Church & World Trade Center

When I took this, at least ten years ago, it was just a contrast in shapes.

I always thought that the World Trade Center complex was an awful design and I'm sure that was in my head when I did this contrast with the nearby church.

Here was this tiny, ancient looking church - Greek Orthodox I think - with the towering ultra-modern WTC behind it. And there was a slight touch of light on the Church as well. That's all it was. How history changes things. The little church and the mighty towers - both gone. The world changed forever.

Escalator City

Escalator City, New York 2006

I'm learning my way with the wacom tablet. Fun. For someone with a surreal imagination, this is a great diversion from the so-called real world. At any rate - a while back I did some montages which were getting out-of-hand in terms of processing power, and one of the reasons I wanted the new pc was to be able to finish those montages. I especially want to work on the street shot which was composed of about fifty layers, each with a different object taken in various weather over the course of a few weeks. I also have the printer now so that it can be done at a respectable size which that type of montage needs.

Montage Tablet

Well, the thing is - I'm doing more surreal montages. The prints for orders are sitting drying. So I hope I didn't make a major mistake, but I went out and bought a Wacom tablet. It's the graphire 4, 4 x5. I printed out the Canyons of New York on the new paper and gosh - that's like my favorite thing in years. Maybe I'm getting too much oxygen since I stopped smoking. It's just fun to look at and watch the city buildings go in and out of the mother of all Canyons. I will definitely put it up for sale.

day 24

January has been the longest month. It is now 24 days since I had my last cigarette. Time has slowed down considerably since last year. My guess - my metabolism slowed. My reflexes slowed. It's going to be tough at my tryout for the Mets this year. You'll notice that most of the very best baseball players smoke or take tobacco or some other substance that comes in unmarked bottles.

Baseball customs differ depending on culture. I know, or at least I heard a baseball commentator say that spitting and chewing tobacco in Japanese baseball was banned. I can understand that. It's not elegant. But what are the rules in other places where baseball is played. Can you chew on coca leaves in Colombia? Wow. Those must be some games.

Do they play baseball yet in Iraq? Wonder what the drug of choice would be for Iraqi baseball players? Probably just strong coffee. Hey, it's not so crazy. The president has compared Iraq to Japan a million times to show how former enemies can become friends and even play our game. So why not Iraq?

Baseball could be the key to the whole world-wide mess. We don't invade any countries that play baseball anymore, do we? Okay, maybe we did try Cuba once, but that was the exception that proves the rule.

Think of those guerilla fighters in the mountains of Afghanistan and what an advantage they'd have if we could draft them into the new pax American baseball league. Only problem is finding some of those suckers.

Day 24. The mind does wander.

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Oh. In case you're wondering what's going on in my photography world - all printing. Doing a mind-meld with the 4800. I didn't know it could actually measure the paper thickness for you. Yes - it can. See manual for more. The printing extravaganza really has to do with what settings work best with the Silver Rag. I go through this process every time I switch to a new paper. And don't tell anyone but I enjoy it.

Canyons of New York v2.0

Canyons of New York

It began with a shot from the Empire State Building. I began futzing with it in idiotic ways: first putting heads of people on the buildings in a Monty Pythonish way. Then I threw that away and forgot about the shot completely. In the middle of the night, I remembered the shot of the Grand Canyon and wondered how the two shots would look if they somewhat melded together.
Got out of bed - almost in a trance - made the adjustments - and went back to sleep. The next morning I looked at it again and thought - it is interesting in that sort of comic-book New Yorker magazine cover sort of way. But it's still pretty rough.

I've spent most of the day working with the roll of Museo Silver Rag. The stuff is beautiful but I'm still struggling with some issues that I think are related to it being on a roll. I'll discuss once they've been solved. No show-stoppers. If the paper was available for sale today, I would be the first to order a bunch.

any time

New York New York

A helluva town...

So what would you say is the most New York part of New York? What I mean by that is - if you was gonna make a kern (coin) - and you wanted to stick something on the back that was the symbol of New York - what would it be?

Portrait, Unknown Woman

Portrait Unknown Woman

Tuba on 86th

Tuba on 86th, 2005

Now, the next instrument I'd like to see in the subway is the oboe.

Coin Search

Coin Search, Metropolitan Reflection Pool

Pan / Day 21

Pan, Schurz Park

Silver Rag

The Weight of the paper is 300 gsm.
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Yes - Markus came by and I showed him some samples of the silver rag paper comparing them with luster and smooth pearl and we both agreed this stuff has a better "feel" to it and is damned close to a fiber print. I framed a small version of Night Storm on the Silver Rag so it would be under glass, and I know this print very well - and you would need to know what to look for in order to distinguish it from an Ilford Gallerie Fiber print. The paper is 100% cotton, has a heavy enough feel so that you aren't going to run into rippling or other effects due to humidity or lack thereof - and it has a presence which the plasticky RC type papers don't have. As I said to Markus - it makes me want to get closer and really look at the print closely.

So let's hope it hits the stores soon - and let's see what it costs. I hope to do some testing with the roll version I got yesterday to see how it goes through the printer and what the curl is like.