after we broke the story about her latest art exhibition, "The Birth Of Baby X," in which Kotak will be giving birth in front of an audience.

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That photo, with or without insipid caption, has been making the rounds on Facebook and Tumblr today. It purports to be an aerial shot of yesterday's massive Occupy Wall Street/union march. It's certainly very impressive, but don't be fooled. It's probably not real.

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The above photo was sent to us by a tipster who took the picture at Powers Street and Bushwick Avenue shortly after the August 30th bike accident that killed 29-year-old dancer Erica Abbott. The tipster says, "I took this photo to show the wooden barrier that caused Erica to swerve into traffic."

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And they will know you by the scrapbooks you leave behind. Or, as MSNBC puts it, "the ransacking of Moammar Gaddafi's compound is turning up some bizarre loot." What sort of bizarre? Well, there was a lot of fashion accessorizing going on, apparently, and a mermaid couch (Gadhafi's daughter's, not his own) and, perhaps most tellingly, a photo album chock-full of pictures of none other than Condoleezza Rice, all available to the curious eyes of the rebels who invaded Gadhafi's Tripoli compound, and therefore the media.

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Marina Vykhodtseva / "A Tale of Two Phones"

Even though it's an art exhibit about modern technology, we found out about LittleZGroup's Click Send in an old-fashioned way. One evening we were standing outside in Williamsburg when we were handed a flyer soliciting submissions by one third of LittleZ, Amanda Cassandra.

The charity show, a collection of photographs taken by cell phones, opens today at the Soho Gallery for Digital Art. It's an attempt by the collective -- three elementary-school friends -- to explore the artistic world of over-share point and shoot culture.

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via TMZ

Weiner at the gym.

As Anthony Weiner goes on a leave of absence and starts therapy, yet more photos have emerged that the congressman took of himself -- this time, in the gym that members of Congress use. Content-wise, they're what we've come to expect from Weiner's self-portraiture: cell-phone snapshots in a mirror, a few of them featuring almost-full-frontal nudity. No details on when these were taken or why (we have a pretty good guess as to why). There's also the issue of location: TMZ speculates that Weiner's taking the photos in the Congressional gym might constitute some kind of ethics violation. Seems tenuous, although it might depend on where the photos ended up.

Anyway, go here to see more pictures if you're into this sort of thing. In other Weiner news, he's reportedly waiting for his wife, Huma Abedin, to return from an overseas trip before deciding whether or not he'll resign.

[TMZ, NYP]

[@_rosiegray]

Office of Gabrielle Giffords

The office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was the victim of a shooting in Tucson this winter that killed six and injured 13, has released new photos of the congresswoman on her Facebook page. Apart from her cropped haircut, she seems almost unchanged; there are few visible signs that she took a bullet in the head only five months ago. Giffords poses outside on the lawn of her Houston hospital. In one, she smiles directly into the camera, and in the other she's with her mother, Gloria Giffords.

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Official White House photograph

The Obamas continued their tour of Europe this afternoon with a visit to the Downing Street residence of British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha. In this official White House photo by Lawrence Jackson that's sure to inspire any number of modern decor catalogs and modern decor aficionados as well as selling out the dresses here modeled, the two first ladies talk before tea. (For a lark, compare this pic to the earlier photo of Barack and Michelle meeting Prince William and Catherine in the ultra-fussy ultra-British "grand 1844 room of Buckingham Palace.") Tonight: The President and the First Lady attend dinner hosted by Her Majesty the Queen!