Brooklyn Bridge with the lights on
String of Pearls
Tag Archives: nyc
Drummer Boy
Holiday decorations around Rockefeller Center in NYC
Fortitude in the Snow
The lion Fortitude at the NYC Public Library after a snowfall.
The 2 lions at the NY Public Library have been called the most beloved pieces of public art in the city. Their names are Patience and Fortitude. This is a portrait of Fortitude the morning after a snowfall that paralyzed the area. It doesn’t look like a lot of snow but it hit the airports hard and our flight out was pushed back by more than a week.
Williamsburg Bridge
Fuji RAP, f11 (?), 1 sec. exposure in available light, using Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner. Camera stabilized on walkway/surface of bridge. Slide in folio is original film.
Cycling over the Williamsburg bridge to visit someplace in Brooklyn, I took interest in the elaborate riveted steel trusswork along the way. It was very cold, and I had no tripod. I placed the camera on ground and tried to stabilize it with a pocket knife acting as a shim to get the angle. Aim and thus composition was guesswork. I would have wanted a longer exposure/smaller aperture, but the rig was shaky, so I dared not. Luckily, it was wintertime, so the traffic was light, and I was not reported to the TSA or other anti-terrorist authorities as a person of suspicion – it’s sad what one has to be afraid of these days.
Arthouse 2
This is the living room of the Arthouse, a bed and breakfast where I stay whenever I’m in New York (unless they are booked up). They do no advertising and let their rooms out only to artists that have been personally introduced through friends. So it’s a bit exclusive, I guess… There are five rooms of various sizes, and 2.5 baths that the guests share.
Every morning, breakfast is included, and one typically finds guests from overseas, often from Germany or nearby central 
European countries, Spain, Mexico, or other countries in South America. Sometimes the guests are so interesting, you hardly need to see the rest of the city. I stay there once or twice a month, because I have a part-time job driving a coach bus to and from NYC from Charlottesville. I always bring my bicycle.
Fuji RXP, f16 (?), 1 sec. exposure in available light, using Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner. Camera stabilized by holding up against a wall. Slide in folio is original film.
Bike Works NYC
This is a great little bike shop in SoHo that I discovered years ago while shopping for some esoteric bike parts online. They have a fabulous web page with lots of fun historical content, plus galleries of unusual bikes they’ve had in their shop (see this page showing some of my bikes). My city bike, pictured at the lower left of the view (black frame, 20″ wheels), is in their web galleries as well. This view is of their “showroom” and counter – an area about 10 x 15 ft. 
To obtain this exposure, I held the camera upside down against the door frame above my head, shimmed a bit with a bicycle cog under the front edge of the camera (I couldn’t bring a tripod on my bike). I took numerous pictures this way, bracketting my exposures.
Kodak E200, f16, 8s exposure, Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner. original slide.
Play The Building
David Byrne rigged up this industrial space in NYC with numerous actuators – hammers, motors and similar vibration inducing devices – attached to columns, radiators, roof trusses, etc. Visitors to the installation can sit down at the old organ keyboard, where from they “play the building”. The music/sounds thus created, in combination with the space are very mesmerizing. I was there on two occasions. Once nearly empty (I got to play!), the second time with Spud, very crowded. The effect was different each time, interesting both times.
Above: Fuji RXP, f11 (?), 1-2 sec. exposure in available light, using Sputnik, 80mm lenses.
This is the original slide shot in summer of 2008.
The organ was modified to send signals via electric or pneumatic lines to the various actuators. The music was essentially percussive: lots of clinks and clanks. Only the electric motors near the ceiling, in the trusswork under the skylight, produced “tone” – a dark, rumbling, droning tone.
Right: Fuji RXP, f11 (?), 1/8 sec. Exposure in available light, using Sputnik, 80mm lenses. This is the original slide.