a new york minute

East 23rd & Broadway Subway Station / New York, New York
Last night after dinner at Angelo & Maxies Steakhouse (eh..), Chas and I went to get on the subway at Madison Square Park to head home. While standing next to the tracks waiting for the approaching R/W train, he looked at me and said "ummm, someone is drawing you" which, of course, caused me to immediately turn and look. Sitting on the bench about 5 feet away was a very pleasant guy with a sketch pad in his lap who, yes, was drawing me. He smiled and kept drawing. About a minute later, he very politely handed me the drawing - I was quite impressed. And then I noticed written at the top "Please tip if that's okay with you". He got two bucks and I got a quick sketch capturing a genuine New York minute.

windows of rome

Via Della "Unknown" / Rome, Italy
While in Rome a few years back, I became totally enamored by the windows of this beautiful city. I walked the streets for hours shooting these openings into a world which seemed very foreign, yet very comfortable, to me. The subject matter was endless with each one unique in its color and design. My intent was to come back and paint a series of watercolors of them - perhaps someday. And sadly, I had written down the location of each shot so that I could identify it in some way but those scribblings are no where to be found. Kind of like my jury summons to appear for State Court next Monday here in NYC - I have NO idea where it is. It's a habit of mine that I should work on, I guess.

charge of the red brigade

Millennium Bridge @ Tate Modern / London, United Kingdom
Direct pedestrian access to Tate Modern is via the Millennium Bridge from St Paul's Cathedral (in the background). The bridge is a pedestrian-only steel suspension bridge crossing the River Thames, linking Bankside with the City. With construction beginning in 1998, it was the first new bridge across the Thames in London since Tower Bridge in 1894. Its design provides a perfect frame for the south facade of St. Paul's Cathedral when looking back from the Tate Modern. And it serves as an impressive backdrop for this gaggle of school girls garbed in their summery red uniforms. School uniforms - one of the many things I find oddly charming about the UK.

wash day

Capitol Square / Madison, Wisconsin
The washboard was originally designed for hand washing of clothing. However, with the introduction of mechanized washing machines by the end of the 20th century, the washboard began to take on a secondary life as a musical instrument. Traditionally used in jazz, zydeco, jug band, and old time music, the washboard has remained in its wooden frame and is played primarily by tapping and/or scraping the washboard with thimbles. Often the washboard is accessorized with additional improvised percussion instruments such as a wood block, cowbells, and small cymbals. This lad was quite talented at stroking a rhythm from his fully equipped board which was further enhanced by his old-timey look.

inner circle

Temppeliaukio Church / Helsinki, Finland
Otherwise known as the Rock Church, this is a shot of the interior dome of the Lutheran church located in the center of Helsinki. This unique structure was designed by architects and brothers Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen and opened in 1969. The circular interior was excavated and built entirely into existing rock but is bathed in natural light entering through the glazing which supports this dome. The exterior dome, sheathed in copper, is all that is visible from the outside. The church is used frequently as a concert venue due to its excellent acoustics with the acoustic quality being ensured by the rough, virtually unworked, rock surfaces. The Temppeliaukio church is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city; half a million people visit it annually.

better days

St. Mary's Cathedral of the Assumption / Kingstown, St. Vincent
Kingstown is the capital city for St. Vincent and the Grenadines and is probably best appreciated for its true West Indian feel rather than for any significant attractions. It's an interesting place to relax and stroll the cobblestone streets. Kingstown is known for its rum shops, stone-block colonial buildings and its churches. St Mary's Cathedral, built in 1823, is the largest and has an eclectic mix of Romanesque arches and columns, Gothic spires and Moorish ornamentation. And like the cathedral, the local economy is in need of repair. Agriculture, dominated by banana production, is the most important sector of this lower-middle-income economy. However, the continuing dependence on a single crop represents the biggest obstacle to the islands' development. The government has been relatively unsuccessful at introducing new industry to the island and an unemployment rate of 20%-plus continues.

loves me ..loves me not

Central Park / New York, New York
One of the last vestiges of a summer now past, this flowering weed in Central Park is still hanging on for a few more days (or hopefully weeks) before a killing frost finally moves in brings it to the ground. I'm not sure what type of plant this is - I see them alot - and I'm pretty sure it's not part of the daisy or Asteraceae family though they look similar in color. They remind me of my mother - a woman of fairly simple tastes who loved daisies. They were by far her favorite flower and every summer she grew clumps of Shasta daisies and zinnias in the backyard which endlessly found themselves popped into a vase on the kitchen table. During her last couple of years, bedridden from a series of strokes, we placed her bed in the living room directly in front of the large glass windows looking out over the back lawn where she could still enjoy them during the summer months.

dry dock

Port of St Helier / Bailiwick of Jersey
The Bailiwick of Jersey is one of the Channel Islands, located approximately 14 miles off the coast of the Cotentin Peninsula in Normandy, France. It is the largest and southernmost of the Channel Islands and like the rest of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, it is a British Crown dependency. And while the defense of all these islands is the responsibility of the United Kingdom; they are part of neither the UK nor the European Union but are regarded as separate possessions of the Crown. The Channel Islands are subject to significant tidal variations, at times exceeding 10 meters within a diurnal tide cycle. This requires careful monitoring of the tidal clock when planning to enter or exit port. Sleep in and you may find yourself in natural dry dock waiting for the next tide to come in and float your boat.

'n sync

Washington Square Arch / New York, New York
Awhile back I was in Washington Square Park in the heart of Greenwich Village shooting some pictures of the Arch, a towering 77 foot high marble monument erected in 1892. As happens on occasion, it wasn't until I got home and was sorting through the shots that I noticed just how perfectly aligned this young woman was with the base stones. It was if she was playing an unconscious game of "Simon says" with the inanimate stone giant. And who says we are not influenced, knowingly or not, by the environment that surrounds us.

hey boo boo

Sonora Desert Museum / Tuscon, Arizona
I just landed back home in NYC from a couple weeks in the UK - all work - no play - tires a bear out. I'm going into retirement .. until tomorrow. A little sleep and I'll have my energy back - but then I leave again friday morning. Ugh.

color my underworld

Under Ludgate Hill / Birmingham, United Kingdom
While walking the canals the other morning, I passed through a rather long, dark and ominous tunnel. About three quarters of the way through, a very small break in the surface above allowed a perfectly placed sunbeam to shine down onto the brick wall support underneath - highlighting a bit of colorful graffiti. While I was unable to discern any particular message, it was a welcome distraction to my better common sense questioning why I was walking by myself through this tunnel of darkness in unfamiliar territory.

ménage à fois gras

Birmingham & Fazeley Canal / Birmingham, United Kingdom
The canal water was smooth as glass as this mallard drake went about its morning search for food - or whatever it is ducks do to occupy their time and energy. Although this male, with his unmistakable breeding plumage of green head, black rear end and yellowish orange bill might indeed have had something else on his mind. Was it that drab female mallard or perhaps the other dandy drake with him - or both? A ménage of duck duck duck. And stop rolling your eyes; mallards have rates of male-male sexual activity that are unusually high for birds. In some cases, as many as 19% of pairs in a Mallard population are male-male. What would Alfred Kinsey have to say about that!

floating your boat

Under the Broad Street Bridge / Birmingham, United Kingdom
Yesterday was a beautiful day for walking the extensive waterway canal systems within Birmingham. This is a section of the canal passing through Brindleyplace known as Gas Light Basin where the Worcester and Birmingham Canal meets the BCN Main Line. These narrowboats just completed a series of canal locks (13 in total) spanning a short one mile distance through the city centre - each lock still operated by the boat owner much as they were in the 18th & 19th centuries - requiring strong legs and a powerful body to move the lock gates open and closed. During the 1990s much of the area around the basin was redeveloped and older buildings refurbished. Today, the canals serve leisure travelers navigating the waters in long narrow canal boats, many of original design, where they can travel directly through downtown Birmingham, mooring canal side for a stop in one of the many pubs and restaurants that are located on water's edge between Brindleyplace and the Mailbox. The towpaths, like those in the photo, also make for wonderful scenic walking paths quickly moving from urban downtown to decrepit industrial wastelands to open greenways.

this ain't no walmart

Selfridges & Co. @ Bullring / Birmingham, United Kingdom
While walking around the city this morning, I shot the exterior of Selfrigdes & Co department store at the fashionable Bullring in Birmingham. The curvaceous store is covered with a dramatic "skin" made up of 15,000 spun aluminium disks - which apparently get polished once a year. The inspiration for the exterior design, you ask? A Paco Rabanne sequined dress. The current shopping mecca, which opened in 2003 and sits at the end of trendy New Street, is one of the largest in the United Kingdom, with almost 40 million visitors a year. The Bullring has been a center of commerce in Birmingham since the 1700's, with early trading focused on food, cattle, and corn. In the mid-1800's, the corn market was moved and it subsequently developed into the city's main retail market area. And for you etymologists, the area was first known as Corn Cheaping in reference to the corn market on the site. The name Bull Ring referred to the grassed area within Corn Cheaping which was used for temporary grazing after the bulls were brought to market. The 'ring' was a hoop of iron in Corn Cheaping to which the grazing bulls were tied to before slaughter.

queen of the hill

Edinburgh Castle / Edinburgh, Scotland
Edinburgh Castle is an ancient stronghold which dominates the sky-line of the city from its prominent position at the top of the Royal Mile. This shot is of a minor structure on the castle grounds sitting literally on the precipice of Castle Rock. The castle grounds were first inhabited back in the 9th century BC; however, as it stands today few of the castle's structures pre-date the 16th century, with the notable exception of St Margaret's Chapel, the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh, which dates from the early 12th century. Perhaps the castle's most recognized royalty was Mary, Queen of Scots who occupied the throne for nearly 25 years during her reign in the mid-16th century. She was later imprisoned, tried and executed in 1587 for treason following the religious divides which allegedly linked her involvement to several assasination plots against her cousin, Elizabeth I of England which would have allowed her to then place herself on the English throne.

'scuse me, dear

A Streetcorner / Soufrière, St. Lucia
Soufrière is a very colorful place - both in its exterior facades and in its people. Everybody I came across seemed like they could have an interesting story to tell - good or bad - true or not. These are real people living real lives. Unlike many places in the Caribbean, Soufrière does not seem to be particularly impacted by tourism. While tourist dollars can have a positive economic impact on an otherwise depressed economy, the cumulative negative impacts usually weigh heavier on the daily lives on those who make the islands their home.

a colosseum of more modern times

Bankside / London, United Kingdom
While approaching the Tate Modern, the visual impact of this building reminded me strongly of the Roman Colosseum - except with much more vertical lines. And I thought, how perfect for today's urban environment with its compact footprint. I have no idea what the actual function of the building is and had I'd had more time I would have liked to have investigated further. It has the large open window fenestration of an industrial factory but the small circular layout would be totally impractical to fabricating just about anything, I'd imagine, except perhaps something .. round? I'd like to think it's now some very cool and VERY expensive loft-type living space.

go ahead - you deserve it

Broome Street - SoHo / New York, New York
Headline CNN: Markets across the world made impressive gains Monday after European banks followed Britain's lead and announced huge bailouts for their banking sectors. European, Asian and U.S. markets closed higher with the New York Dow Jones scoring a record point gain for a single day of 936. Go ahead, feel good about yourself again. Maybe a toe wrap - a baby brazilian - or an alpha beta triple face peel. Come on - you deserve it - do it now cause you know it won't last. But promise me you'll save the oxygen nail therapy for January when we can all take a deep breath of fresh air knowing that our Mangler-in-Chief, Dubya, will continue to say stupid things but we will no longer have to care.

back in brum

O'Neills Pub / Birmingham, United Kingdom
One of the benefits of being back in Birmingham (locally known as Brum making reference to the city's original name of Brummagem) is being able to walk across the street to O'Neills and tip back a pint of Guinness Red - or two. It is the same formula as Guinness Stout with hops, water, yeast and barley except that the barley is subjected to a lighter roasting, giving it a rich reddish complexion. Interestingly, there are no plans to actually sell Guinness Red in Ireland; it has been brewed specifically for sale in select pubs in Britain. And note the shamrock in the head - formed by the tap during the final pull by a skilled bartender. The test of a perfect pour is no air bubbles in the head, no spillage over the rim and a shamrock that maintains its form until the last sip empties the pint. There are numerous legends as to the origins of forming a shamrock in the head; however, I have come to the conclusion that it's nothing more than a clever marketing gimmick. Cheers!

take that, mr. frank lloyd wright

House on the Rock / Spring Green, Wisconsin
Spring Green lies about 45 minutes west of Madison, Wisconsin and is better known as the home of Taliesin, the one-time home and communal school of architecture founded by Frank Lloyd Wright. But just a few miles from Taliesin, one can find the House on the Rock - pure schlock, in a fun, delightful sort of way. What started as a Japanese style house built in the 1940's to spite Frank Lloyd Wright, has grown into a complex of art, architecture and memorabilia of every type - 1940's meets 1960's meets the new millennium head on. This photo is of a stained glass window wall in the main house's living area which is characterized by exposed stone, low ceilings and dark woodwork. But getting back to the tiff between the designer/owner Alex Jordan and Frank Lloyd Wright, the story goes that Jordan was a devotee of Wright's and at some point drove from Chicago to Taliesin to show Wright the plans for a building, the Villa Maria in Madison, which Jordan had designed. Jordan was hopeful of Wright's approval. Instead, he took one look at the plans and told Jordan "I wouldn't hire you to design a cheese crate or a chicken coop. You're not capable." Fuming, he left Taliesin and within a short distance pointed to a spire of rock saying that he was going to put up a Japanese house on the pinnacle and advertise it for the world to see. Welcome to the House of Schlock (errrrr Rock) Mr. Wright.