Head in Hands

Head in Hands, Lexington Line - 2005

I think photographers have been fascinated wtih New York's subway forever because everything happens down here - the good, the bad and the ugly. You are alone here - and you are surrounded with a crush of people. You are going somewhere - and going nowhere at the same time. No matter what camera I'm using - it always finds its' way into the underground.

Directly behind me - at the same moment - two couples were kidding around with each other. A man was watching me take this photograph. Two policemen were a few yards away on walkie talkies.

A few minutes after I took this picture - the woman was helped onto a train by a young man at the other end of the bench.

Turtle Pond & Subway

Today in New York.

It was a cloudy day in the park. The turtles were out in turtle pond. When I got home there was a big story about a potential bomb threat to the subways.





Turtle Pond

"It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio" - Paul Simon

"specific yet noncredible,"
"information was of doubtful credibility."
"This is the first time we have had a threat with this level of specificity."

So what we have here is a specific yet noncredible threat of doubtful credibility with a level of specificity we haven't seen before.

It's a tricky business. Homeland security at the federal level and city officials had different messages - but frankly - I'd put my money on the city officials in this case.

Runners, Central Park

Part accident - part planned. I watched five or six runners circling the park and planted myself to take a wider shot of them with the park in the background - but all of a sudden they changed their route and sped past me.

The Home Page

Not sure if anyone likes the homepage changes - blog / store combo. But I like it a lot. Think I'll stick with it at least through the end of the year and see how it goes. Tomorrow is print day. I have two orders to get out.

And if I'm going to stick with doing all this PS sharpening stuff in 16-bit mode I'm going to need a new PC for sure. My friend Eugene keeps sending me specs from Dell, Gateway etc. I'd like to hire him to set up the new system and deal with the headaches but I don't think I'll be able to afford a new setup until the new year.

I'm not prone to depression - but the mini-depression I was going through the last few weeks seems to be fading. I went out and was happy as a lark shooting in Central Park. Felt very creative again. Can't wait to see a couple of shots on the last roll. An empty field with with high-school runners - and wide angle - and I definitely was thinking of the opening shots from - Chariots of Fire... I was actually lying in the grass shooting up and -- well we'll see...

The Touch

Reflection in store window (Touch)

Cleopatra's Needle

Cleopatra's Needle, Winter 2004 - Central Park

Street of Dreams

I was watching one of the ballgames last night - and had an epiphany about the why of photography.

Each time a batter come to the plate - the circumstances in the game have changed. Even the very best hitter is going to fail 2/3rds of the time. Sometimes the pressure is on and their time in the box means something to the team. Sometimes it's a blowout. But it's the personal challenge. You anticipate the pitch. You anticipate it correctly this time and get a hit. Maybe a game-winning homer. You don't retire after that. You want another chance to do it again.

Photography - for me - is like that.

Photography is mostly about failure in the sense that very few of your images are grand-slams. Ansel talked about being happy if he got 12 good images in a year.

It's this very rarity of the good image (as you define it) that keeps you going. Whether it is street photography or nature shots - the world - and your feeling about the world is different every time you step out of the house. The fact that you define the success is the main difference between art and baseball. Still - the similarities remain. You feel - at these great moments - like you were doing what you were created to do.

You caught light in a bottle. You anticipated the unexpected. You were born in the right place at the right time and your senses are up to the task. Time has slowed down for you - enough to capture some photons as they were meant to be captured.

You move through a constantly changing stream of possibilities. You're on the lookout - and you are plodding through life at the same time. You are walking to pick up your laundry and you are buying breakfast and chatting with friends - and you are somewhere else at the same time.

Work on your technique. Keep your shoulder in. Level swing. Press the shutter gently. You anticipate the pitch. He's thrown a slider to you last time up - I'll be he's going to go inside with a fastball this time. Ah - he fooled me again. Damn. There's always next time.

You become comfortable with uncertainty. To paraphrase MLB - you live for that uncertainty. The audience - they're far away in the stands - staring out windows - passing you by as you stoop to conquer.

You're in the zone. You're bored. It doesn't matter. You're going to take your cut at the ball because that's why you're here. If they don't let you play in the "bigs" - you'll play in triple A. Your moment will come. And if it doesn't - so what? How many people get to play the game they want to play - at any level?

The wind-up. The pitch. It's a long fly ball. The image flies through the air - as if it had wings - going. Going! It's over the wall! It's landed on the street outside the park! It's landed on the street of dreams...

Going to Work

I'm still going through older images - trying to pair them up with new shots. It is sort of a weird city in that way. Cliche I guess but I can't get over the contrasts and contradictions. That might just be because Manhattan always felt like a foreign place to me - growing up in the Bronx. I don't remember - nor when I went back - did I see the same sort of visual clashes. Manhattan is not so much a mixing bowl as a blender operating at high speed.

Man, Marathon Bars

Blue-eyes has taken to selling candy; in this case - Marathon Bars. I bought one from him and then tossed it in the garbage since it was soggy. God only knows where they'd had come from.

Chrysler Reflection

I added this print to the NEW PRINTS section.

Trying to get out of the rain, I stepped into the Chrysler Building lobby. It was cool - dark - like a beautiful tomb. I approached one of the lobby guards and asked if they had any tours - that it would be great to go up to the top of the building.

He told me: no tours. And nothing to see up there anyway.

Was he blind. Even the lobby was a pre-modern masterpiece like the Sistine Chapel. Walk in there sometimes and just look at how it is softly lit - as if a chapel to what was once modern. A chapel to progress.

When I stepped back out - I saw the reflection of the Chrysler building in the new-fangled (probably 1960-ish) building and snapped this shot. I mean - just that - snapped this and walked out grumbling about the "no tours" business. How blind can people be?

Blog & Store

I've moved the blog to the home page. I'm trying to make a connection between the journal and the store. Could be a mistake that will backfire... but I can always go back to the way it was. I've made plenty of marketing mistakes - but in this world - I don't think anyone has really figured out the connection between selling photographs and bringing forth what the photographer is up to. So I'll try it. Think it's a big mistake - let me know.

Salad Threat

It was Saturday morning; or Sunday morning - and I was standing outside Grand Central Station watching as 42nd street was closed off by the authorities. A bomb truck arrived. A fire truck arrived. We were standing on the other side of 42nd - tourists - a couple of press people - everyone wondering what was going on. One guy heard a cop say "bomb" on the walkie-talkie.

So I just stood around waiting to see if there would be an explosion and then I could get the scoop. After about a half hour - the machinery disappeared and they began to let people down into Grand Central.

As I came down the steps - there was a reporter interviewing someone. The train was coming to a halt. I couldn't hear what it was about. But I got on the train with the woman who had just been interviewed and asked her what it was all about.

She told me that some council - I don't know if it was the MTA or the city council - but something along those lines were voting or had voted to ban food on the subway and how did she feel about it. I realized afterwards that she must have been chosen since she had that small container of salad in her hand.

We laughed about it. What were they going to do - have "food police" on the trains? The woman told me that even if the drink or the container had a top on it - THEY were proposing to ban it.

I asked her if she knew that there had just been a bomb scare upstairs? Did she hear any announcements or anything?

No, that was news to her.

Well anyway - I'm happy to hear that someone in New York is keeping their eye on the ball. One of the things that has been most scary to me are those plastic containers with salad. Especially the ones from the Korean places with fresh fruit. You know - once you cut fruit it can go bad and make you sick. Could start a whole epidemic in the city that way.




The container ban was not passed. I think this is my favorite line from the MTA's rules:

"The singular shall mean and include the plural; the masculine gender shall mean the feminine and the neuter genders; and vice versa." Keep that in mind folks.