“I was where people were.”

A View from Brooklyn

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I was looking for an easy thirty minutes and a coffee. I’d just spent an hour with the Inland Revenue and close to that HMRC office I found this joint. I liked it straightaway. It wasn’t Starbucks. There was space and quiet. It was also, in this world full of franchised sameness, its own place. I liked the interior, the set up, the shapes, the choice in decoration. Not so long ago a wall sized print of New York would’ve been just that. Now though, you see the skyline and in that instant think, ‘Hey, the Towers…’, and remember that they’ve gone, and then maybe, like me, feel the small ache of a sadness that persists.

In front of me were a pair of old guys talking. They were to the left of what you see above and out of the frame, occupying a couple of window seats, silhouetted against the noon daylight. I was alone, sitting where this picture was taken, mostly looking outwards. I can’t remember if I wondered why they hadn’t chosen one of the booths but it’s something I notice now. Maybe they liked the sun or watching the city outside. Anyway.

Normally, theirs were voices that would have blended easily into a background of midday custom but on that day there was no hurry, no bustle, no tustle of crockery and steam. Besides the Italian proprietress waiting behind her counter, and I, indifferently reading at my table, there was little to muffle or render anonymous the words they spoke. At first it seemed a conversation with that ordinary back and forth, something you’d naturally tune out, simple exchanges that filled the air then didn’t. But soon, even without meaning to, certain things, phrases, somehow snagged and like an odd rendition of a familar song, hung around.

The words on the pages in front of me became redundant. Those I’d begun to listen to, the sentences of peculiar arrangements, like old constructions now gone, claimed my attention. I learned that it was a talk of reminiscence. One with its natural pauses and silences, perhaps the small breaks for sifting and the material of recollection thick and heavy. In minutes, though, there were changes, softenings in rhythm. The cadences, too. Utterances were fewer, plaintive even and they started to slow. Then, they fell silent.

It’s strange now, how quickly I noticed they’d stopped. In my memory, beyond the two of them, all that remains of what was left, is a line or two, jutting out of that tangled diction. “I was where people were.”

As I was leaving, I asked the lady if I could take a photo of the picture on the wall, explaining that I liked it. I imagined a look of surprise but there was none. Instead, she replied yes, no problem and added that the request was not an unusual one. I thanked her, took out my camera, composed the shot and pressed the button.

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Picture taken using the LX3 – settings: ISO 80, f2, 1/13

Squall

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“You have to remember that the sun is always there, Vladik, even if you cannot see it. Often it is hidden, obscured, obstructed, but only that. So understand that this will end. And you will know that warmth again and see in its light. And it will get lighter – just promise me you’ll not forget this. It will be better, believe me.”

Fyodor Dolokhov, Officer, War and Peace

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There are storms and then, well, there are storms. Such as those that change the light so quickly you look at your watch. As on this occasion when an untimely darkness in my apartment made me glance at my own. Wait a minute, I thought, it couldn’t be…nah, then I went outside onto my balcony just to make sure.

A sky hung low over a city awash, heavy bellied with an impenetrable cloud. The sun was gone and Shinjuku reduced to apparition.  Suddenly the day was out of sync and only westwards was there a remainder of normal afternoon colours. Unfamiliar as the setting was the insistent swshhh of rain on the river. Elemental drama. Sweet.

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Captured with the EOS 400D, EF 28-70mm, ISO200, f9, 1/100

The Coming Glow

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My days often start like this. Alone, but full with quiet and colour. What’s there meets me uninterrupted; I feel the cool of a night just been and the stillness of a city yet properly started. It’s a world languid and fleeting and I hold what I can.

Minutes pass like moments and my day begins. Tea, ablutions, and then other things that you’ll know too well yourself.

TT

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Nerdy part – This is a picture I’ve taken before. I just wanted to use the LX3 to see how it stood up against my SLR. It did well. However, for a full resolution view of this joyous postcard moment, follow the Flickr link.

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Baby Gorillapod mounted, LX3, ISO100, f/7.1, 1 second

Cosy

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I saw this man when I stopped for a consolatory drink after a thwarted photo shoot. The disappointment of unmet expectations, an itchy trigger finger and the prospect of going home empty handed made this simple intrusion foregone.

Before, the homeless made for easy, memorable pictures: strikingly unkempt, wildly dressed, human, accessible – the exotic between us. They’ve also the rewarding aspect of a ready, low key drama, the type their appearance and status inevitably endows, the way they make misfortune visible.

Now it’s harder deal altogether. This particular kind of exile, a sharp friend succinctly noted, ‘…has become a cliche, a first port-of-call for photography students.’ He’s right, of course, but for me there’s the their-tragedy-our-spectacle part that is the great dissuader. Whereas if their plight becomes your mission then that’s a different story, go ahead, fire away.

But what sealed it for me with the guy above was the groovy way in which he wore his cold weather proofing. Not only did he eschew the usual and ungainly cardboard boxes, but his unorthodox quilt-wrap style lent him a certain Teletubby cool, a cosy cartoon plumpness that enabled me to overlook the all the concerns outlined here and reach for my camera.

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Quickly unholstered: LX3, ISO400, f2.8, 1/40