Friday, October 21, 2005

From NYC: after the museum, the real thing

Afternoon: I am in New York, idling away a few hours. I hike over to the Whitney Museum of American Art on 75th. I’m getting lazy. A suitcase to pull, a computer to carry. I get on the Madison Avenue bus. I don’t have enough quarters. I get off the Madison Avenue bus.

More blocks. I’m there. I want to see a special exhibit of photographs. Theme: Sub/urbia, the new city. Kind of strange to look for that in New York after having (gladly) moved from the suburbs this summer. In order to get closer to downtown Madison. Life is strange.

The exhibit is good. For example:


New York Oct 05 004
sub-urbia on display


But it takes only ten minutes to view it and I have paid $12 to be here. No matter, there’s always Edward Hopper.

New York Oct 05 007
looking at a Hopper, looking like a Hopper



The trouble is, once you have seen a roomful of Edward Hoppers, you begin to see Hopper-esque scenes everywhere. I take a cab to Grand Central, go down and find the train for New Haven.

New York Oct 05 018
a woman waits at the train station


New York Oct 05 020
commuter train: going home


New York Oct 05
private thoughts

7 comments:

  1. Nice photos -- especially that one on the train.

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  2. The pictures of waiting for and riding a train are sufficiently evocative that they remind me why I don't want to live like that. Being inside can be good, but only if it's in the right place, and waiting to get home on a train is not one of those places.

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  3. The last picture on the train certainly echoes the bleakness of Hopper.

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  4. So strangers just let you take their picture? They don't mind?

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  5. Sometimes they mind. Sometimes they yell at me and I apologize and retreat. I read the legal guide to posting photos. I'm comfortable with doing this and paying an occasional price of being told no.

    I am afraid that someday someone will grab my camera and bang me over the head with it. I will be sad to have my camera damaged.

    I love photographing people -- I wish I were even bolder.

    I was explaining just today that mostly, I have an elaborate set of defusing strategies and games that I play when people look up. They rarely understand that indeed, I am taking people photos. Such is the beauty of the digital.

    P.S. -- Anonymous commenters, I love you dearly, but can you sign with some identifying letters so that I at least can follow a thread of your messages?

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  6. Wonderful photos, as always. The last one on the train is especially moving, no pun intended.

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