There is a vibe, a feel, wavelength a certain special dank that comprise the vapors that grab you as soon as you set foot onto any of the boroughs hollowed ground. Granted, each has their own special variation on the theme and have unique attributes of their own. Maybe it's the Jersey breeze that hits the shores and is changed by vapors that emanate from each borough, as distinct from one another as 8 is from 2,754,903. Whatever the historic, mythic and rational reason that is NYC encompasses all 5 and possibly a couple streets in Newark but that is not for me to say. I was only a visitor with bad shoes and a few scant hours of free time between obligations that are better left out of this account.
It was about a year ago that my feet and wheels adjusted to the cement and asphalt of the streets and sidewalks of Brooklyn and mid-town. My time on those well ridden avenues was short, each frame that I shot was of brief composition taken during respites of appreciation of the moment and squares of cement I was on. My planned path started on at the Anglican Trinity Church on Broadway. Sometimes the start of something new begins at the end of the old.
Connor Kammer is an old acquaintance and constant source of on and off board inspiration. Meeting up with him was mandatory if time and fortune were on our side. Thankfully it was and our brief excursion with Barrett Moore went down to a place of Zoo York and Anthony Correa. Barrett's casual snaps had a Huf/Supa vibe of holy shit power that made it hard not to get a decent split second of his prowess.
Instead of rolling around the perfect streets of Brooklyn I watched Brian Downey plant a tree. Granted it was a pleasant enough tree, young enough to survive the trauma of its obvious abuse due to use as a prop on one TV or movie or another. Long is the list of foliage that has given up the ghost for the sake of cinematic entertainment.
Where the mooks and schlubs wander and dominate.
Wandered into the mashed up dream of Porous Walker and Todd Francis in a Fools bodega.
That night lead to a boat ride with a cat called Kool Keith and some fellows in pink and brown that made with the merry more than most.
The night was flowing with over priced drinks that never emptied my pocket and the consumption of things they called weed but didn't look green to me.
Over a century ago a regular guy with little advantage was born and raised in this house in Brooklyn. Henry Miller was his name and what he grew into and wrote down changed thousands of lives for the better. You should know him.
This door let me in, or kept me out? It opened and illuminated the first moments of a day, the end of a night.?.
There are few cats that can step to Steve Brandi. You better know what to do with a racquet and a curved plumbing fixture or you're a chump. Hopps 2020, bitch.
They got me in this building, took it all for a song and dance that didn't even cover my film and chemicals. Call me a sucker for a dream and a good idea.
The car dropped me off and ten feet later my half-frame camera shit the bed with this polished white turd. Got a couple good frames before it went kaput.
One last look, until next time ya old bastard.