Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 9:22 AM
Subject: No longer riding on the merry go round
Wednesday July 11th didn't really start for me
until sometime around noon, when I finally made myself get up and take a
shower. Went back to the photography store to return something and ended
buying another $100 worth of stuff. Started thinking about Photography
and the music I had heard the night before and had a little bit of a
revelation. I hadn't been having as much fun with Photography for a
while and was trying to figure out why. In Photography there seems to be
almost a religion around technical proficiency to make the perfect picture.
As I had been learning more and reading about it, I started trying to conform
to this standard and stopped having fun. What I realized was that I
could try to be like David Sanborn's band, and have remarkably precise and
perfect photos, but that were not a product of my vision, or I could go back
to using ridiculously high speed film, handholding shots that should be on a
tripod, and using my own composition ideas (basically breaking all the
"rules"). I could then use all the "rules" when I
needed them for the desired effect, but otherwise shooting what I saw and
felt. I would much prefer people (and myself) seeing my pictures to
have a connection to the image itself, not the technical expertise of the
image. So anyhow, enough of that, took some pictures when I was down at
the photo store...
Empire
state building and Madison Square Garden
I wanted to go to the John Lennon memorial,
Strawberry Fields, in Central Park. Suzanne and I walked up there to check
it out and to meet Todd, a former coworker of ours who now lives in the city.
It was pretty intense, I had been listening to a lot of John Lennon in the
last few weeks, so to walk by the Dakota, where he was shot was spooky.
The memorial is in a little clearing in the park with some benches and a
mosaic in the walkway.
There were a lot of people sitting around and
someone had put those flowers and candle on the mosaic. There was a guy
sitting on one of the benches with a guitar playing beatles and John Lennon
songs.
You can see him in the upper left of this picture.
If you notice, there is a luggage tag on the guitar case. He had a
noticeable accent. When he got up to leave, he took a quick picture of
the mosaic and started to walk away. Somebody offered to take a picture
of him sitting there with his guitar and you could tell he was really excited.
I don't know what his story is, but here is what I think. He was this
huge John Lennon fan, learned how to play guitar, and a bunch of
Beatles/Lennon songs, even though he doesn't know english, and he came all the
way to New York to pay tribute and play his guitar. It was all really
kind of cool. After that Todd, Suzanne and I went out to dinner, and
then to Todd's apartment to sit around and have a few drinks. On the way
back, got this picture of the Empire State Building:
Packed up a little, it was time to leave the next
morning.....
