Pregled posta

Marketing

The caption that I put on this photo is actually pretty accurate: this guy was standing on top of a subway grate in Verdi Square, and a blast of hot air whooshed up through the grating. He pulled his shirt up to get some of the hot air to warm his skin ... which makes more sense when you realize that it was a fairly chilly day, and he was only wearing a t-shirt.

When all of this finished, he shuffled backward a few feet, sat on the stone bench that runs along the edge of Verdi Square, and pulled out a huge cigar and began puffing away...

New York is full of all kinds of oddball people...


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This is the continuation of a photo-project that I began in the summer of 2008: a random collection of "interesting" people in a broad stretch of the Upper West Side of Manhattan -- between 72nd Street and 104th Street, especially along Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.

As I indicated when I started this project in 2008, I don't like to intrude on people's privacy, so I normally use a telephoto lens in order to photograph them while they're still 50-100 feet away from me; but that means I have to continue focusing my attention on the people and activities half a block away, rather than on what's right in front of me.

I've also learned that, in many cases, the opportunities for an interesting picture are very fleeting -- literally a matter of a couple of seconds, before the person(s) in question move on, turn away, or stop doing whatever was interesting. So I've learned to keep the camera switched on (which contradicts my traditional urge to conserve battery power), and not worry so much about zooming in for a perfectly-framed picture ... after all, once the digital image is uploaded to my computer, it's pretty trivial to crop out the parts unrelated to the main subject.

Thus far, I've generally avoided photographing bums, drunks, crazies, and homeless people. There are a few of them around, and they would certainly create some dramatic pictures; but they generally don't want to be photographed, and I don't want to feel like I'm taking advantage of them. I'm still looking for opportunities to take some "sympathetic" pictures of such people, which might inspire others to reach out and help them. We'll see how it goes ...

The only other thing I've noticed, thus far, is that while there are lots of interesting people to photograph, there are far, far, far more people who are not so interesting. They're probably fine people, and they might even be more interesting than the ones I've photographed ... but there was just nothing memorable about them.

I met her in the elevator early Friday morning. As the elevator was crowded, I couldn't just snap a picture of her so I asked if I could take a photo later. She said, "Sure!" and told me what booth she was working at and I got a photo later on Friday afternoon.

I love this shirt as 1) it contradicts ideologies and 2) it's funny as hell because of the message and the look on the fish's face. *laughs*

Unfortunately, I've put myself on a "No Black T-Shirt" diet for a bit (as almost all of my T-shirts are now black and has gotten past the point of ridiculousness) so I didn't buy one. But I was *so* tempted to. :-(