NEW YORK NEW YORK – Technically a grim day today. A friend invited me up to a terrace off his his 20th floor Park Avenue office today to shoot. I arrived an found that I had left the CD card out of my Leica, so I managed a few shots with my iPhone. I don’t often screw up like this – I always (actually almost always) take a test shot and check the state of batteries and CD cards before I leave home. But not today.
Day 2561 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – October 16, 2014 is the fifth anniversary of “One Photograph Every Day for the Rest of My Life.” 1,827 days. Without a miss. This is the first day of year six.
In documenting this long-term project online I’ve reached an audience that would have been impossible in a pre-digital era. I tweet images daily (the same ones that I post here). Woody’s Twitter feed. I passed a major milestone last week: more than 50,000 Twitter followers.
Needless to say I’ve learned a lot in five years. I’m working with an editor to explore threads looking to develop future shows. Over the next year I’ll begin selling prints of the most successful images.
On the first day of this project, October 16, 2009, I shot the Jean Dubuffet sculpture “Four Trees” at One Chase Manhattan Plaza. In retrospect the composition looks contrived (actually all compositions are contrived, aren’t they) but I’m stuck with this as image #1 forever. I went back and reviewed the 10/16/2009 shoot; the image that I posted was the only shot that I took of the Dubuffet (which is mad). Here’s a three frame stitch from the same day that I now find more interesting:
Day one
So let’s celebrate the anniversary with a gallery of what I found today on revisiting One Chase Manhattan Plaza (the Dubuffet is still there):
NEW YORK NEW YORK -I read a glowing review of the World Trade Center Memorial in the New York Review of Books so I made a reservation and made the trek down there. It’s huge. The memorial is the foundations of the two towers – recessed (by 50 feet or so) pools where the foundations were. Water cascades down the four sides of the foundations holes to the pools. The water disappears into black square holes in the center of the pools. The falling theme is powerful given the context. The central hole evokes a grave. The names of all of the 9/11 victims were cut into the railing around the pools. The Memorial owes a lot to Maya Lin and at the same time is totally unique. Images taken with my Leica M9 and a 12mm Voigtlander lens and 24mm Summilux lens.
World Trade Center MemorialWorld Trade Center MemorialWorld Trade Center Memorial
Another take on the Old Equitable Building taken with my Leica and a 24mm Summilux lens:
Old Equitable Building
8:00 PM February 13, 1999 from my series of hourly self-portraits over a 24-hour period.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I explored downtown with my Leica after some meetings today. Here’s the Old Equitable Building, Thames Street, a block from the Occupy Wall Street protests. Taken with my Leica M9 and 90mm lens. Four frames stitched.
Old Equitable Building, Thames St.
Here’s my self portrait from 7:03 PM on February 13, 1999:
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – This is a daily photo blog. I’m posting one image each day from now until I run out of space on my server. The “each day” refers to when the photograph is taken. Uploads will happen whenever I have the time.
On October 16 I had a meeting in the Wall Street area. Afterwords I wandered in the rain over to One Chase Manhattan Plaza. Still an impressive urban space even though the bank is no longer an independent entity. There is a Jean Dubuffet sculpture called “Four Trees” – a half dozen tourists were hanging around it snapping with their iPhones.
