COMMUTED SENTENCE
Pictures Taken on The Way to and From Work
Introduction
Downtown to 23rd and Sixth. Uptown to 83rd and second. The trek lasted for seven long years. It’s a good 4 mile walk in New York, mostly because of those damned wide avenues. Sometimes I walked it. Sometimes it was the number 6 train.
That Lexington line is narrower than the IND line or the West side line. There are always delays. And if you are unlucky enough to constantly travel on it - and if you have a fear of crowds - you should avoid the number six.
I always had the camera hanging around my neck. One day my chest began to throb after a long walk. But it wasn’t a coronary - it was from the camera banging against my chest for a few miles. The camera has tried to implant itself in my chest - or if you want to get super-poetic - in my heart.
I almost always found something to shoot. Many of these images haven’t been put on my web site because I found that nobody really wanted to be reminded of this daily grind with pictures on the walls. But they may be tolerable in a small book.
The downtown morning walk was almost always the most fruitful because my nerves hadn’t been deadened yet by my time behind the desk. For the first few years I sat in a cubicle - later a dusty dark office. It was a cubicle world. The maze. Sometimes I would sit at my desk and dream about an overhead shot of the maze, even going so far as to imagine the speckled ceiling tiles disappearing.
Pictures Taken on The Way to and From Work
Introduction
Downtown to 23rd and Sixth. Uptown to 83rd and second. The trek lasted for seven long years. It’s a good 4 mile walk in New York, mostly because of those damned wide avenues. Sometimes I walked it. Sometimes it was the number 6 train.
That Lexington line is narrower than the IND line or the West side line. There are always delays. And if you are unlucky enough to constantly travel on it - and if you have a fear of crowds - you should avoid the number six.
I always had the camera hanging around my neck. One day my chest began to throb after a long walk. But it wasn’t a coronary - it was from the camera banging against my chest for a few miles. The camera has tried to implant itself in my chest - or if you want to get super-poetic - in my heart.
I almost always found something to shoot. Many of these images haven’t been put on my web site because I found that nobody really wanted to be reminded of this daily grind with pictures on the walls. But they may be tolerable in a small book.
The downtown morning walk was almost always the most fruitful because my nerves hadn’t been deadened yet by my time behind the desk. For the first few years I sat in a cubicle - later a dusty dark office. It was a cubicle world. The maze. Sometimes I would sit at my desk and dream about an overhead shot of the maze, even going so far as to imagine the speckled ceiling tiles disappearing.
Bus Stop, 23rd Street
Going to Work
The Briefcase
The street preacher was - and as of this writing - is a constant feature on Park Avenue. He appears during rush hour - morning or night - and he scrawls wild tirades into the Park Avenue air: dire hellfire spit from his mouth because we haven’t repented. Or if we have repented, it hasn't been done properly.
Instead of a charsmatic welcome, the street preacher scared the tourists - and bored the regulars.
The morning is filled with good-byes. Yes, I’m off again to the mill. I’ll see you later for dinner. Won’t I? Okay honey. Take care.
The evening is filled with hellos.
Why
