New York, New York
I am not so certain I want to live in New York City, but it is sure a big plus to have family live there. As I like to say, “Go early and often.” In 2019, I made four trips to the city. The last one was to celebrate Thanksgiving. For all of the world, I did not know that it would be almost two years before I could return.
I always start in Washington Square because it is just one block away from where I stay and it is a treasure trove of unique people.
I am happy to report, thrilled, actually, that I am writing this blog with the sounds of the city as background noise. It has been a good NYC day. I had breakfast with a friend at one of my favorite places, The Famous Cozy Soup ‘n Burger on Broadway. It seems I am drawn to the streets named Broadway, no matter what city I am in. The restaurant will celebrate its 50th year in business in three months. I asked how much business is down compared to two years ago. The answer is 90%. Things have not returned to normal yet. I then walked over to Little Italy to take photos at the Feast of San Gennaro. It is an 11 day festival that has been celebrated for 95 years, excluding last year, due to Covid.
Pro tip, and I laugh as I use that term, if you are struggling in street photography, drop back to that good old standby, the “walk-bys”. I find them very satisfying because I can control the composition and light. I can take as much time as I need to practice how to place my subject. Nobody seems to mind.
It is consummate good luck that my visit to the city coincided with this festival. Walking through the three blocks of Little Italy was very reminiscent of walking on Broadway in Nashville, except there was no music and people were not inebriated and some number of people were speaking Italian. Nevertheless, the crowds were similar, and no one was really paying attention to the photographers who were taking pictures. I needed that.
Little Italy all decked out.
I mentioned last week that I have a new camera. The pressing decision I had to make was whether to bring it, or my Olympus, or both, on the trip. I settled on bringing just the new camera. There is a reason, by the way, that the traditional counsel to photographers is to not take new equipment on a vacation. I can testify that is appropriate advice.
Who could not like a place named Lucy’s?
The Ricoh had accompanied me on a spin down Broadway in Nashville last week. It went fairly well in terms of me getting pictures that are of similar quality to my Olympus pictures. The new camera did not make me a better photographer, but it also did not make me a worse photographer. That was the calm before the storm.
Not perfect, but I got the picture of this unique lady. I was pretty determined. I passed her and did not get the picture so I circled around to go for a second try.
I have struggled taking decent pictures on this trip. It went poorly in the airport. It went poorly when I went out to Washington Square yesterday. I have deleted all but 21 of the 308 pictures that have been taken so far. That is a new record, and the deleting is not even finished. I am having a hard time getting proper exposures. I hate that. I said I could learn to love Auto ISO, but I am not sure that I can. A camera’s idea of good exposure and my idea does not exactly coincide. Exposure was hardly the only problem. I was back to cutting off heads and feet.
I saved my favorite for last. I was drawn to the scene, cell phone and all. After I got the picture, why did I not continue to wait until he looked up? That was photographer error. Live and learn.
Of course these problems could have shown up on the first day out in Nashville. They did, to some extent. But my familiarity with the space staved off the worst issues. I understand the light challenges. I knew when Auto ISO was not going to work, so I did not even try, at least not much. I do not feel the need to be particularly stealthy. It is only in high stealth times that I cut off heads and other appendages. When I found the three blocks of Mulberry cordoned off for the San Gennaro festival, I could truly say to myself, I know how to do this.
As the trip goes on, the pressing issues of exposure and decapitation have been mitigated. There are still no photos to write home about, but that is okay. I am just so happy to be here. I will come back one more time this year. All I want is the chance to shoot.