Once Colorful City Fades to Gray

I have been working on these photos for a while but the subject feels oddly appropriate right now.

Over the years, I have noticed more and more buildings turning gray. Brownstones are resurfaced without the brown.

Gray painted brick looms over Miss Lily's Sunny Jamaican Diner.

While many Georgian townhouses are gray or black, they are usually next to other, lighter colored townhouses. Most new buildings are, of course, gray.

Sometimes it feels as if whole blocks are losing their color.

Two years ago, I posted this building in Williamsburg that was being gut renovated. There was nothing left but its cheery facade.

The graffiti creatures along the buildings base looked as if they were imprisoned in the construction shed.

A tumor building was constructed around it and it has been adorned with the most hectic graffiti.

Here is a closer look.

I am not sure what the misshapen lump in is, I think I see a footprint in there. I do not like this graffiti at all and not just because it was also temporarily adorning a Douglas Elliman office. There are so many better examples of graffiti murals. Once there were murals all around New York City. They are slowly disappearing as the gray buildings become more common. In Bushwick there ares still lots of beautiful walls.

This one is so nice we have to look at it twice

I love the image of this young woman. She is my inspiration.

Following with Chanel's descent into lipstick revolution is all the more depressing.

Let's clear our palette with a cat eating a bat.

I also love these odd chaotic spots of tags.

Near White St. and Moore, the warehouses are all painted with tags and art. It gets panted over with new work every few months.

La Borinquena

The Williamsburg Bridge is always getting tagged, with the dedication plaque as a favorite spot.

The city tried to clean the plaque, but it did not last. This was the first tag, the plaque is covered once again, but it isn't as nice as the Stay Human art above.

Summer, Some Strange Eyes

Random Pictures

Searching for spring as the weather refuses to cooperate, wet snow is forcast for tomorrow. These farmer's market daffodils reminded me of butterflies and they wilted spectacularly in small groups until only three were standing. They quickly joined their sisters, it was all very ephemeral.

These are pictures I have been taking over the last few months, when I have time to capture a few images.

This was from February, I think it was a a remnant of Mardi Gras.

Night Pictures

Things have been crazy. I have been taking photos, but no time to even look at them. My new camera has a function that makes hand held night shots a possibility. I have been playing around with it.
 

I am fascinated by this window, when I pass it on the J train, I can see inside. There are racks of clothes and people possibly sewing. There are plants and a bicycle hanging on the wall. The train passes quickly, I only catch a glimpse.

I want to play around some more.
 

Midwinter

I bought a new camera. I had been planning on buying a cheap video camera to mimic security camera footage for another project I am working on. But the man at B & H led me down the line of display cases to a beautiful camera with a Leica lens that also shoots video. His selling argument was that I could always shoot at a lower quality to imitate security footage.

The camera is a huge improvement over my 10 year old Canon. I wandered around a little bit trying out the camera. It makes me so happy that L'impasse (dead end) is still on 8th street. There used to be lots of crazy clothing stores and funky shoe stores, now only a few remain. I would love to see the Valentine's Day date involving these outfits.

A tropical rain storm interrupted my camera exploration, and despite various groundhog predictions of spring, winter returned. There has been a spate of decorative snow, sticking mostly on trees and grass, leaving passges clear. The best kind of snow for the city really.

The elm trees in Union Square were so pretty.

The sad blue building hasn't looked this good since the misguided addition of a glass curtain walll obscured all its cast iron details.

It was about here that I realized that I could change the image format between square, rectangular and panorama. Unfortunately, I also changed the image size so all these pictures are only good for the web.

I am getting more familiar with the camera controls.

A little later, the sun came out and all the snow melted off the trees, water cascaded down branches and the awnings sparkling in the light.