Big City, Small City

January 2010

Amadu stopped me in the street one day in January, and began talking to me. After a few minutes, I realized that he is a local celebrity. He talks with half the people that pass him by, and works all over the neighborhood. Even though I have left Chinatown, I try to come by and hang out with Amadu for a little while each time I'm around. It is beginning to become ritual, to talk about how nobody else helps to keep the street clean, the neighborhood, work, change. Amadu also poses for tourists as the Statue of Liberty. I took a picture of him 14 months ago, before we became friends. I was stunned when I realized this, since New York City can seem so big sometimes, and then again so small.

Small, yet personal relationships are beginning to have an impact on my photography. Usually I take the "grab and go" approach to taking photographs of people on the street, avoiding all personal interaction. It has been a new experience for me to make a connection before I bring out the camera, that establishment of trust that takes the right moment to ask for a picture. It wouldn't matter if Amadu had said no, but in fact I couldn't get him to just be natural and not pose! His interaction with the camera was almost mechanical for him. Striking peace signs, sweeping at half speed, and making sure we were in good light for the portrait.

Confetti everywhere

Yesterday was the Chinese New Year Parade in New York City, and I found myself photographing mostly children and people enjoying the parade, rather than the parade itself.  "Confetti everywhere" is all I could think, all I could seem to photograph all day.  Most of the enjoyment it seemed came from popping confetti tubes, which showered the streets and onlookers, covering the pavement with a pinkish, liquid mass.  It was a lot of fun, but once I got myself in the mind of a child, I began to enjoy the whole thing much more.  I would be curious, if anyone could tally a figure, of how many of those confetti shooters were used yesterday.

Big ups to the New York City sanitation workers who cleaned house after the parade.  They were working the moment the last float turned down Mott and Canal, and this morning is the cleanest I have seen Chinatown... for the entire year I have lived there!

Trash, everywhere

You remember that snow, that blizzard that hit New York just after Christmas?  The city slowed down to a halt, and there was only quiet whisper of cars over the muffled blankets of snow.  It was beautiful, for a day or two, and quite charming to be knee deep in soft powder.  That fun has worn off, has shed its beauty, and now a week's worth of trash has piled up even higher than the forecast accumulation.  I guess the sanitation department has some catching up to do.

A day in the life between two bridges.  Sometimes it is all white smiles and clean sheets... but sometimes everything is covered in a bed of filth.  God, I love New York.

One more thing. Happy New Year! May it be more photographic than the last!

Fun with fisheye

Got to borrow a lens from a friend for some fisheye fun.  This market is under the Manhattan Bridge, and I suggest anyone who likes to take street shots to come down here in the morning for great light.  If you can't make it before the sun swings west, wait till a bit after dark for some HUGE piles of cardboard left overs.  All the produce boxes are bundled into huge stacks that sometimes get 10ft tall by 25ft long. 

Colored pig flesh

Decided I wanted to think about these in color more than I wanted to see them in black and white. Lisa saw them before the conversion to black and white, and wanted to see the skin tones of the pigs to show through. Might be realizing I'm not much of a black and white photographer.

Open Wide

The first couple weeks of being back have been a transition, as I said. Step out the door, and I am hit with the familiar, but powerful smells of the neighborhood. It was almost choking down under the Manhattan Bridge. During the winter, the transition of living here into the spring and then beginning of summer, I had time to acclimate to the sounds and smells on the streets. Thrown back into it, I am struggling to keep my balance.



I may move in the coming months, but what will I do when my favorite subject is no longer also the place that I live? Living the transition, I will lightly weather back to the usual smells of the New York City streets. I miss walking out the door to a "normal" set of smells and sights, less garbage maybe. What is the overall price we pay to live here, clustered, stacked on one another? I love New York.