"Coney Island, 18 June 2011"

I would say that things usually work out well for me. After a successful trip to Coney Island in March, and ten days in Manhattan the previous October, I had planned a return trip for the end of June. There are a lot of different things that come into play when I pick a time to travel, and this particular day just happened to be the Saturday of the annual parade in Coney Island to mark the start of summer.

It was a good day, with lots of interesting things to see. I spent the morning in Manhattan, using black and white film in my rangefinder, and then switched to colour and a telephoto lens for most of the afternoon. Despite being a smaller format than what I had used for my March trip to Coney Island, the film is the same and I like the way they work together.

I'm still not done with Coney Island yet, and may have another trip or two there this year. Eventually I'll be able to put together a series that covers different seasons across a few years. Until then, this photo will stand on its own.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

"Fifth and Forty-Fourth"

One thing that I've noticed is that my photographic interests have narrowed over the years. I used to go out and just explore, never knowing what I would find, but these days I tend to visualize a specific image and then work to make it happen. At least, that's what I do when I'm at home – when I travel I'm much more likely to be spontaneous.

Midtown Manhattan is only a ten-hour bus ride from downtown Toronto, making it a relatively easy overnight trip. That's also why I'm more likely to be on Fifth Avenue at six-thirty on the morning than to see Toronto's own Yonge Street: I need a very good reason to be awake that early. All I could think about here was making sure that I had my Zeiss 35/2 lens set to infinity and f/5.6 as I brought the camera up for this shot – that and making sure there were no oncoming taxis as I crossed the street a block south from this gentleman.

This photo was taken on my third trip to New York, and it was the second time I brought my Zeiss Ikon rangefinder. This is my perfect camera for cities and streets, especially with the Zeiss 35mm f/2 Biogon, which is possibly the best wide-angle lens ever made. This is the setup I most associate with New York, and it's one of the cameras I'll be carrying when I return this fall.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

"Coney Island Furniture"

New York City is a very big place. While it doesn't suffer from a lack of photographers, the idea of creating any single body of work that can capture the breadth of it would be a daunting task even if I lived there, which I don't. Instead I need to focus on just a few themes and restrict myself to very specific parts of the city.

"Coney Island Furniture" is, naturally, from an ongoing series of photos from Coney Island. This is an iconic area of amusement parks with a boardwalk on the Atlantic ocean that always faces the sun, and it's the terminus for four different subway lines that run through midtown Manhattan.

My first trip to it was in March of 2011, before the rides opened for the season, making it a quiet and rather cold and windy place. I carried a tripod and my hasselblad, which made for an interesting day.

This store is on Surf Avenue, not far from the beach and attractions, but seems to have enjoyed better times. I like to linger on the storefront with its signs and unusual lettering, and typically for my cityscape photos, it's built out of rectangles with no people to be seen anywhere.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.