New Project And How It Goes…

I shrug my shoulders to my ears and bury my face toward my chest, wincing, warding off the icy gusts, a gale, blowing in from the East River.   I pick my head up in time to see three fellow adventurers on the dicey walk, coming from the opposite direction.  I step aside so they can pass, to retreat it would seem, then continue to forger forth toward my destination.  It’s a familiar theme in my life “I think to myself, “walking toward a proverbial storm.”

I’m near the waterfront making my way to the base of the Brooklyn Bridge.  You see, I have been hungry to start a new creative photography project, an art project, one, in due course, to be printed large and displayed on walls and, a few days ago, I solved something for myself.   A happy accident had left a kernel of and idea that festered into an itch that germinated and has now lead to my current exploration of Photo-Impressionism, more specifically, in Street Photography (more on this in the future).  So for the past few days I’ve been “living in it,” out shooting constantly: Times Square, Grand Central Station, Prospect Park, Rockefeller Center, the streets, subways, morning, day, night, rain, shine, and now,  in a snow storm, a blustering, north-eastern windbag… and I estimate only an hour of use-able light left in the day so I’m moving as fast as I can manage in the circumstance.

I  arrive at Old Fulton Street and lay my backpack on an apartment building stoop, first clearing the snow with my foot.  I remove my camera, double wrapped in a plastic bag, take off my gloves, open a compact umbrella that I brought along to shoot under as a canopy, its’ limbs stressed, skeleton fragile and barely functioning to hold it open.  Then, with camera in hand and much finagling of the umbrella handle with my chin and shoulder, move around the street for different perspectives, kneeling, squatting, crouching in a half foot of powdered.  “Snap” goes the shutter, scratching against the gentle sound of falling snow.   I take a moment to consider my position, my intention and breathe warm air into my hands, then re-focus the lens and adjust camera functions, “snap,” and more “snap” “snap” “snap,” it continues.

In hardly minutes my eyelashes become sticky-iced, my nose burns and my hands begin to hurt like arthritis.  Bitter is the Brooklyn Winter!  I concede.  That’s all I can stand.    I pack my camera and zip up.  My fingers are brittle and stinging.  I slide the gloves back on and make fists, calling for circulation.  I got what I came for and that’s all I can hope for.  I walk off into the white out, looking for someplace warm.

Will the shots ultimately make the grade?  Or was it all for naught?  I dunno yet, and that’s just how it goes…

Here’s three from that trek and a few others from the project.  As always, click on for larger images.

Be Well,

Keith