NYC - Final Report - A Journal Summary

The Journal

I had to keep an artist's journal as an assignment for the class during my time in NYC,  I use a journal like that to capture ideas, quotes, thoughts, and other detritus that I pick up and find value in.  I rarely use it as a processing and clarifying tool.  In ways, that is what this blog is for.

Below are a few of the snippets I captured in it.  Maybe by putting them here, they will start to make sense and give me an internal look at what I saw in New York.  I chose not to edit them.  They are in their original words, except where I could not decipher my chicken scratch.  I left all the images hi-res.  Click on them to get the big version.


MoMA

 "I prowled the streets all day feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to 'trap' life - to preserve living." -  Henri Cartier-Bresson

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Duane Michals
We visited photographer Duane Michals' in his studio / home.  He talked with us for an hour and shared some of his new work.  At 78, he might as well be 38.  He lives.  Some of his quotes that stick with me:

"Before it becomes bullshit, ask questions"
"If you put shit your head, you will lead a shitty life."
"Nobody really gives a fuck about you, it is up to you to make your art important."
"Don't go against your intuition."
"Two choices in life - doing it or becoming bullshit (makes me think of what lightness of being  means)"
"Your true identity is in your secrets. " Maybe I need to photograph my secrets?
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MET

The Gugg

American women and fashion exhibit - How much is her desire to look good for herself, for us, or just because that is what men expect?

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Central Park Lovers

If You Can

Central Park
At John Lennon's Strawberry Fields memorial in Central Park, across from where he was killed.  Seeing all these people "worshiping" him 30 years post mortem makes me think of his lyric and change it to:

Imagine all the people, "faking" in harmony.

Singing "Yellow Submarine"

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With a Mission

The New Museum
(Upon seeing the life-sized wax statue of a man blowing himself) - Should be called, "Wouldn't You?"  I would.

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Unseen Interactions

In Harlem
Life in New York is balls out in anonymity.  If you don't like it, don't look.

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Statue of Liberty - is now a beautiful cliche
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Ground Zero 
They can't build there.  Things get fucked up and they start over again.

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Touch them for Luck!  He doesn't mind.

Wall Street
Grab the brass bull by the balls.  al Quaeda and the banking industry did.




















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Coney Island
A depressing side show of recreation.  The hot mid-day sun barely reflects off of the dull paint of the rides.  The creak of the boardwalk matches the creak of the people walking on it.
Coney Island is purgatory. It is where we go when we expect heaven, even for an afternoon, but get used up and worn out ideals of what should be... or was.  Perfect place to observe the human condition in limbo of living.

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The New York Connecting Arteries
Everyone is an independent being tied together by the one shared thing, New York.  Sid, the local corner market owner and Renee, the art gallery curator, bump into each other on the "N" line as the train stops suddenly.  Both have their lives built by all they have done, but they have done all of that in NYC.  That gives them a sameness that other cities don't hold.

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Things overheard in the city
Costco exit - man angry he can't enter through the exit and the employee telling him to go around.
"Fuck you." he mutters.
"Yep, fuck me.  That is what we are made to do.  That is how we got here.  Now go around." she replies.

Outside the Hogs and Heifers Saloon by Highline Park.
"BAM!" Marla exclaims with a pop as she walks by us toward the bar's door.
"Bam?", asks my instructor.
"Yeah, late last night I was fucked up and fell and hurt my leg. Now I walk every other step with a BAM!"
She demonstrates by "bamming" her hip outward and laughs.  Her friend says, "BAM!"  We all say "BAM!"
Marla walks into the bar and tells us, "You got that right, BAM!"

Hogs and Heifers

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Leaving NYC
The bus AC is broken and it is hot and muggy.  I snap at Mollee and my dark mood is better experienced alone.  I listen to my music to escape.  I feel more at home in NYC than in SF, or anywhere else I've been.  People are real, they say what they mean, they still care.

I miss NYC because it represents what I am not - not living the moment, not taking the risks to be more, not really living a life.
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SF and NYC
SF has a gentle heart for its people and visitors.  It is a fairy tale of acceptance that is both warm and only surface level.   SF is too afraid to offend anyone... other than conservatives.

If SF is a fairy tale, NYC is the dark and rough graphic novel of life.   Life is not always pretty, but it is alive.

SF may be Glenda the good witch, or at least thinks she is.  NYC is not the evil witch.  She is more like the human made mother nature, watching over all her charges.  No one person controls it.

Like nature, things flourish, grow, build, die, and decay.  Like nature, disaster happens and life on it dies for some.  Then things shift around and all goes on.
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The New York Look

We dress sexy, we dress good.
We wear something a little tighter, a little more colorful or different maybe.
Shauna over there, looks like a whore in her skin tight gold lame pants, but fuck you for judging her.  She didn't even notice you standing outside Forever 21 as she walked by.

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On the way to Penn

Penn Station
Looking @ the tiny subway map only confused me.  Old Sid pulling an old suitcase on wheels sees me and asks, "Goin' to Penn Station?"
"Yeah"
"Take the 1,2, or 3.  Its your first stop."
I start to look for the 1, 2, or 3 train.    Sid says, "Follow me, I'm goin' there anyway."  I follow old Sid and his suitcase to Penn Station.
Sid leans in, "What do you want at Penn?"
"BH Photo."
"Yeah, thats on 9th."  He looks at my camera bag and all this confirms is my tourist status.  I am a visitor photographing the "exotics", which is just his fucking home.
I thank him and he replies, "Good luck."
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The Swarm
We sit on the train coming into the next stop and hear a human roar.  Dozens of high schoolers are yelling in celebration.  They flood our car - some are yelling, other laughing, and singing.  Two are dance grinding each other.  Nothing but noise.
Two minutes, we pull into next stop, 59th and Lexington and the swarm of noisy birds fly en masse off our train car and their shrieks fade and echo off the tile hallways.  WTF was that.
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The Sexy
New Yorkers know how to be sexy.  They live it, not put it on. 















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Looking Up

Empire State Building
When I stand on its observation deck, NYC is my bitch.  I can spit on it.  I can squish Lady Liberty between my fingers.  I can flip off 8 million plus people in the 2 minutes it takes to walk around the obs. deck.  The city is not that much.

The Cage

Then I stand by the edge and look through the protective art-deco thick gauged wire cage and look down upon 42nd street going far down.  Some little shit of a kid runs into me and bumps me hard.  My nose hits the wire.  For one second I die as I see 42nd below about to swallow me.  I am once again NYC's bitch and she is my Mistress.  Don't ever take her for granted.  She will not always forgive.

You are not God.

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NY Minute
The cliche is "in a NY minute."  Yeah, its a cliche, but it is all of these minutes that get in your mind/heart that fuck with you/inspire you/hurt you/ and made you and me for all those one-minutes.


NOTE -I have over 2000 images to go through including two sessions with models.  I will post those as they are processed.  This will probably be my last post solely devoted to this trip to NYC as a travelogue.  Too much of it is still in me and has to be processed/developed in my internal darkroom.  As my coworker Ollie says, "when in doubt, take it personally."  I did.