Infrared - of course.  I miss my camera. 

There’s one incident in New York (I think it was New York) that I can’t get out of my mind - and that’s the guard at a Walmarts that was trampled to death by a crowd looking for bargains on Black Friday.  They call it Black Friday because that’s when the retailers are supposed to get into the black ink; but the obvious irony of Christmas shoppers killing a man gives Black Friday an awful connotation.  It made me think about my own Christmas experiences.

We were brought up in a pretty left-wing Jewish household, where the idea of religion being the opiate of the masses was taken seriously.  Nevertheless, my younger sister loved Christmas - and although my parents weren’t crazy about it, they allowed her to set up a small Christmas tree every year; and we all bought Christmas presents for each other.

We had to hide the tree when my grandparents came by.  We hid a lot of things when they came by.  My father’s favorite food was ham.  It still is.  We ate bacon whenever we could.  (I still do.)  And so the whole relgious thing was a hodgepodge for us.  My grandparents would stop by and give us Hanukah gelt - which is a small amount of money; and when the holidays coincided, we’d have a menorah burning in the kitchen on the washing machine; and the small tree with candy canes and glittery stuff in the living room. 

I remember one year, when my Irish neighbors gave us a big cooked ham which took up most of the fridge.  My father’s parents made an unexpected visit, and while my sister was hiding the tree, my father was running around the house looking for a spot to stash the giant ham.  He ended up putting it - unwrapped -  on the kitchen fire-escape.  Then closed the kitchen curtains.  We had breakfast with my grandparents at the kitchen table with the ham on the fire-escape.  I remember taking a peek at it to discover that two pigeons were pecking away at it.  My dad got his parents out of the kitchen; I got the big ham inside, and ended up hiding it under the Christmas tree in my darkroom.  The apartment had two bathrooms, and the second one was my darkroom, and the place to hide stuff in.  So as you can see - photography and relgion have always been connected for me.

Something from a Beatle song when I see this… “Good mornin’, Good mornin’, Good Mornin’” and the sound of a rooster crowing.  And also Robin Williams!

At the nexus, plexus, and sexus of the bridges.

p.s. I’m moving the images around in the photo store… so don’t freak if you see a bunch of missing images tonight.  DB

1991 - View Camera.  I used one of the wooden Wistas back then.  That’s what I used for Poets Walk, Night Storm, Subway Car Interior and a few others that are in the store all these years.  It was called a field camera, but the front of the thing really did blow in the breeze and you had to be careful with long exposures. 

I do wonder these days what would happen if you took it into Grand Central and put a black cloth over your head.  I imagine swat teams would swarm on you from all directions.  I doubt that anyone these days can imagine what it was like to take the thing into a subway car on a tripod and shoot with it - which I did.  (The empty subway car shot) for one; but I have many others where the cars are filled with passengers.  I suspect that even in those days - you had to be a bit cracked in the head to do that.

I do remember getting one ticket from a cop when I did the shot of the arches in the entrance of Grand Central Station.  Yes, you could get a permit - and sometimes I would do that - but they were restrictive in that they always wanted you to fill in the time you would be shooting and the exact location.  There was a little office in Grand Central where you could get the permit.  Maybe it’s still there.

As I write the date of the picture, I realize that many of the blog readers weren’t even born when this shot was taken and in a few years - young photographers will only know the digital world.  I’m sure there will be as many good digital photographers as there were good film photographers - I don’t think the percentage of creative shots will change and that it’s always a bell curve.  Just something to think about I guess.

I’m still going through my old view camera work looking for shots to put in the store. Man, that was some lens. Rodenstock something, maybe a 75mm?  There’s an overpass, halfway into the shot and you can easily read the sign.  You can make out lamps and a couple of armchairs in the windows on the right side.

On my third trip to Sedona, I rented a Jeep (I think it was a Jeep) and wandered around until towards the end of the day I found this cow pasture. I put the tripod up on the roof of the car, and took a couple of shots as a storm approached. Each time I visited Sedona I went with a different camera. The first trip (the Rock of Ages Church) I did with the view camera.

Second trip with the Pentax 67. And this was done with the Contax G2.

While I was on this trip I got a flat, and couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to get the spare tire off the back of the car. A guy - maybe he was the owner wandered by - and sizing me up as a city slicker had pity on me and helped me detach the spare and replace the flat.

I was always getting into trouble on that last trip. Too cocky. I kept going up and down this really rough road and got a second flat. This time I knew how to change it; but the road - I can’t remember the exact name but it was something like Danger Road - was too narrow for some of the larger SUVs to pass me, and after a while I caused a traffic jam in Sedona and this time some sort of ranger guy helped me with the spare.

I don’t know - a bunch of other stuff happened. I stepped on a snake. Once I almost bumped into two bear cubs. Nature - nature scared me.

The scariest time was when I went to an ancient Indian site - and standing by the rubble - I could look out in all directions and not see a single person. Absolutely terrifying. I remember standing there just wondering what would happen if… all sorts of spooky stuff went through me mind.

Eventually, a load of tourists piled out of a bus and I felt a little better. But the idea of being so isolated, even if it was only for an hour or so - well - that did unhinge me. I’m guessing that people who are used to that sort of thing get nervous when you jam them into a subway car.

2008. During the winter, at around 3:00, this light reflects from a condo window onto the sign. These tidbits of confluence interest me. I can’t attribute any meaning to it; but nevertheless I have a collection of shots of this sign taken when the shadow of the window frame splits the sign in half.  Maybe it’s my personal urban sundial.

The sign is hand-painted. Viewing it at full size I can see the paint strokes, and some corrections. Maybe it reminds me of the work my grandfather did. I know that for several years he worked as a sign-painter. I used to watch him sometimes, with that stick to rest his painting arm on. He came here from Russia where he played oboe in the Moscow symphony orchestra.  I guess the sign works because I’ve never seen a parked car in the driveway.

Happy holidays.

Somebody had a vision, or a command to build a church in this unlikely place.  But there were a lot of unlikely things in Sedona before influx of tourists.  Back then, it was a big new-age place with lots of magic circles, and power spots.  I sat on many a vortex in my life, but these were powerful.  I had visions and heard angels singing.  The last voice I remember hearing was the motel manager who said that it was time for me to head back to New York.

But seriously - there are a few places that I visited repeatedly and Sedona was one of them.  Everyone I met had arrived there with previous high-powered careers and were selling trinkets or magic sticks to the tourists.  I brought back a hand-carved magic stick that was made by a former engineer from Australia, and I still have it wedged into a corner of my apartment.  Once in a while I’ll pick it up and bang on the steampipes for more steam. 

The fourth time I went back, the place really was overrun with RVs and the same tourists I see in the city, and the magic had all evaporated.

I have to admit - that no matter how far I travel - and no matter how I try to convince myself that this is a better way of life - I’m not really comfortable until I see the lights of the city in the distance.