Sunny came home with a vengeance

18 01 2024

It was too cold to go out shooting today, so here’s a shot I took about a month ago—inside.

My friend M. has moved back to the city. She and I were tight in high school, in intermittent contact college through grad school and post-doc, and then lost touch after I moved to New York. It was hard for her: she loved New York and had never wanted to leave, so me living here, well, it was hard for her.

(I know this because she told me. She felt bad, but I understood: I missed Montreal so much when I left that any mention of it was painful. Hell, I still miss Montreal.)

But the reason she left was reversed, so she returned, and I am delighted not only to have her back in my life, but to have her living a short subway ride away.

And she wants to do stuff! I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been veering off my work-home path to try to make my life as big as this city, so, even though I am crabby and inertial, her invitations provide some oomph to that desire to go big.

And not just big. M has been taking some courses at Gotham Writers Workshop and become friends with some of the other workshoppers; this in turn has led to her initiating her own writing group, and inviting me to participate.

This, too, is in line with another desire of mine: my heretofore not-at-all-successful attempts to revive my creative writing. We met this past Tuesday (I had only my ears to contribute this time) and decided to keep meeting weekly. I initially balked at the weekly, but thought, Terri, do you actually want to write or do you just want to wish you wrote? It might end up being too much, but what the hell, why not stretch.

So, thanks, M. In getting back your life you’re helping me get back mine.


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Categories : Modern thought(less)

And if I listen in, I hear my own heart beating

11 01 2024

I’ve mentioned that I had (still have) an Olympus OM-4; I bought it used from a Daily Cardinal friend and once in hand, just started taking pictures.

I’ve been more cautious with the XT-4, and for no good reason. I got the camera because I thought my life had become too small, and I wanted something that had nothing to do with work or politics. I took up ceramics in grad school, and got to the point of “not half-bad”, but the problem with throwing pots is that. . . you end up with a lot of pots. Since I already had some experience with photography (including developing and printing film), I went with that, instead.

Photography also has the advantage of getting me off my ass and out of my apartment—and, importantly, to pay attention to my surroundings. (I still walk and look around, but that’s mostly at night and, honestly, mostly for exercise.) There’s so much to see in this city, and I spend a lot of time not seeing it.

Relatedly, I’ve gotten in the habit of, at least once a week, getting oot and aboot in the city (the shots above and below were from today’s jaunt in downtown Brooklyn and DUMBO). I don’t often take my camera—during the semester I’m getting off the train on my way back from the Bronx, and my backpack is heavy enough without the camera—but I am trying, again, to pay attention.

For example, I was recently in the Met (which is pay-what-you-wish for NYC residents) and zipping through a section on European painting on my way to the American wing when I caught a portrait and thought, Huh, is that, uh, whatshisname? I kept going, then realized that that was, indeed, Rembrandt. I was surrounded by Rembrandts.

For Chrissakes, I snipped at myself, You can’t just zip by Rembrandt.

So I stopped, and turned around, and slowly worked my way around the room. I tend toward 20th century works, but, man, Rembrandt and Vermeer really do it for me. I don’t really have the words and really don’t have the knowledge of art or art history, but I do know when something stands me still. (Oddly, I’ll say that such works ‘move me’, but really, they stop me.) The light, and the shadows. . . I can almost hear these portraits breathe.

I did eventually end up in the American section, only to hurry through it; another time.

One more thing: all of this is a means of trying both to see and see beneath this city, to claim it as mine. I’ve been here coming up on 18 years, and while I’ve spent time in every borough—even Staten Island!—and know a fair amount about the skin of the place, I’ve barely dipped into the blood and the bones.

You gotta hustle to survive this joint; while I haven’t perfected the hustle, I am surviving. That’s not nothing, but, as ever, there must be something more.


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Categories : Modern thought(less), Photos & art

Right here, right now

3 01 2024

New year, but no resolutions: I keep saying “I’m gonna do this. . .” and keep not-doing whatever it is.

So I’m just going to try to do, and see what happens.

I have done some things: I’m slowly getting to know my camera. I’m less intimidated by it than I was initially, but there are basic things about my XT4 that I’m still messing up. Some of these errors could be fixed in post-production, but a) that would require me to learn post (I currently have GIMP) and b) I’d really prefer to get the photos right at the source.

And oh ho ho, am I far from getting things right at the source. I’m currently working in manual mode: I bought the camera without a lens, instead buying an adapter for my favorite 23-85mm lens from my old Olympus. I like having the control (even if I’m screwing up) and, honestly, the auto-everything was too much. I am looking at an 18-55mm auto-lens, but, again, I feel like I have to get better with the set-up I have before trying to expand beyond it.

Anyway, far-from-right: I screwed up the ISO for. . . awhile, because I thought the sensitivity tuner was, in fact, the “film” speed. I’d repeatedly nudge the button from single-shot to burst-mode without knowing I’d done it and not know how to fix. (I started carrying the manual with me after the second time this happened.) The XT4 allows me to choose film “type” and I’d choose the wrong one—tho’, to be fair, this is inherently a trial-and-error issue. And I haven’t used the exposure compensation dial at all. At least I could work the f-stops.

I’m also still working on my “eye”. I’m not useless when it comes to framing a shot, but what I can do is pretty basic. And I’ve mostly failed when it comes to getting the contrasts right.

Still, the great advantage of digital is that I can take a lot of shots I suspect will be throwaways without having to worry that I’m wasting film. I appreciate the discipline that film provided when I first started taking pictures, but I also appreciate the freedom to take the same shot with different settings.

So, for example, I took this one in Prospect Park, and it’s. . . fine:

I got the reflection, but the colors of the land and trees was dull. I adjusted the ISO and got this:

It’s a mite dark, but more visually interesting. It captures more of the detail of the trees and leaves, which in turn creates a better contrast to the reflection.

You can see a similar dynamic with the next two shots: one slightly brighter and duller, the other darker and starker:

I prefer the stark.

I won’t bore you with more shitty/less-shitty shots; but let’s end on a not-great one of my kitty, because: kitty!


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Categories : Photos & art

In this city

13 04 2023

Ah, I said I was going to try to post more . . . and months have past since I’ve done so.

It’s not that I don’t have things to say, but that I am out of the habit of saying.

So I’ll show, instead. My photography skills are still rudimentary and while I have opened GIMP I haven’t actually done anything with it, so all of the photos, below, are as I took them.

A college friend was in town recently and we walked all over lower Manhattan, the LES and the East Village. I thought I had covered that area pretty well on previous walks, but then we came upon this skater park, tucked under the Manhattan Bridge.

This was the first thing I saw, and I knew I had to go back and shoot it and the rest of the park. And so I did.

Neither this nor what follows are very good—not only am I working on my “eye”, I’m still getting used to everything the camera can do—but this was such a great place to train myself, and hey, gotta start somewhere.

I like black and white, but the color is so much a part of the graffiti that I think it works better; that said, I think once I get better I’ll figure out how to make this work in B&W.

Similarly:

I think I know what I did wrong with the B&W, but, like I said, at this point I’m treating this all as practice.

And what a place to practice. Honestly, I find this one of the most beautiful places I’ve come across in New York City. I can’t wait to come back when the light is slanting through and there are more skaters; I can’t wait until I’m confident enough to shoot the skaters.

Okay, a few more, this time toggling back and forth between B&W and sepia. When I first got my camera and saw that sepia was an option I thought Bah! and dismissed it as fake-old, a simulacra. But then I thought, What the hell, let’s see what it does.

No clear winner, here; I’m not crazy about the exposure for either pic.

The first is too light; the second, too dark.

Not sure the sepia adds anything here, either.

But it does work for this:

And for this one:

Although, again, the exposure is off, as the top is too light and the bottom perhaps a smidge too dark.

I do prefer higher contrast, which tends to be more apparent in darker photos, and sharper to softer images. Again, with practice both my eye and my camera skills should improve.

And what a gift that I live in this city: I can shoot and fail and know, following Beckett, that I can go back and shoot again, fail again, fail better.


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And I said “shit!”

16 10 2017

I happily saw shit on Saturday.

Well, I didn’t see “shit”, per se; instead, I saw what happens to shit at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. C. had gotten tickets for a tour via OpenHouse New York, one of those nifty freebies available to New Yorkers which I always think I should do! and then forget to do. C did not forget.

The tour started with a lecture by an assistant director at the plant, during which he talked about the process by which water and waste makes it way to the plant, how garbage (whatever happened to fall into sewers) gets removed, what happens when its (BABY WIPES) are not and how non-removed trash (BABY WIPES) gum up the works and makes him very unhappy.

Guys, baby wipes in the toilet are bad. DON’T FLUSH BABY WIPES.

The wastewater is then cycloned and centrifuged and filtered and munched on by aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, biosolids (including food waste) is shunted off for re-use, and the 95%-clean water is piped into the East River. The assistant director (who hates BABY WIPES) pointed out that, not to brag or anything, but the EPA only requires 85%-clean.

Anyway, the lecture was good and informative and he had props of the water at various stages, but, really, we were there for the Digesters Eggs.

These babies:

There are two sets of four, and they sent us up to the top, 10 at a time, in a verrrrrry slow elevator.

The view was lovely:

I thought it might stink, but, really, it didn’t. There were portholes at the top through which you could look at the churning water, but absent a leak around these seals (which, okay, one or two of the eggs had leaky seals), nothin’.

I don’t know what these are, but you can see get a sense of how huge this site is:

This was and is a highly industrialized area of Brooklyn: Newtown Creek itself is hella polluted from over a century of industry, and goddess only knows what’s in the ground. Given that pollution is the ultimate anti-gentrifier, the area hasn’t been overtaken by lofts and hipster bars; instead, there are metal recycling businesses across the street from the plant, and National Grid (gas) has facilities in the area.

In fact, National Grid is in the early stages of building its own facility on the plant to capture, process, and use the methane produced via the Digester Eggs. Sustainability, baby!

The plant does try to capture and reuse the methane for its own power purposes, but their storage is limited; further, the bladder inside a storage facility had collapsed, so it was being flamed-off, here:

It was all very cool, and C and I agreed that it would be great if she (who’s finishing an environmental science degree) got a job here.

I know, most visitors to New York never leave Manhattan, and, honestly, that’s fine! There’s lots to see in Manhattan!

But Manhattan is onstage, and as much as I thought when younger that I wanted an onstage life, I have come to appreciate the gears of backstage. And it really doesn’t get more backstage than waste treatment.


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Shine a little light

11 09 2017

Last year, I didn’t go out to look at the lights.

They’re visible from the grounds of my building, two thin, blurred beams towering up through the night, disappearing into the beyond. All I have to do is walk down a few flights of stairs, across the lobby, out the door, angle a look left and up, and there they are.

I haven’t seen them every year since I’ve been in New York; in fact, I don’t know if I saw them before I moved to my current apartment. Maybe? I don’t know.

Anyway, I wasn’t here when it happened, didn’t know anyone (at the time) directly affected; those who I know who were here will talk about it, if prompted, but none of them will volunteer the memory. It’s personal.

It sometimes seems fake for me to claim those two lights as mine, to think that there’s anything to my witness of this annual rite. But I felt bad, last year, for not going out. Here or not, mine or not, it seemed disrespectful not to remember, especially since that remembrance costs me so little.

So, tonight, I took the short walk down and out, looked left and up, and there they were, grayer here and brighter there as they passed through the clouds and up into the beyond, farther than those of us on the ground can see.


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Categories : Musing

Drifting this way and that

17 07 2017

These days I’m floating, a bit askew, a few inches from the ground.

I can touch down when I need to—when I have to teach or work my second job—but other than that, I’m untethered from the world.

This has been going on for awhile. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s not, well, it’s not much of anything. Better than bone-crushing anxiety or quaking depression, a slow dissolve ends in sorrow, nonetheless.

I noted a coupla’ posts ago that I don’t know if I’ll remain in New York, if I can afford to stay here, but as real as the financial questions are, the really real issue is that I don’t feel really real. I’m not quite here.

Brooklyn, Chicago, if I’m not, here, I won’t be, there.

Again, not an emergency; the lack of urgency, perhaps, is part of the problem. I’m not drowning beneath, so am not fighting for air. I’m low in the air, not fighting at all.


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Polka, tango everyone

5 07 2017

Niece #2 got married in June, to a rather nice gent.

They live in the Twin Cities area, so, of course, got married in Green Bay (where none of us lives). It was lovely.

My sister, who is very organized, was a bit frazzled on Friday morning: the Saturday forecast called for rain, and—did I mention this was an outdoor ceremony?—she (and N2) needed to decide whether or not to put up the tent.

Ugh, she said, that tent is so ugly. But we have to do it.

Saturday was hot and bright, and no one noticed the condition of the tent under which we so gladly sheltered from the sun.

The bride was emotional. The groom was emotional. The ceremony was short, and they both said I do.

At the reception, the maid of honor, Niece1, offered a funny, heartfelt speech, as did the best man (Niece1’s husband—why yes, the bride and groom met through the sister and the best friend), and my brother-in-law, witty and charming, welcomed the groom into the family with an unabashed I love you.

I danced with cousins I hadn’t seen in decades, and relaxed with my sisters’ friends, who I see every few years when we all gather for celebration.

No one talked politics.

Oh, and I met my grand-nephew, who is the chillest baby in the Midwest. He was handed from stranger to stranger to stranger and reacted with, at most, raised eyebrows. My habibi.

It was strange to be back in Wisconsin, as it’s always strange to be back. I remember when I moved to NY and how the buildings pushed up next to the sidewalks took some getting used to; now, it’s normal to me, and it is the wide lawns and low buildings which startle.

Still, some things reassured: the (oh-my-god-how-incredibly-cheap) beer and the cheese curds. Some like the breaded kind, while I prefer the batter-fried: salty and super hot. The accompanying conversation with friends was also a bit salty, although a bit more relaxed.

I’m not certain of my future in NY—it is a costly and hard place to live—but it felt good to see the lights as the plane turned over Manhattan and we glided into Queens.

LaGuardia may be a shit airport, but for as many times as I’ve flown into and out of it, it is mine. And after a weekend in a place which is no longer mine, it felt good to be home.


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On a rooftop in Brooklyn

25 01 2017

Yesterday both cats scrambled to get on to the windowsill to gawk out at what I figured was a pigeon.

Well, it was, but not in the way I was expecting:

024

She really went to town on that thing:

023

She hung around, snacking, for a good long time, before lifting off with what was left of the carcass and leaving just a puddle of feathers behind.

I’m not a bird-watcher, so even with the help of various online guides I can’t be sure, but chances are that bird o’ prey was a red-tailed hawk. They’re pretty common in the city, but this was my first up-close-and-personal sighting.

Pretty cool.


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Wake up little Susie

3 02 2016

Jesus fuck:

subway sleeping

Subways are not for sleeping, says the man who has a driver.

[Y]ou make yourself a very easy victim and much more susceptible to a crime, says the man with bodyguards.

Why would you put yourself at that risk? says the man who thinks that telling tired people not to sleep is a way to reduce crime.

Hey, you want to protect me? How about paying attention to the jerk-off who’s trying to rob me?*

*Note: I have never been robbed on the train.

All right, all right, I get it: people who are sleeping are sometimes crime victims. And, as the story details, nudging people who are sound asleep in an empty car to wake up and tuck their iPhones back into their pockets is. . . not a bad idea, actually.

But jeez, Bratton, do you have to be such a dick about it?


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