It snowed today, the earliest New York has received at least an inch of snow in recorded weather history. I’d write more but honestly, not much else really need be said. Besides, after a night out (like a little bit of snow is gonna stop anyone) I’m in dire need of some thawing out.
It’s raining out. Despite the fact that she isn’t even here yet, Irene has officially taken hold of New York City. Stores stripped bare, the streets so empty you’d think the Ascension had happened while you were napping. At home and bored, listening to the rain pelt the streets outside, I decided to hop into a ZipCar and do a little cruising.
I had another shoot just last night, this time with a coworker and friend who wanted some good photos of herself. We had planned on hopping over to a park and getting some nice fun little shots in the sun. The weather, however, had other ideas, for which I’m eternally grateful.
Photography can be a pretty expensive endeavor, especially when you’re still starting out and slowly building your arsenal. “Do what you can with what you’ve got” becomes your mantra, and “DIY” quickly joins your panoply of other photography acronyms. My little in-home studio won’t work very well for more than one person, and living with a roommate means that I have to set and strike it whenever I need to use it (rather than just keep it up 24/7), but for what it is, it does a pretty good job. And for one-person shoots, it performs admirably.
Like most people who grew up outside of the States, I grew up with a very specific view of the country that lead the world, which I developed through exposure to its greatest export, popular culture. The only difference was that my view was time-shifted by a few decades. And while I recognized that America was made up of fifty states that were home to millions of people living in thousands of cities, it only ever came down to one of them: New York.
Jack Frost isn’t done having his fun with the Northeast, it seems, and has decided to give it to New York for a little longer. Naturally, this meant I was compelled to run outside with my camera
and shoot the same damn things, all over again. Three snowfalls, three sets of photos from the same park. And I already used up my Waxing Philosophical card on the last one, so that’s out.
Chuck and Julie are two of my favorite people around. I have friends I’ve known longer or friends I know on deeper levels, but when it comes to just simple, unadulterated (keyword unadult) fun, Chuck and Julie are a tough act to follow.
In my last entry, one of the photos I posted was of the benches along the East River. I loved the shot, but one thing bugged me—the wire fencing to the right of the image. It broke the whole “pattern of repeating elements” aspect to the photo. If I had just moved up two benches, I’d have had no distractions from the seemingly-infinite line of benches and railing. Problem was, I didn’t notice it until long after I’d processed and uploaded the photo; there was nothing I could do about it. I determined to go out and re-shoot the scene after the next decent snowfall. To get it right.
I think perhaps New Yorkers’ unflappability might be born in part of their disdain for tourists. Out-of-towners gawk. New Yorkers, worldly wise and having seen it all, simply go about their business. And while there might be some merit to not gaping wide-eyed at every little thing you see, if you spend all your time walking around in a cloud of disaffectation you’re gonna miss out on a lot of the fun stuff.
