NEW YORK, NEW YORK – New York was sideswiped by a tropical storm today – I spent the day dodging rain. I caught this image of the Guggenheim Museum with my 16mm Hologon. I’ve been stalking the Guggenheim for some time, and have shot from this angle in the past, but not with this lens and in this light.
Guggenheim Museum New York
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – I spent the afternoon today at Brooklyn Bridge Park – a park under construction that’s transforming the Brooklyn waterfront. There was a lot of stuff to photograph. Really. Some tourist shots – the view of lower Manhattan is incomparable; some construction; some people. I’ve had real difficulty sorting it all out so I’m posting a bunch of images. Here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry on the park: Brooklyn Bridge Park.
The Manhattan Bridge seen under the Brooklyn Bridge.
Leica M9 with 135mm APO Telyt lens.
South Street Seaport.
South Street Seaport from Brooklyn Bridge Park
Same camera and lens.
Brooklyn Bridge Park – tidal pool
Brooklyn Bridge Park
New Trees
Same camera and lens.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – An overcast day with intermit clearing. The sky is really low. Here’s Citicorp center out my office window. I’m using a “new” old lens: a 40mm Leica Summicron-C from 1977. This lens was designed for use with the Leica CL, a “budget” camera produced in a joint venture with Minolta. Leica CL. I found this lens, which is in perfect condition, at a very good price on e-bay – I’ve been watching for one for some time. It has the advantage of being the most compact Leica-built lens for M-mount cameras. It appears to be very, very good. I’ll be exploring its capabilities over the next few days.
Citicorp
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Well here I am whining about a tough week again – I’m reduced to grabbing shots on the street between meeting (rather than, say, deciding to go to Bay Ridge to shoot, getting there early and waiting to watch the light develop). Here’s Grand Central Terminal from the outside. It’s an odd building in this respect. The inside (which I photographed earlier in the week) is iconic, but it has no discernible outside – it’s as if it’s a huge cavern hacked out of urban clutter. This is the one point of view, the middle of Park Avenue, where you can actually see it.
This is taken with my Leica M9 and 90mm Elmarit lens. I’ve reproduced it here smaller than usual because it’s slightly blurry – I was dodging traffic on Park Avenue.
Grand Central Terminal
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I met a friend at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central for lunch – he’s a restaurant reviewer and his mission was to determine whether the Oyster Bar still has its mojo. Well, the Oyster Bar is about the oysters. There were 28 varieties on the menu so we ordered two of each variety: 28 oysters for each guy. Fair warning to our wives. A fabulous lunch. I was too preoccupied with slurping to photograph so I caught this image in Grand Central after lunch.
Grand Central Terminal -ramp from the lower level
Leica M9 and 24mm Summilux lens. Stitched from three frames.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Another day of meeting complicated by an early evening departure for London. My best shot at getting a daily images is in the early morning. I went by Lever House to take another look at the Mike Bidlo sculpture show. See this link for my Sept 1 photo Turns out the the sculpture has been packed up – the show has been taken down, with only the descriptive placard left behind. This becomes a very deep conceptual work: Mike Bidlo appropriating Andy Warhol’s Brillo boxes, but without the Brillo boxes.
Bidlo sans Brillo boxes
Leica M9 with 90mm Elmarit lens.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – The iconic Seagram Building in very late afternoon light. This is one of my favorite subjects – here the afternoon light emphasizes the color of the bronze cladding.
Seagram Builidng
Leica M9 and 90mm Elmarit lens.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – On my way to some meetings I stopped at one of my favorite spots in New York, Lever House, which has a varying selection of provocative art. Lever House had a new installation of the work of Mike Bidlo, a conceptual artist who “appropriates” the work of other artists, in this case Andy Warhol’s 1984 work “Brillo Boxes”. Bidlo calls this work “Not Warhol”.
What follows is not a photograph. It’s a piece of conceptual art that I’m calling “Neither Bidlo Nor Warhol”.
Neither Bidlow Nor Warhol
PARATY, BRAZIL – We’re in Paraty to attend the most important annual literary festival in Brazil: FLIP. The real reason we’re here is to catch up with our old friend Luiz and Lili Schwarcz – Luiz heads Companhia das Letras, a prominent Brazilian publishing house. Here’s a link to Companhia’s blog, which has a piece on the first FLIP (in Portuguese, but you can use one of the “translate this page” services if your Portuguese is rusty): Companhia das Letras blog. Luiz launched the first four titles in a Companhia – Penguin joint venture today – here is Salman Rushdie and his son at the launch event.
Salman
Nikon D700
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I walked back through Central Park from lunch on 59th Street with a friend. It was absolutely late-July frying hot. Here’s The Mall (sometimes called Poets’ Walk).
Poets' Walk
Leica M9 with 28mm Summicron lens.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Had lunch with an old friend at Savoy on Prince Street. Here’s a link: Savoy. We had heard that Savoy has a fabulous burger, which turned out to be true. The patty was perfect aged, grass fed beef, not overworked; the brioche bun was just right; it was cooked to perfection. After lunch I spent an hour in Washington Square exploring some of the same themes that I explored in Ecuador.
Washington Square
Leica M9 with 28mm Summicron lens.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A truly beastly day. We’re suffering under a record heat wave in the Northeast. I sought refuge in the shade of the plaza of Lever House and shot passers by against the backdrop of Hello Kitty. Not a good day to be outdoors.
Leica M9 with 28mm Summicon lens.
NEW MILFORD CONNECTICUT – I went to Clamps, a roadside burger stand on route 202, for a burger for lunch, arriving just before the 2:00 PM closing, in time to place an order. By the time that I got my wits together to reach for camera the closed sign had gone up.
Clamps is a dying breed: a roadside hamburger stand that’s seasonal, has limited hours and isn’t part of a chain. The following is from Roadfood: ”The business card of Clamp’s Hamburger stand says, NO SIGN, NO ADDRESS, NO PHONE, JUST GOOD FOOD. In fact, there is a sign about the size of a license plate on the side of the wood-frame hut: “Clamp’s Est. 1939.” Despite the lack of a billboard and a street address, you will have no trouble finding this place because there are cars and people crowded around any time it’s open … which is late April to early September every day from 11am to 2pm and from 5pm to 8pm.
“Edwin and Sylvia Clamp started the business sixty-six years ago, and now their great-nephew, Tom Mendell, is the boss. Tom told us that since 1939 Clamp’s has never advertised and never had a phone (and therefore was never in the phone book), and while it did have a prominent sign, when the sign blew down in a windstorm back in the 1960s, it was not replaced.”
Clamps
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Midday found me in midtown on my way to a lunch date. Here’s one of my favorite spots, the plaza in front of the Seagram Building.
Seagram Building New York
Leica M9 and 35mm Summicron Asph.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Back home. The Lipstick building.
Lipstick building
Leica M9 and 35mm Summicron Asph.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A very busy day as I prepare to go to Mustique tomorrow. I caught this view of Citicorp with my Leica on my way to a lunch date.
Citicorp Center
Leica M9 and 35mm Summicron Asph.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – This from the very early evening on Park Avenue. The sculpture is newly-installed. I don’t have any information on it but I’ll keep looking and revise this post accordingly. Of course the background is Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building, one of the icons that I stalk. The perspective is from the front door of the Racquet and Tennis Club.
Park Avenue Island
Shot with a Hasselblad H3D 39 and an HC 100 lens. Three exposures stitched. This produces a very large file.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Back in New York. While walking back from the west side (where I had left my car for service) a came across Carnegie Hall in dappled light. This is a side-on view from Sixth Avenue. From the Wikipedia entry on Carnegie Hall:
“Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1891, it is one of the most famous venues in the United States for classical music and popular music, renowned for its beauty, history and acoustics. . . . Carnegie Hall is one of the last large buildings in New York built entirely of masonry, without a steel frame; however, when several flights of studio spaces were added to the building near the turn of the 20th century, a steel framework was erected around segments of the building. . . . A venerable story has become part of the folklore of the hall: A New Yorker (or in some versions Arthur Rubinstein) is approached in the street near Carnegie Hall, and asked, “Pardon me sir, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?” He replies, “Practice, practice, practice.”"
Carnegie Hall
Leica M9 and 35mm Summicron Asph. Three images stitched.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Late afternoon on East 56th Street – a reflection of the AT&T building off of the facade of the Trump Tower. Shot with my Leica M9 (it found its way back to me) and a 24mm Summilux.
AT&T Building
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Fabulous late afternoon light in midtown, with light reflected from buildings adding nuance. I’m shooting with my backup Leica, and M8.2, because I left my M9 at Gary and Diana’s the previous evening (symptomatic of wine consumption). I had a number of good images to choose among. This is Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Seagram building – part of my effort to do a new take on iconic structures. I have an ongoing project on the Seagram building and the plaza formed by it and the Racquet and Tennis Club (McKim Mead and White) and Lever House to the northwest (the “Hello Kitty’s” come from there). Image taken with my M8.2 and a 90mm lens – three images stitched in Photoshop.
Seagram Building
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – My meetings are at Park Avenue and 53rd Street so I managed to commune with my old friend Hello Kitty for a few minutes. You will remember from previous posts that Hello Kitty is Tom Sach’s statue in the sculpture garden at Lever House. See March 19 blog entry and April 20 blog entry. There may be enough going on at Lever House to make a project out of it.
Hello Kitty
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Once again I’m stalking the Chrysler Building. This time from behind the UN Secretariat Building, in color, shooting with medium format.
Chrysler Building and UN Secretariat Building
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Once again stalking the Chrysler Building.
Chrysler Building
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Another day of terrible weather, so back to Grand Central Terminal to work inside.
Grand Central Terminal
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Grand Central Terminal. My new favorite rainy day place to photograph. I’ll be studying this over the next few months. Another icon.
Grand Central Terminal
WARREN, CONNECTICUT – Emmet Gowin, Nancy, Danville Virginia, 1969. Nancy is now 47 or so – probably just starting to experience hot flashes. The physics of how photos freeze time is well understood, but odd, nonetheless.
Emmet Gowin, Nancy, Granville Virginia, 1969
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – In the morning at Lever House on Park Avenue.
Lever House
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Back home. Once again the weather is cold and wet. This is my second try of a post for this date. The first was a personal memorial for a 24-year-old woman who was evidently killed when her bicycle was hit by a car – it was moving in person but not a good photograph. On March 26 I took it down and replaced it with this image, also taken on March 23, of the Chrysler Building from a long ways away (just north of the UN), which I think is more interesting.
Chrysler Building from the far East Side
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