NEW YORK, NEW YORK – We gave a birthday party for our daughter, Francesca. We’ve done this before, actually quite a few times, but they stopped playing pin the tail on the donkey quite a few years ago. I’ve posted a bunch more pictures of this event on my flickr account. Here’s Francesca and her mother, Maria (in her vintage Emilio):
On this day a year ago: New Preston Congregational Church
NEW MILFORD, CONNECTICUT – Here we are back in New Milford, which among it’s other issues, seems to have been swarmed by strip mall developers. But at least there’s handicapped parking. This image is with my 12mm Voigtlander lens on my Leica M9. A 12 mm full frame lens is very wide indeed – let’s not get bogged down in image quality here because it’s a miracle that it forms an image at all. I use a piece of software called Cornerfix that fixes the color shifts and other weirdness that would otherwise be caused by shooting this lens on a digital sensor. No viewfinder is needed. Assume that the frame includes everything.
On this date last year I shot the largest images that I’ve posted here: an infra red four frame stitch of 30 Rock
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Another party: a publishing party at the Pace McGill Gallery celebrating the publication of a translation of Giacomo Leopardi by Jonathan Galassi. Here’s a link to Jonathan’s translation, and another link to a Wikipedia entry on Leopardi. Interestingly when I Googled Jonathan (who’s an old friend – he and my wife think that they went on a blind date in college) the first entry in the drop down menu was about his divorce, which was years ago. Anyway, here’s a picture, taken with my Leica M9 and a 28mm Summicron lens, of literary agent Andrew Wylie. Andrew must be here as a friend such Jonathan doesn’t appear on Andrew Wylie’s client list.
One interesting note about this and the two previous posts is they are from social events – as are the images from one year ago for all three images. This confirms my intuition that we’re overrun with social events at this time of year.
This day a year ago another party (that’s the problem with this time of year): tango demonstration at Edgar and Elie Cullman’s apartment.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Another lunatic day. We gave a dinner party for 10, “auto catered” by me. On top of this November is typically a busy time in my day job (actually round-the-clock) so at a couple of points I’ve been hanging by my fingernails in terms of a daily photograph, and timely posting has suffered. As things ease off a bit I’m catching up on posts. Here is a guest at dinner:
On this date one year ago: Grant Winthrop at an Irving Penn show at the Forbes Gallery
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – We had dinner with some friends of long-standing at Steve Rubin’s.
There has been, by the way, a week’s delay in posting this image. When I get very busy I can bet behind on posting here, but be assured that I am taking a picture every day.
On this date a year ago: Book signing by Patrizia Chen
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Another eventful day. Midday found me in midtown with my Leica M9 and a very wide lens, a 15mm Voitlander. This is similar to an image that I posted last week – Park Avenue – I’ve got quite a few of these that I haven’t posted.
On November 2 last year we went to a book party for our friend Patrizia Chen at The Corner Bookstore: Patrizia tangos
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – We’re planning a dinner party later in the week for which I’ll be cooking so I went to Agata and Valentina to sort out what’s fresh and seasonal. Maria had asked for scaloppine al limone so . . . we’re having scaloppine al limone. The rest of the menu is risotto with mushrooms (I found king oyster, mousseron, black trumpets, chanterelle and of course portobellos), baby zucchini, kale from out garden in Connecticut, and braised pumpkin, and an apricot tart with creme fraise. Here are some vegetables (mostly Treviso) in the market, taken with my Leica M9 and a 28mm Summicron lens.
Interestingly, maybe ironically, on this date one year ago we gave a dinner party featuring . . . mushrooms. Last year it was the mushrooms that I brought back from a trip to the Willamette Valley in Oregon: Mushroom dinner.
I’m going to try a similar picture Thursday night hoping that it can be more interesting.
