Shadow of Empire

Sounds like some kind of online multiplayer roleplaying game that title…
Anyhoo, barring a radical change the number of times I upload pix, this’ll be one of the last photos from NYC in this blog that has been variously:

Mostly Mexico
From Mexico to (Ala)meda
From Mexico to Multnomah
From Mexico to Maine
From Mexico to Manhattan

and soon to be ‘From Mexico to Salt Lake City, Utah’ or a variation thereof. Thank you for your continued patronage, looking forward to sharing the Utah landscape with y’all 🙂

Gearing up for xmas in NYC

but still no snow. Can’t be far away now.

I like the reflection of the Manhattanery in the bauble and the reflection of Radio City on the water. I don’t like the blurred bit where the xmas tree is in the background; it’s ‘cos of a scratched patch on my kit lens, which any day now will cease to be a problem thanks to amazon.com 🙂

Flatiron Building, NYC

From Wikipedia: “The Flatiron Building, or Fuller Building as it was originally called, is located at 175 Fifth Avenue in the borough of Manhattan, and is considered to be one of the first skyscrapers ever built. Upon completion in 1902 it was one of the tallest buildings in New York City.”

And now I have captured its soul… mua hahaha, etc.

Prospect Park, Brooklyn

Me and the good doctor finally left Manhattan island for a bit on Sunday. Turns out we’re in the middle of “fall”. I can understand why people would live in Brooklyn. Sunlight gets to the street at times other than midday and they’ve got a lovely park. This here one has had a fair bit of post-processing, I was aiming for a watercoloury, vintage look and am happy with the result.

Trompe le monde

Having a video on the homepage is more hassle than it’s worth, so here’s one to replace it from Sunday’s early morning walkabout in Soho (which stands for South of Houston, as I’m sure you already knew).

Bleecker to 54th

Today’s pic (or, rather at my current publication rate… this month’s pic) is one that moves. Unless you’re viewing it in your email inbox… in which case please click here. I stopped at every road crossing and took a quick snap, along the route above, on the way to meet a friend I hadn’t seen since about 1990. Music’s the ever-wonderful Catatonia…

Late night snack

On Sunday evening we thought 8pm would be a good time to hit Trader Joe’s and beat the crowds before going to the cinema to catch The Social Network… Nope. TJ’s had two queues for the tills starting at the entrance. Then the the 8.15 showing was sold out. Union Square is not like Cooks Corner, Brunswick, ME… Anyway, we had a pair of pints instead. I had my camera with me so it wasn’t an entirely wasted trip and as you might have heard Atticus is holidaying at his grandparents’ for the forseeable future so there was no rush to get back home.

Matey here’s organisin’ his sauces. Not on Flickr yet… this is a sneak preview for you, dear email subscriber.

Places to be

From another photo meet-up in Chinatown, this time a lot more low-key, just 10 or so people, which wasn’t quite so overwhelming for the locals. My new technique is sitting at the side of the road and just taking shots as they occur. Which has about a 5% success rate, but I’m a lot more comfortable with that than rushing up to victims and stealing their souls… One day there’ll be a meet up that isn’t in Chinatown.

Park after dark

This one was a serendipitous shot. After having to take Atticus round the dog park in Washington Square the sun had all but set and there was a taxi with its lights on full beam shining right through the other denizens of the area, the manual settings from the dog park were still dialled in and this is the resulting photo.

Triple Deck

I went on a photo meetup on Saturday- intro to street photography. I didn’t learn a huge amount, but it was a new area of town and nice folks. Travelling with a pack of paparazzi emboldens (if that’s a word) you to step out of your comfort zone a bit and take closer shots of folks. Here’s some folks playing cards in Chinatown on a balmy afternoon.

New York, New York

10 days in and I’ve finally got round to updating this blog. Managing a curious schipperke and a pentax with manual focus in the big city is proving harder than I though.

Here’s a pic from a block from where we’ll be living for the forseeable future.