I hauled around my new wide-angle lens while running errands today and once again I was astounded by the sheer variety of sights on display in New York.
Read MoreClassical Music In The Park
Rolling clouds and light showers couldn't drive people away and together we toughed out the weather delays to enjoy a wonderful show by the New York Philharmonic and violinist Joshua Bell, who is so good and so popular that even I know who he is.
Read MoreLooking good, New Jersey
One of the good things about living in New York is that there are no bad spots to test out new camera gear. I chose Brookfield Place near the Hudson River. Good choice, I think.
Read MoreYesterday Was A Good Day
For getting caught in the rain.
You Win This Round, Manhattanhenge
I went for a different look at Manhattanhenge yesterday, but the clouds were the same old dicks. Next date is in July. Do I really want to try this again?
A Little Rain Won't Stop Tiki Barber
I somehow took his photo in the middle of the Brooklyn Half Marathon a couple of weeks ago without even realizing it.
Maybe Next Time, Manhattanhenge
The clouds apparently did not want me to get my epic shot of Manhattanhenge. Maybe next time.
Nutcracker Ballet
I was scrolling through my archives and came across these photos I took of a Nutcracker ballet performance a few years ago. I'm still not sure how humans can move like that.
Read MoreMeow Parlour
It took two weeks of waiting to get into the surprisingly exclusive Meow Parlour that is perhaps better known as NYC's first cat cafe.
Read MoreDada J.P. Vaswani
It's not every day that you get to hear spiritual leader Dada J.P. Vaswani speak to a small group. It's even rarer to receive this special gift, along with his blessing, on your birthday. I must be one lucky guy.
Read MorePippa Cohen and Bertha Gonzalez Nieves's Birthday Party At The Jane Hotel
A few of my favorite photos from the dual birthday party of Pippa Cohen and Bertha Gonzalez Nieves. You can't see it but behind the camera I'm mouthing the words to "California Love."
Read MoreFestival of Colors: Holi NYC
I thought I knew what a Holi festival was like, having photographed NYC Bhangra's Holi Hai a week ago, but boy oh boy is the Festival of Colors: Holi NYC a different beast.
Read MoreSights From The new Whitney
I hadn't been to the Whitney Museum before its reopening last weekend so everything was completely new for me
Read MoreHoli Hai
There's never a bad time to throw colored powder and listen to music so I was happy to visit the annual Holi Hai NYC festival hosted by the NYC Bhangra Dance Company this past weekend.
Read MoreMay Day Rally NYC 2015
I was wandering through the East Village this afternoon taking photos for my Animals of New York project when I stumbled upon a May Day rally to raise awareness for income inequality and workers' rights that had merged with a large group protesting police brutality that is all too painfully represented by the six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray. Despite the large number of people marching through Second Avenue, everyone seemed cooperative with the police patrolling the rally's path and directing traffic. Here's hoping for better days ahead.
Animals of New York
Often it seems that everyone in New York has a pet while I remain trapped in a tiny apartment that isn't allowed to house anything with a tail. I've soothed this furry hole in my heart by running CutePugPics.com (which you should totally check out) but it's far, far, far from enough.
All of which is my slow windup to announcing the start of Animals of New York. It's my new photo series that I'll be the first to admit is basically a rip off of Brandon Stanton's Humans of New York except with pets. Well, it's perhaps a bit more than that, I hope. HoNY pulls off an almost magical feat by presenting portraits with deeply revealing snippets of conversation that transform random strangers into people who we can see share hopes, fears and regrets not unlike our own.
My modest goal is to follow the same formula of pairing portraits with slices of conversation but with the added twist of focusing on the relationship people share with their pets. It might not seem like an important distinction, but I think this approach separates Animals of New York from other gorgeous pet photo blogs like The Dogist. Staring deeply into a puppie's eyes is an endless exercise in awwing but I think the real magic is in the special bond between pets and their masters. Have you ever looked at someone's face when they play with their cat or dog or, hell, their pet lizard? That's true love right there, and my heart warms just thinking about it.
Pets give us a reason to be better versions of ourselves and in return we have the power to give them safe and happy lives. It's a great deal, and, frankly. I think I'm a slightly better person just witnessing people share that love with their pets.
I don't know if Animals of New York will find a following. I also don't know if it will evolve into something very different from its initial premise, as HoNY did. I suspect I'll continue to tinker with my photographic technique and how I present pets and their masters, so please bear with me as I figure out what the heck I'm doing.
I'd really like to turn Animals of New York into a regular gig shooting portraits with people and their pets. (And if you want photos, email me!) Because shooting people is cool, and pets are great, but it's when they come together that it really gets special. That's the ultimate goal, but in the meantime I'd just like to share this awesome thing going on between people and their furry friends. If you feel the same way then I hope you'll join me over at AoNY.
Cherry Blossoms 2015: The Peak Bloomening
It's becoming a tradition for me to go down to DC during the cherry blossom festival and take a luxurious nap surrounded by tourists and falling petals. I did it last year and again this past weekend when a friend and I arrived mostly through dumb luck during "peak bloom."
I'm not sure what it is about cherry blossoms that I find so relaxing. I don't think they're the most beautiful flower; I can't even tell them apart from dogwood trees. But they bloom for so short a time, it's like nature is painting a swirling landscape that will be blown away by the next strong wind. A nap must be my way of enjoying the calm and beauty around me because I usually experience the same drowsiness when I'm at a museum. The key difference of course is that nobody kicks me out of the cherry blossom festival when I put my head down and drool on the ground for a couple of hours.
Yolk Show
Sometimes you go to a performance in the middle of a midtown office lobby and that show turns out to be two women emerging from egg chairs in a slow, hypnotic dance that ends with them giving birth (I think?) to their egg chairs. Surprisingly relaxing actually. 10/10 would watch egg births again. Produced by Arts Brookfield with Third Rail Projects.
Pillow Fight 2015: The Reckoning
I only brought a camera to the NYC Pillow Fight on Saturday, but about halfway through I somehow acquired an off-white foam beauty and finally got to whack some revenge into everyone who had spent the previous half hour thrashing my innocent skull. I'm not saying that an epic pillow fight pitting hundreds against each other is like a battleground, but let's just say that I now have a pretty good idea of what it felt like storming Normandy beach.
The NYC Half Marathon
I'm not what you'd call a morning person, but even I can appreciate the pre-dawn darkness where anything seems possible, like a Times Square bereft of squads of Elmos trolling for change. By 9am on Sunday there were still no red furry creatures in sight, though Seventh Avenue was squirming with people dressed quite literally in every color of a Crayola crayon box. It never ceases to amaze me how runners can look so happy. Is it a ploy to get me into cross trainers and spandex? Perhaps. Or maybe it's just fun and healthy and a great way to enjoy this city with so many sights and smells and colorful panhandlers.