NEW YORK NEW YORK – Back home I decided to take the tram to Roosevelt Island to explore the new Roosevelt Memorial on the southern tip of the the Island. Here it is, taken with my Leica Monochrom and 50mm Summicron Asp. lens.
From Roosevelt Island
Roosevelt Memorial
Roosevelt Memorial
Roosevelt Memorial
Roosevelt Memorial
On this day last year: Highland’s greatest year.
Highland’s Greatest Year – 5
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’m headed off to Paris this afternoon; Maria’s going to Stockholm on business; we’re meeting in Copenhagen where we’re having dinner at noma and visiting Louisiana. Not a bad week ahead of us, but this is a travel day and that’s miserable from a photo standpoint. I popped out for croissant for breakfast, taking my Leica Monochrom and 24mm lens. This is the first time that the 50mm Summicron Asph. has been off of the camera in over a month. Here’s an empty playground. It’s hard for me to photograph playgrounds with children because park rules in NY forbid adults without children. We’re expecting a granddaughter in two months so this is about to change.
Playground
On this day last year: Salad on the hoof.
Veggie Garden
NEW YORK NEW YORK – We saw and apartment on the Lower East Side that our daughter is interested in buying; then spent and hour in the office; then walked home via the East River and the Vinegar Factory. All the while carrying (and occasionally shooting with my medium format Leica S2). Have I told you that I hate my daily workout on an elliptical machine. Well I do. It’s boring. I only do it because its preferable to instant death from a cardiac problem, but just barely. So I’ve decided to try to get my daily exercise by walking everywhere, wearing a doodad on my wrist that monitors my activity to make sure that I’m getting enough. We’ll try this for a few months to see how it works.
Images from the walk along the river, all with the Leica S2 and 70mm lens.
Doodad
Paris Review
59th Street Bridge
On this day last year: Good Seats.
Good seata
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A very busy day so I approached the photo-a-day aspect of my life by putting my Sony RX100 in my pocket. I snapped away with it as I went about my business and was disappointed by the results. One tends to treat a small camera casually. Actually, to get good results you need to do everything that you do with a larger camera: see the opportunity; stop; pre visualize; consider depth of field and exposure; focus and compose carefully; wait for the magic moment; expose, minimizing camera movement. All of the foregoing steps take a few seconds but if you skip anything you get nothing of any worth. Here’s the one image that I liked.
On this day last year: Rain at dusk. A lovely image in lovely light.
There’s probably a rainbow somewhere
NEW YORK NEW YORK – There’s an unfriendly and disused public plaza on 57th Street between Madison and Park Avenue. Why do some of these work and others not?
Taken with my Fuji X100s.
Quiet spot
On this day last year: Basil shakes it off. Another violation of my “no cute dogs” rule. This is actually my ninth shot of Basil since I started this project roughly 1,400 days ago. Nine violations is a lot; if the DMV were in charge of this blog I would loose my license to photograph. On the other hand it’s an error rate of well less than one percent, which I guess I can live with.
Basil shakes it off
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I had busy day work-wise in Connecticut. Client confidentiality and my natural reticence preclude any discussion of what I’m doing, but I can say that there seems to be a lot of it. I had time for a couple of snapshots with my Fuji X100s. Before I leave the house or apartment I always pick up a camera take a test exposure or two to make sure that there is a memory card and that the battery is charged, and that the camera’s setting aren’t off somewhere in outer space. I delete most of these in editing, but occasionally a test shot is the best image for the day. Here you go with our dining room in Warren. Later in the evening we had dinner with our friends Barbara and Charlie Robinson. Charlie is a painter and for some reason he’s used the top of a wood burning stove in their kitchen as a palette.
Dining Room
Paint
Taken with my iPhone at a point when I was concerned that I might not have another picture for the day.
On this day one year ago: La Pizza Fresca, my favorite pizza joint in New York. It’s actually not a joint: ingredients are first rate and they make Neapolitan-stile thin crust pizza (the only style that I tolerate) in a wood fired oven. The wine list is remarkable. Here’s a picture of the key actor in the Pizza Fresca drama:
Pizza Fresca
NEW YORK NEW YORK – In our local Staples I noticed a nice piece of decoration: a large “sculpture” of correction fluid with “oops” written in the middle of it. Make a bronx cheer noise if you remember what correction fluid is. Hmmm. Awfully quiet here. This thing must have been make in the 70s or 80s. Apart from the now obscure iconography this is actually very interesting – it could be mistaken for a Warhol if it were hanging in MOMA rather than in a Staples on 86th Street. Here it is, taken with my baby Sony RX100 II (my go-to go-everywhere camera of the moment).
So there’s this joke website called Gizoogle that translates any website from standard English into Hip-Hop (the link to this is courtesy of Salman Rushdie). Here’s what it did to the foregoing paragraph:
NEW YORK NEW YORK – In our local Staplez I noticed a sick piece of decoration: a big-ass “sculpture” of erection fluid wit “oops” freestyled up in tha middle of dat shit. Make a funky-ass bronx cheer noise if you remember what tha fuck erection fluid is yo. Hmmm fo’ realz. Awfully on tha down-low here, so peek-a-boo, clear tha way, I be comin’ thru fo’sho. This thang must done been make up in tha 70s or 80s fo’ realz. Apart from tha now obscure iconography dis is straight-up straight-up bangin-ass – it could be mistaken fo’ a Warhol if it was hangin up in MOMA rather than up in a Staplez on 86th Street yo. Here it is, taken wit mah baby Sony RX100 Pt II (my go-to go-everywhere camera of tha moment).
From now on I’m using this thing as a co-author to liven this site up.
Oops
On this day last year: Riverside Park South. I used to think that I liked Riverside Park South and the Trump buildings that face it. But . . . I glanced casually at this image when I prepared this post and thought it was in Boston. This is an absolutely generic urban development that could be in any city in the world. Of course the park is preferable to the wasteland that formerly inhabited the space. Here it is (this was taken with the high end medium format rig that I was shooting at this time last year – subsequently replaced with my medium format Leica).
Riverside Park South
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Marvelous light today makes everything look wonderful – even shot with the baby Sony RX100 II.
Fire alarm box
Go figure
More go figure
On this day last year: Nikki de Saint Phalle in front of the Racquet Club.
Niki de Saint Phalle
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’m giving the Sony RX100 II a rest. Today I returned to my Leica Monochrom and 50mm Summicron Asph. lens – the best camera and lens combination for me ever. Really. Here we are looking up at Papa. Not a great image but it’s a step toward getting back to using a real camera.
Riff on “Look Up”
On this day last year: Quilt.
Quilt
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Back here running errands in 100 degree heat. A detail from a piece of sculpture on the Park Avenue divider in front of my podiatrist’s office.
Leica Monochrom and 50mm Asph lens.
Sculpture
On this day last year: Amtrac.
Amtrac
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A rushed day getting ourselves collected for our trekking trip to the Dolomites. I snapped a shot off with my iPhone on my way to Paragon to top up on some gear – rushing to get something before going into travel mode, because my work on travel days in uniformly terrible.
I’m actually posting this on July 25, more than two weeks after I took this image. i planned on traveling without a computer to save weight; the iPad that I’m traveling with doesn’t have quite enough horsepower to maintain this blog. On June 27 I actually posted my entry for June 17 and had written and warehoused posts for June 18 through June 27 so all I have to do with my iPad is actually publish a post out of the inventory on a roughly daily basis. As I write this on July 15 I’m back at my computer scrambling to write the posts from my time in Italy.
Here’w the June 27 iPhone shot:
The First Department
On this day one year ago: Swiss cheese on the hoof
Swiss Cheese on the Hoof
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Walking around midtown today I caught the Metropolitan Club, started by JP Morgan for his Steel Barron clients who were to rough edged for the Union Club.
Metropolitan Club
On this day last year: Maria checks her email.
Maria checks her e-mail
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Straight up in Manhattan. Tried this yesterday and didn’t like the result. Came back today with a different lens and different light. Leica Monochrom and 21mm Super Elmar lens.
On this day last year: Mary Karr.
Butter
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Back in midtown for meetings. A bit of the Racquet Club’s Florentine exterior with Citicorp in the background, taken with my Leica Monochrom and 1959 Dual Range Summicron lens. Two frames stitched.
On this day last year: David Michelek.
David Michalek
NEW YORK NEW YORK – More work on my rephotography class. Today we went to East 100th Street to rephotograph street scenes from Bruce Davidson’s seminal 1970 show at the Museum of Modern Art. Sample images from East 100th Street. This turned out to be difficult because the block that he shot this two-year project in has been thoroughly renovated. Here’s the best effort from the day for me. This is my shot of where 331 West would be today (see the original Davidson image below). Not my best effort – there are a number of obvious mistakes.
Here’s the original – which will give you a fair idea of how much Manhattan north of 96th Street has changed:
Davidson
On this day one year ago: Oak tree.
Major Oak
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I spend a lot of time looking up here. Why don’t more people do this? What you see sometimes amazes. Today “amazes” maybe an overstatement but a not bad image as I was emerging from the subway at 51st Street and Lexington Avenue. Taken with my Leica Monochrom camera and Leica 24mm Summilux lens.
Look up
On this day last year: This would have been better in B&W.
Atriu