One man and his dog

Soldier Hollow Sheepdog Trials 2011. The weather’s taken a turn for the perfect round here of late. Still practising with the time lapse camera, hopefully should be capturing the horse chestnut tree outside’s transition.

Bleecker to 54th

Today’s pic (or, rather at my current publication rate… this month’s pic) is one that moves. Unless you’re viewing it in your email inbox… in which case please click here. I stopped at every road crossing and took a quick snap, along the route above, on the way to meet a friend I hadn’t seen since about 1990. Music’s the ever-wonderful Catatonia…

Late night snack

On Sunday evening we thought 8pm would be a good time to hit Trader Joe’s and beat the crowds before going to the cinema to catch The Social Network… Nope. TJ’s had two queues for the tills starting at the entrance. Then the the 8.15 showing was sold out. Union Square is not like Cooks Corner, Brunswick, ME… Anyway, we had a pair of pints instead. I had my camera with me so it wasn’t an entirely wasted trip and as you might have heard Atticus is holidaying at his grandparents’ for the forseeable future so there was no rush to get back home.

Matey here’s organisin’ his sauces. Not on Flickr yet… this is a sneak preview for you, dear email subscriber.

Places to be

From another photo meet-up in Chinatown, this time a lot more low-key, just 10 or so people, which wasn’t quite so overwhelming for the locals. My new technique is sitting at the side of the road and just taking shots as they occur. Which has about a 5% success rate, but I’m a lot more comfortable with that than rushing up to victims and stealing their souls… One day there’ll be a meet up that isn’t in Chinatown.

Park after dark

This one was a serendipitous shot. After having to take Atticus round the dog park in Washington Square the sun had all but set and there was a taxi with its lights on full beam shining right through the other denizens of the area, the manual settings from the dog park were still dialled in and this is the resulting photo.

El de los lonches

Black and white candids around NYC is all well and good, but you can’t beat the honest to goodness colour and warmth of Mexico. Matey here made a fantastic lonche. I promised to give him a copy of this photo the following week but due to gastric unpleasantness beyond my control I didn’t get a chance.

Yet another reason to go back 🙂
(more…)

Triple Deck

I went on a photo meetup on Saturday- intro to street photography. I didn’t learn a huge amount, but it was a new area of town and nice folks. Travelling with a pack of paparazzi emboldens (if that’s a word) you to step out of your comfort zone a bit and take closer shots of folks. Here’s some folks playing cards in Chinatown on a balmy afternoon.

New York, New York

10 days in and I’ve finally got round to updating this blog. Managing a curious schipperke and a pentax with manual focus in the big city is proving harder than I though.

Here’s a pic from a block from where we’ll be living for the forseeable future.

Todo con medida…

Nada con exceso…

All adverts for alcoholic drinks in Mexico have to have a government safety warning on them somewhere. Corona has gone with ‘Todo con medida’ literally ‘All with measure’. There doesn’t appear to be any law on the relative size of the warning to the rest of the ad though.

This was taken after a rainy morning stroll through Tlaquepaque a lovely neck of the woods. Still loving it here.

Templo de Santo Domingo, Oaxaca

I MISS MEXICO… (you’d be surprised how many people Google ‘Miss Mexico’ and end up here… can’t imagine why)

One of the few things I regret, other than not still living south of the border, is that I didn’t take a tripod with me on our trip to Oaxaca. That said thanks to me 1:1.4 50mm lens I managed a good few hand-held night time shots like this one in the courtyard of Santo Domingo’s church which, though they don’t hold up to close scrutiny, give a good feel for the atmosphere.

Playtime

This is from yonks ago when I was taking photos for a primary school’s website I was designing in Guadalajara. Now they’re looking to update it as it has aged badly in the intervening 3 years… As I was looking for inspiration in my photostream I found this one and thought I’d share it.

Siberia, 1963

Or Portland, 2008 through a Kodak Duaflex II from 1963(ish)…
Looks like the temperatures have risen and from today on there’ll no snow at the metro level. It were good while it lasted.