Usually when I look through a window I think, pure and simple, I’m seeing what’s out there. ‘Truth is, what I’m seeing I’m actually seeing through the filter of the window: rain drops (and their intriguing slide-downs), dirt, smears, reflections, all that inhabit even the clearest and cleanest panes of optically neutral glass that fill the windows of my life.

No! This is not a metaphor for the mind as a filter busily re-identifying and evaluating what’s perceived by the senses–but it could be, I guess. Whatever, here are some photos made through glass. Enjoy!

                  Broadway and 86th Street from the bus shelter

                  Central Park from the 79th Street Transverse bus.

                   Manhattan Chinatown

                  Central Park South from the M7 bus.

                       Astoria from the #7 subway

              The corner of Flushing and Bushwick Avenues, Brooklyn

                    Jackson Heights, Queens

                   Upper West Side, Manhattan

                  Somewhere around Lincoln Center

                    Subway conductor

                                                   In a restaurant

                                                          From the #7 train

                                                Under the George Washington Bridge

Maybe Edward Hopper ate here

Back under the GWB

                                             Back in Manhattan Chinatown

Manchester Connecticut

After a hyper indulgence in the glories of Spring rain in Central Park I bring you a variety of snaps made around the city. True, one photo of rain covered cobblestones does continue the Spring rain tradition. The others… Root vegetables on sale in Inwood, geese in Riverside Park, Lower Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry, a trash bag(!), a bus rider in black and white, spontaneous artwork in Chelsea, those wet cobblestones and, for the first time in a while, a haiga. In this case it’s my first consideration of age and aging, although you might not see it that way.

Enjoy!

(I begin with a parenthetical remark having to do not with my topic but rather with my process. This is an experiment and a hope. After having been disconnected from my blog for a while now there is a chance that I have succeeded in reconnecting and will once again be able to post. Maybe not. The photograph above, residual raindrops and bright green leaves, was drafted before everything went wrong with my computer, my hard drive, and both my connection to and my relationship with the host of this blog, WordPress. Now, with the help of one of WordPress’ s technicians, I may be back in business. Let’s see what happens…)

WOO! Something’s working!

Bow Bridge is a wonderful place to start. No doubt you’re seen it many times no matter where you live and no matter if you’ve ever been to New York City. It is beautiful. And rainy days like it’s remarkably tranquil while in bright sunlight it’s so covered with people from all over the planet taking selfies that it’s almost impossible to walk across. Still there is an environment of genuine joy in that crowd that is unmistakable and inescapable, so you just slow down and bathe in it.

Moving right along to…



Oak Bridge. Oak Bridge is another favorite of visitors from all over, the perfect spot for a selfie showing the pond and, on a clear day, the high-rises of Midtown–most of which are hated by a large majority of New York City residents. Me, I like them.

Oak Bridge leads into The Ramble, the one area of Central Park in which I am still quite capable of getting lost. Getting lost in The Ramble is a real treat for somebody like me who thinks he knows much more than he actually does. It’s not just that it’s a refreshingly humbling experience, it is absolutely enlightening. At every turn there is something new to see, something new to appreciate and the opportunity for some new insight whether sought or not. Spots like this one:

or this one:

Come out of The Ramble and be greeted by this!

(Now I’m being told that I’ve run out of space and can add no more snaps.)

(Now wordPress says I can’t post the abbreviated post. I’m running out of parentheses, but don’t fret, I can handle it.)

Just before my 80th birthday I posted this series on Facebook with the caption, “Five thoughts on the last night of my 79th year.” This was clearly about experiencing rather than articulating those thoughts. More and more

my photography is moving further away from my intellect and closer to my emotions. The joy of experiencing light is at the heart of this transition. Here’s what I mean:

9th & 33rd from the M 11

Across 5th from the Met

kitchen morning

Mulcahey’s

Empire State Building from 34th and 7th

And, of course, Central Park, this time just before sunset in winter.

I know we’ve got to be concerned about COVID-19 and the cold and slippery sidewalks and and people  with evil or simply broken minds out to do random others harm. I know first-hand about reckless automobile and bicycle and even scooter drivers. Still, you can’t let all that keep you away from the thousand manifestations of beauty available to you daily.

Be reckless yourself–enjoy!

Certainly a gift for me and good ol’ iPhone 6 walking around Central Park for a couple of hours  yesterday after the snow. Not a lot of snow, maybe 10 inches or so, but enough to on bring the beauty of winter. These snaps are one result, and they’re my gift to you.

Looking down onto Bethesda Fountain minus the usual crowds but nonetheless a source of delight for those who positioned themselves so perfectly for my snap.

The remarkable tree at the top of Naturalists Gate at Central Park West and 77th Street.

Four elves cleverly disguised as…what? I’m still not sure, but they are cute.

Back to Bethesda Fountain, this time it’s my shadow selfie moment.

The Pond with Bow Bridge in the background. Yes, I’ve several thousand more snaps of this bridge.

Same pond as above.

  And, yes, the same pond.

President Lincoln outside the New-York Historical Society.

And sometimes just looking down is reason enough to look down.

“Autumn in New York, why does it seem so inviting…” Songwriter Vernon Duke wrote these words in 1934. The full lyrics go like this:

Autumn in New York, why does it seem so inviting?
Autumn in New York, it spells the thrill of first-nighting
Glittering crowds and shimmering clouds in canyons of steel
They’re making me feel I’m home

It’s autumn in New York that brings the promise of new love
Autumn in New York is often mingled with pain
Dreamers with empty hands may sigh for exotic lands
It’s autumn in New York
It’s good to live it again

Autumn in New York, the gleaming rooftops at sundown
Autumn in New York, it lifts you up when you’re let down
Jaded roués and gay divorces who lunch at the Ritz
Will tell you that it’s divine

It’s autumn in New York transforms the slums into Mayfair
Autumn in New York, you’ll need no castle in Spain
Lovers that bless the dark
On benches in Central Park
Greet autumn in New York
It’s good to live it again

The first thing to note after that first line: the rest of the song has nothing whatsoever to do with the Central Park snaps below. Not to deny the thrill of first-nighting or the glittering crowds and certainly not negating the jaded roués and gay divorcées who lunch at the Ritz–far be it from me to do such a thing. No, a significant part of the wonder of New York is the ease  with which it accommodates all our worlds.

For me the glory of New York and autumn centers on Central Park: the leaves and the paths through them, the Pond and the Meer and the reflections filling them. To live in the city that attracts 60,000,000 visitors annually is a gift and  blessing. Despite the pandemic’s restrictions on travel I am already here. I am free to roam this this city and this park by foot or bicycle to my heart’s content.

Truly a state of grace and cause for continual thanks.

Harlem Meer

Kitchen door

The truth of it is I’ve been out of the apartment just about every day since the COVID-19 quarantine began. Not in a reckless, defiant, “I’ll show the bastids who’s the boss of me” way, but out nonetheless. Along with my walks and bike rides, there’s also been significant time spent at home, and yes, often with camera in hand. Look afresh, look with new eyes we teach in our meditation class. See the familiar for the first time. The photos below are the result of just that attitude.

Shadow

Kitchen sunlight

Living room in late daylight

Chair and floor

Earbuds

Knitting needle, the very one I dropped into our elevator shaft, recovered a month later by building staff with a fine eye and memory.

Cazadores, carrying with it memories of beloveds

Buddhists on the radiator

More late day sunight

My living room

Thru the good graces of iTunes my phone and computer have developed a relationship which no longer includes me. When I turn them on, connect them and request certain CD’s be transferred from my library to the phone they just laugh and transfer whatever the hell they want to transfer. Whole albums, partial albums, single tunes-whatever-just not what I might have wanted to hear. Small stuff, I suppose.  After all I’m still getting tunes to bud into my ears while I bike a lap around a Central Park pretty much devoid of tourists and instead filled with unemployed homies. I am escaping the overwhelm of

• those “good people on both sides” who consistently and vehemently insist on their right to endanger the health and lives of others by not wearing face masks
• the racism–institutional and cultural and personal–that is vibrantly alive and all too often a matter of life and death
• Covid-19.

The above is me letting off some anger–my cover-up for fear and sadness and frustration–before showing you some new snaps. The pandemic has led me to places I’d pretty much avoided in the past, in this case the stairwells leading from my 8th floor apartment to our building’s lobby. Rather than take the elevator I’ve been walking those hundred-something steps up and down each morning to fetch the Daily News and the previous day’s collection of catalogs and money requests that fill the mailbox. Of course I carry the camera with me. Here are a few of my current favs.

This last image, with it’s writing, was posted on Facebook in June. It is a message of hope.

Be well. Stay safe. Register and vote. Encourage others to do the same.

Four years ago I posted my first collection of haiga, introducing it with this definition from AHApoetry.com:

Haiga is a Japanese concept for simple pictures combined with poetry, usually meaning haiku…It can be watercolor paintings, photographs or collages with a poem of any genre that is integrated into the composition. Sometimes the poem is handwritten or it can be computer generated, depending on the artist’s taste.

Haiga is a combination of visual image and poetry, each to enrich the other and lead the readers/viewers beyond what is presented toward what their own life experience suggests. The goal here, overwhelmingly, is to make  those readers/viewers co-creators in a fusion of photo, poem and mind in what is ultimately theirs alone. Knowing that you have a responsibility to complete the creations I’ve begun, I offer my newest haiga.

The images were made while I was quarantined with family in an area of Ulster County New York called Lost Quarry.

Living on a dirt road surrounded by trees, only one other house visible and then only when trees were winter/early spring bare.

Concerns generated by this extraordinary time and place combined with whatever else of my own 78 years might show itself for my part in our co-creation. The rest is up to you.

During the day Canal Street just might be the most populous and energetic street in Manhattan, rivaling or even surpassing Times Square with it’s rush of locals, souvenir sellers, hustlers and knock-off hunting teens and tourists  from all over this world.

Intertwined odors of old and fresh fast food

   of dumplings and garlic

Old women chat

   pick through fresh fish and produce

     common in China

Men from Canton and Taiwan

   from Sierra Leone and Pakistan and Peru

   from Brooklyn and The Bronx

   spread their goods on folding tables or simply

     on blankets on the sidewalk

Younger women–not young

   wave laminated pictures of handbags

   and watches (“Gucci! Gucci! Rolex! Gucci!

      Pandora!”)

   and perfumes (“Dior, new Dior! White shoulders!

      Chanel!”)

They speak in urgent hushed tones

   point to unmarked doors

   make you feel special.

At night it’s different: dark, quiet, all but abandoned

   like rain threatens or has just passed

           Canal Street is yours

           Last Tuesday it was mine.

 

Here are some souvenirs from that Tuesday night.

Canal Street at Lafayette

Canal Street

Canal Street at Baxter thru a bakery window

Canal Street

Canal Street stairway to Heaven

Canal Street

Canal Street

Canal Street

Liusal fashion pop-up Canal Street

Canal Street

So I say to my good buddy Dave (who most people call David), I say, “Dave, howzabout you and me, we go to El Museo del Barrio?” Dave, he’s the one on the left, Dave says, “I wanna walk around Spanish Harlem.” I say, “OK.” He says, “OK.”

Long story shortened, I show up early and wait across the street from El Museo in the Conservatory Garden, Central Park. While I wait, I snap this:

Dave shows. We check out the museum then hit the streets: Lexington thru First Avenues, 104th thru 118th Streets. Here’s what I snapped:

In a schoolyard around Park Avenue and 105th

Lex around 109

Lex and 104th not so much the way it looks much as the way it was meant to be seen.

Madison Avenue around 105th

Park Avenue and 106th

Park and 106th under the Metro North tracks

2nd Avenue and 102 where black & white still rates

 So here’s my question to you: What are the hot streets in your part of the world? I’m always open to suggestions for where to take my camera for a walk. Use the “Comments” option below to give me some direction.

Back in  the city, looking thru glass. I don’t think that means anything…really.

St. Agnes Library

Admiring armor

Manhattan sunset from GWB

Coco-Mat Store, B’way & 78th

The Algonquin

East River & Koch Bridge

Columbus Avenue low 80’s

Brooklyn train

The Met

Hartford CT

The story of my recent trip to the Ozarks begins in 1950. The Korean war had brought a wealth of rural French Canadians both from the Maritimes and Maine down to my home town, Hartford Connecticut, to find work at Pratt and Whitney Aircraft supplying engines to our war effort. Along with them came their music. In what seemed to an eight year old boy no time at all, Hartford had country music! Call it old-timey or hillbilly or even bluegrass, there it was not only on the radio but on the shelves of Park Street’s Belmont Record Shop located appropriately enough in that section of Hartford known–and still known–affectionately as Frog Hollow. Maybe it was the storytelling, maybe it was the energy, maybe it was the voice-oriented range that my voice felt it could handle. One way or another, me, the eight year old in question, I was hooked immediately.

–Skip ahead sixty-nine years–

Drawn by the promise of live mountain music in actual mountains and with the guidance of Road Scholar, a touring company dedicated to taking us older folks out of our comfort zones to discover more of the world before leaving it, I spent about six days in and around the Ozark Folk Center State Park in north central Mountain View Arkansas. To cut to the chase: It was fantastic! We stayed in thoroughly modern cabins (floors, electricity, indoor plumbing, cable TV) in a forest setting which incorporated a traditional craft village of blacksmiths, potters,  leather crafters, doll makers, stained glass artists and jewelers. We walked through forests, rafted a peaceful, cliff-enclosed river, ate what the folks eat and, at seemingly every turn, heard music: bluegrass music, old timey music, folk music. A world of acoustic strings where everyone was participant. The folks we met were unfailingly welcoming and happy to be in conversation with us from off (the mountain.) I was eager to learn more about their world, and they showed it, lived it more than explaining it. As for me, an undoubtedly liberal Buddhist Jew from New York City, I’d never felt more comfortable among strangers than I did in this  all-white world of fundamentalist Protestants.

Here are some snaps from the trip. Not an attempt to document the experience, but rather a collection of revelations.

White River Arkansas coming out of the morning fog

White River Arkansas

White River near Chessman Ferry Arkansas

Museum at Calico Rock Arkansas

Calico Rock Museum, Arkansas

Abandoned Old Town, Calico Rock Arkansas

Blacksmith, Craft Village at Ozark Folk Center, Mountain View Arkansas

Potter, Craft Village at Ozark Folk Center, Mountain View Arkansas

Pre-historic rock at the Craft Village, Ozark Folk Center, Mountain View Arkansas

Broom making, Craft Village at Ozark Folk Center, Mountain View Arkansas

Made in Mountain View Arkansas

Mary Parker Group, Ozark Folk Center, Mountain View Arkansas

Ozark Highlands Radio Square Dancers live performance, Mountain View Arkansas

Blanchard Springs Caverns, Ozark-St. Francis National Forests, Arkansas

Published each Wednesday in Mountain View  Arkansas

Homer of Pet Partners, Little Rock Airport. Homer, with his handler to be sure, patrolled the departures areas of the airport to ease anxieties and entertain children waiting to board.

“Waddaya take pictures of,” she asks me.

“I dunno. Whatever.”

I used to hate that word, “whatever.” It seemed like a cop-out. (Do people still say cop-out? If you’re under a certain age is it a mystery? If you’re over another age is it an increasingly faded memory? Maybe from the time cop was a deprecating noun rather than an edgy  verb.)

Back to whatever: the older I get, the more it applies, but in a wonderfully perverse way. Let’s face it, I live in the most phenomenal city on the planet. I live two blocks from each of two fantastic parks. It’s a mile and a half walk to (big drum roll here) Times Square! When everything is extraordinary, it all becomes oddly equal. The perverse part is that this even applies to the parts that don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of ever being equal to anything. That’s why what I’m gonna show you now is about looking D O W N. The street, the sidewalk, whoever might be sitting in front of me when I’m standing on the train and not wishing I had a seat–which, BTW, doesn’t happen very often. Everywhere I look at this point in my life there’s something to see worth seeing.

And I know I can’t be alone in this.

What about you? What do you see? Keep in mind I’m not talking about the shit that makes you feel angry or sad or superior. Anybody can carry on about that crap. I want to know what delights you, what makes you smile when you hadn’t planned on smiling.

Here’s what works for me:

#2 train: getting off, staying on

Subway: something to stand back from

175 W. 76: just what it says

NYC, imagine, they told my grandparents, the streets are paved with gold.

Cafe Figaro: all that’s left of a great venue

E. 4th Street: at rush hour sometimes the shadows move faster than the traffic

Subway: meditation without music

Fuller Building lobby

My block! I live here!

Russian Tea Room

And finally, looking down on he who looks down.

Found Around is my newest collection of photographs. It’s one more testimony to my love of New York City and the technology which enables me to convert what the camera records to what it is l see when walking our streets. Ultimately it’s a celebration of being here. Please visit the Blurb website where it may be seen in it’s entirety.

Here’s the link:

https://www.blurb.com/b/9564615-found-around

Of course I’d appreciate  your sharing this with those who might find it interesting.

Thanks,

Richard

When I was a kid it was a point of national pride that we were each one different yet all Americans. Sure, we didn’t practice that belief the way it’s now understood, but it was constantly preached and  reaffirmed as correct, as the ultimately right stuff.  In the course of my lifetime this purportedly universal and fundamental belief has been the cause of a constant intra-us struggle to either make or keep equality from becoming not just the law but also the reality of this land. Thus the moment was just that powerful, watching fireworks from the stands of the The Richmond County Bank Ballpark, home of the Staten Island Yankees, surrounded by the great variety of folks who make up lower middle class New York City. Ooh-ing and aah-ing in unconscious unison, we were for that moment one despite our differences.

As the last explosion echoed off into New York Harbor and the harmony of the moment passed in favor of the home-bound rush, my mind settled on other moments, those before and those to come in our period of conflict renewed.  In 1863 Abraham Lincoln spoke:

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent,

a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that

all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war,

testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated,

can long endure…

…It is for us the living…to be dedicated here to the unfinished work

which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us

to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—

that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause

for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve

that these dead shall not have died in vain—

that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom,

and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Whatever your cause this coming Independence Day, let it be in harmony with your values and not your fears.

At night, happiness;

In the daytime, quietness–

Spring rain.

                      –Chora

Amsterdam & 79th

Amsterdam & 76th

Columbus & 73rd

Metropolitan Museum in the rain

Metropolitan Museum in the rain

Central Park: near the Great Lawn in the rain

Central Park: the Shakespeare Garden in the rain

Central Park: Oak Bridge in the rain

Central Park: Bow Bridge in the rain

Sky above Midtown from the Sheepmeadow

Spring rain:

Everything just grows

More beautiful.

             –Chiyo-Ni

Here it is!                                        

New Size!                            

New Soft Cover!

                      New low(er) Price!

                                    Same Paper!

                                                     Same Photos!

And here’s where to see it in its entirety and (ta da!)

actually buy a copy:

http://www.blurb.com/books/9363798-2018-favorites

                                                                           Of course he larger sized hard cover version is still available.

Each of these images began with what the camera saw and ended up with what I’d seen.

Lady Gaga at the Grammys

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Far West 13th Street, Meatpacking District, NYC

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Afternoon at The Cottage

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6th Av & W 44th

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Terrence Cardinal Cooke Health Center across Harlem Meer

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79th & Broadway rain

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79th & Broadway rain

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79th & Broadway rain

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526 W. 26th Street

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W. 26th Street

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Yes, I have been blessed to have traveled a good bit. Yes, I’ve photographed some wonderful people and sights and even moments in Asia, North Africa and Western Europe. Yet, for all that I’ve seen, the folks met, the monuments both natural and human built, the art and architecture and all those inducements to say “Wow!”, New York City remains my #1. New York City is my ultimate provocateur, the stimulus more than any other to my appreciation and delight and participation in living. Below is the most recent testimony to this love affair with Gotham. With the exception of Grandson Benny photographed in Connecticut this Christmas morning all the other snaps are of just the plain old stuff available for viewing in everyday Manhattan. The first three were made within minutes and feet of each other. In each case I’ve used post-processing apps to bring to the image that which drew me to make the photo in the first place. The delicacy and strength of an urban tree in the Lower East Side, the collage of reality and reflection found in a pizzeria window, the mind-created drama behind a wine bottle repurposed for water. Shapes, colors, relationships, movement within stillness: for me–somehow–all expressions of love.

2nd Av. & Houston Street

2nd Av. & Houston: street art artists

Mystery pipes at 2nd Av. F subway stop transposed by a screenshot

Benny

Freddie & Peppers pizzeria with reflections

Amsterdam Avenue construction site

Scaffolding behind the Beacon Theater

#3 train

Brookfield Place after a rain

Alien space ships from New Jersey invade West Harlem

W. 72nd between Broadway & West End Avenue

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thai restaurant water bottle

Like no other human being I’ve ever met, Cousin Ben Beaton combines the solid with the impish. After years of living in Taipei he now lives in Tel Aviv. Language learning presents no problem to Ben, nor does mastering the intricacies of a culture–all with a twinkle in the eye revealing the everpresent sense of humor that makes him so dear to me. Recently we met at my favorite lunch joint here in NYC. Regardless of how he might have looked to the rest of the world, here’s the Ben I saw:

Ben Beaton…and, yes, his mother loves this snap!

Now for some recent photos made with the iPhone 6, its post-production app, Snapseed and, finally, Picasa on the laptop.

Church of the Latter Day Saints NYC–rain

Croatian Church 41st off 9th Av NYC

Hudson Yards

Amsterdam Avenue Brunch

Ghost of Christmas Future–building a Christmas tree stand

Central Park South thru the rain-covered bus window

St. Patrick’s in the rain thru the same bus window

Central Park

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree yet again thru the same rain-covered bus window

Museum of Jewish Heritage reflections

NYC imagine…

Battery Park City

And a joyous Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Diwali and, of course, New Year 2019!

Istravshan Tajikistan

Originally I was gonna hit ya with some Autumn leafery, solid and pretty pictures sure to get me some compliments. Even my old ego gets off on occasional reinforcement. Then I decided, no, too easy. Maybe some portraits, but that idea went on hold until I got permissions to use the recognizable faces of the friends I’d planned to show.

So, what to show? What was left? What was left–and probably what I wanted to post originally but was concerned with the reception they might get is an assortment of photos heavily reworked in post production. What I’ve posted on Welcome! thus far–201 blogposts counting this one–have far more often than not featured snaps treated with some post production work. Until very recently I’d relied on Picasa, a now-discontinued Google product that did all that I could ask. Well, as I got deeper into photography I learned to ask for more. Through the evil graces of my good buddy out west, Jason he is aptly named, I started using the Snapseed app, then added PS Express and Photoshop Fix. These tools free me to employ the original photo much as an oil painter might use a watercolor sketch, that is as the basis for a final rendition which best reveals what drew him (me) to the real-life content beyond what the camera records. It’s not that the camera lies, rather that it only gets some of the truth.

Secaucus NJ train station

The Ansonia NYC

Outside the Walter Reade Theater

Outside the Walter Reade Theater

Skulls above Astor Place

Outside Fairway

175 W. 76

Hudson River from W. 70’s

RSG’s bedroom window