Archive for December 2017
festering wounds
It’s National Cupcake Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Stop, listen, and look. That’s what I try to do whilst moving about the world, with the occasional “sniff” thrown in as well. Stunning to me is the fact that so few actually monitor their environs as they navigate the great urban hive these days, with their mental focus zeroed in on the little rectangles of glowing glass we all carry. This has been a growing issue for years, but of late, I’ve noticed people intently watching television shows on their devices while walking along and crossing the streets of New York City.
What is wrong with all of us?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Caution is something one urges, constantly. Pay attention to your surroundings. Not paying attention is how we’ve arrived at this societal crossroad, and I fear that while somebody is catching up on “Breaking Bad” they will miss the freight train barreling right towards them.
Citizen Mitch despairs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Go. Outside. Talk to people. Put the device down for a few minutes and let yourself feel things. I know it’s scary.
Just do it.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
sickly complected
It’s National Bouillabaisse Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Cliché, a “New Yorkers walking through steam boiling out of a lower Manhattan street grate” shot is presented above. Often, whilst moving around the City, one is confronted with imagery like this. It’s a shot which people far more talented and technically adept than I have taken a thousand thousand times before, and there’s little point to adding another specimen of it to the visual lexicon but there you are. Same thing with seeing a squirrel eating an acorn while perched on a fence or something. You just have to click the shutter.
This time of year, I don’t have much going on anyway, might as well take what the City offers you when it comes along.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Often has a humble narrator asserted that NYC is embedded with psychic firmament, and that the city itself is somewhat sentient – a “being” possessed of a seething cauldron of emotions and a radiant intellect. I believe the City to be female in gender and temperament – a mother goddess like the Hellenic “Hera.” She likes to mess with you, throwing pedantic and existential obstacles or tests your way, the city does.
“Oh great” usually precedes many of my observations concerning the MTA, or the sudden appearance of any number of City agency or utility employees on my block. “Oh great, Verizon is setting up on my corner at midnight. And, they’ve got a backhoe with them…” is the last one I can recall uttering. Occasionally it will be stated as “Wow, there’s a lot of Cops here all of a sudden.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thing is, the City is eternal. Long after the American experiment has faded away, New York City will still live on in some sort of decedent form. Cities almost always seem to live on in one form or another long after the Empire has fallen; Rome, Memphis, London, Istanbul, Beijing, Persepolis, Tokyo, Damascus… Babylon the great always falls. A certain point of view often comes up in modern conversations which looks back to a period just one century ago in NYC as some sort of heroic age. Giants existed, who built subways and great bridges and highways and tunnels. These giants are long gone, and we marvel at their works, which we lesser beings are barely able to maintain.
What do I know? I’m just some wandering mendicant in a filthy black raincoat, scuttling along the streets of an eternal elder goddess/City which is possessed of a malefic sense of humor, carrying a camera.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
photostatic copy
It’s National Hot Cocoa Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is quite amazing, really, the stuff you find scattered around the streets of Western Queens. Intentionally castoff manufactured items, or simply lost ones, abound. Recent effort found one wandering home via Sunnyside and this anamorphic headgear was simply staring me down as I approached.
Can’t blame it, I mean… look at me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the same day, this little assortment was encountered. This is clearly NOT the work of the Queens Cobbler, a local serial killer who leaves behind single shoe totems to mark their ghastly activities, as the shoes are in a pair and the Cobbler has never been known to leave behind kitchenware.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Captured a few weeks ago, the shot above does seem to bear all the evidentiary trademarks of the Queens Cobbler, however.
Someday, the Cops will batter down a storage room gate somewhere in LIC and find the lair of this footwear obsessed predator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
sinister matters
It’s National Ambrosia Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just a single shot today, depicting the most photogenic of NYC’s Subway lines entering the Queensboro Plaza station in LIC.
Tomorrow night, at Jackson’s Eatery Bar in LIC (which sits atop the Vernon Jackson stop of the 7 line at 10-37 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101), Newtown Creek Alliance’s holiday party will occur between 6 and 8:30 p.m. Come with?
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
second search
It’s National Have a Bagel Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As much as I enjoy a good dystopian nightmare, a humble narrator is somewhat ready to shut the doors and lock the windows these days. Sheesh. “Best thing to do is lose yourself in work” and ignore everything else I always say, which is why one recently found himself perched on his porch with a tripod mounted camera while the so called supermoon hung squamously in the cloud stained skies of western Queens. The thing that drew me to set up the entire rig was actually the presence of the fast moving atmospheric system, rather than the presence of the satellite itself. The aural light passing through the clouds was just fantastic.
If I actually had a brain in my head, I would have shot some video of it as well.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the time of year when one feels as if he’s running at full speed but not making any headway. The tyranny of the now, the banal, and the pedantic is let loose. I owe everyone something, but the concurrence of an empty pocketbook and a complete inability to get anything substantial started – let alone delivered – means that all are disappointed.
The winter of my discontent has arrived. Bah.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The moon shots in today’s post, since I know someone is going to ask, were gathered with the camera mounted on a sturdy tripod and outfitted with a 300mm lens. The first shot was gathered at ISO 500, f.9, and a 1.3 second exposure (I wanted the clouds to “shmear”). For the one directly above, the rig was set to ISO 800, at f7.1, and the exposure was .3 of a second. The usual problems encountered with a bright moon, dark sky, and the counter movements of both planet and moon, and the quickly blowing clouds were all calculated into the equations above.
Procedure demands that you first do a few test shots of a scenario like the one pictured in today’s post to find the right exposure triangle(s), then you need to reorient the camera to where the Moon is going to be in a few minutes rather than where it was while you were doing your test shots. Remember that the moon is moving quite a bit faster through the sky than the naked eye would suggest, but you find that out fairly quickly while looking down a telephoto “soda straw.”
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 