BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS – The group that I work with when I’m in Boston visited the USS Constitution and had dinner at the adjacent museum. Here is one of her 32 pounders captured by my iPhone.
Day 1,797 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
On this day two years ago (day 1,067):
NEW YORK NEW YORK – You may remember that a couple of weeks ago (on June 4) I lost my pocket camera, a Sony RX 100 II, and the images recorded on it with near disastrous results. This is the day that my only image was an out-of-focus stairway, one of the crap images of all time. Well the Sony’s replacement, a Sony RX 100 III, has arrived so I’ll be shooting with it for the next week or so to sort out what its capabilities are. Let’s hope that I can hang on to it for a while.
Day 1,712 of one picture every day for the rest of your life.
On this day two years ago (day 982): Zuoz, Switzerland. A real place name from our trip trekking, two years ago, in Switzerland.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A new camera. I’m shooting today with a new Leica, the Leica M, which is the successor to the M9. It’s one of the few in the country at this point. (I sold my M9 a few months back in anticipation of this.) The changes from the M9 are incremental but important. The shutter release is smoother and quieter – very similar to the Leica M3 which set the standard for smooth and discrete. It has better high ISO performance and is weather sealed. It’s a joy to shoot with.
I found my self in Foley Square this afternoon to attend the investiture of a former partner, Lorna Schofield, as a Federal district court judge in the Southern District of New York. A moving ceremony, but I couldn’t photograph it because cameras are not permitted in the courthouse. Outside, in the rain, I found this behind the New York Supreme Court building at 60 Center Street: a statue (evidently of justice) carrying a shield emblazoned with the seal of the State of New York. It’s an odd figure. Her face and posture signal defeat and depression. This is probably why she’s been placed on a little-used walkway behind the courthouse.
On this day last year: Mottled light in early Spring. This is an image from Central Park which was in full bloom on March 27 of last year. This suggests that Spring is more than a little bit late this year – it was cold today and there’s not a sign of a bloom anywhere.
NEW MILFORD CONNECTICUT – I’ve ragged on in the past about what a crap town this is. (For the uninitiated “crap town” is actually a term of art. Follow this link: crap towns.) I decided this Memorial Day to give the town a break and followed a road sign that said “9/11 Memorial”. It led me to a parking lot behind the train station where I found this. Captured with my Leica M9 and Dual Range Summicron, two frames stitched.
On this day one year ago: Rain.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A great day for late fall light. I found myself at Columbus Circle with my Alpa. This was an easy day for me, photographically. The subway image prints at 24×36 nicely and has a vigor that I’m trying to achieve in every image, but actually don’t often realize.
So dear reader, here is my self-portrait from 3:58 AM on February 14, 1999. We’ll come to the end of these soon enough. I generally disapprove of blogs that feature pictures of their creators, but since we got off on the subject of appropriation in art in an earlier post I just thought it would be interesting to post my own examples.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Today we did the sacred and profane on Fifth Avenue. Starting with the sacred I stopped by Marble Collegiate Church, the oldest Protestant congregation in North America and for decades the bully pulpit for Norman Vincent Peal. The Church has a “Payers for Peace” program. The congregation offers prayer for service men and women who have died in Central Asia during the week; yellow ribbons with the names of the departed are attached to the railing around the Church. Here’s a segment of the fence with a statue of Dr. Peal in the background. Images taken with my Leica M9 and a 24mm Summilux lens.
Now the profane. At the 42nd Street Library I spotted the following, which I couldn’t resist:
From my self portrait series taken hourly on February 13, 1999 the image from 8:52 PM. Taken with an Arca Swiss 8×10 view camera.
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.
Another take on the Old Equitable Building taken with my Leica and a 24mm Summilux lens:
8:00 PM February 13, 1999 from my series of hourly self-portraits over a 24-hour period.
