Photo of the Day

Headed to the studio
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

The great thing about extended summer hours at CUNY is that I get up early enough to see stuff like this.

Alicia Keys gave a special performance at Times Square this morning. I saw the announcement on GMA this morning so I wasn't surprised to see the horde of people as I emerged from the station on my way to work. I showed up just as she finished playing the piano they had set up for her on a raised platform but I did manage to get a few shot as she came down and headed to the studio.

Photos of The Day

I took these photos at the Central Park Conservatory this weekend. I can't tell you how hard I worked to get these just perfect. I've been shooting in manual mode on my Nikon more often and I love it. Manual is literally just shooting the way you would with a regular film camera if you can remember what that was like. There was no auto focus, no little red light or beeping alert telling you what to do. It gives you control over focus, light metering and depth of field. Fortunately, my Nikon give me the option to go back to a somewhat analog style of shooting. I don't have a macro lens on my camera but I thought I would play around in manual to get this somewhat macro close effect. It came out so much better than I imagined.

Can we talk about how absolutely miraculous the structure of flowers are? I was just in awe looking at these forms of life up close. There is so much going on in the world of plants that we don't know about. As insignificant as it may seem to us, our survival is dependent in many ways upon their ability to function in a balanced eco system. I now begin to understand why Stevie Wonder was moved to make a double album about them for the soundtrack of a small documentary of the same name. There really is a secret life there.

Photo of the Day

Becoming something of a study
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

I know I've missed a few. Believe me, I have more than made up for it today. God, what a beautiful day. The breeze felt great on my skin and the threatening rain clouds remained at bay.

This is yet another picture taken from my apt window with Cameramatic. This vantage point is as the title states, becoming something of study lately. What can I say? The sunset is amazing from here.

It's amazing what goes on between the clouds and the sunlight while we go about the daily routines of our lives. It's another world.

Hassleblad, come to me...

If you're not a camera nerd, you don't want none of this.

Okay, now that we're all on the same page, I was looking through someone's amazing film photos on flickr just now (as usual) and I mean amazing, like things you can't simulate with digital, breathtaking stuff and in the contact's profile she says she uses Rolieflex twin lens cameras as well as digital Nikons. This lead me to an ebay search for the camera my dad owned when I was a child and when I saw it I was knocked out with memories of playing with it when he wasn't around. A Roleiflex at that time was a pretty incredible thing for a child, because technically it was one of the first cameras that had a view finder that looked kind of like a screen. On occasion, when no one was home but my bother and I, I would go into my parents bedroom and pull out the Rolielex from where my dad kept it on the shelf. I would flip up the top and look down into it while moving around the room. It was a bit like watching a movie, that's all. Very simple, but I thought it was so cool! I would click the shutter, sure that there was no film inside, but clicked it anyway just because I loved the satisfyingly deep thunk sound it would make. I would also open it occasionally as if I was going to load film. It had all these fun clasps and latches and I just really liked figuring it out for myself, the way my dad had taught me. I didn't know squat about photography really. Roleis are just beautiful cameras. I always love seeing them.

Hassleblad

So while I looked at a ebay listing of one just now,  it occurred to me that I wasn't sure whether my dad had sold his or not so I called him and it turns out he did. I just wanted to be sure. And then I remembered his Hassleblad. The Swedish made, medium format film camera he bought while I was a teenager. That camera takes some amazing shots and takes the same film (120 format) as a Rolieflex so I took a chance and asked if he would ever let me use it. I felt sure he would back out of it jokingly, but he agreed readily that it would be fine! WHAAAT??

I sure hope he understands that by use, I mean maybe possibly borrow, babysit, kidnap for a bit. LOL!!

Obama, most popular Baby President Ever!

Ok, maybe this is showing my age or something, but now that I think about it even back in my twenties, one of the qualities I found really sexy in a man was his ability to seamlessly connected with children. Yes, I go weak at the knees when men I really love pick up kids and love on them and connect with them on their level in any way. So when I saw this clip this morning on GMA, I swear, my eyes got watery and just melted. And look at Obama's face! He knows he's got this! Oh, I need a moment.

Michelle, it's not too late to have one more! Please! So we can watch this all the time! Work on that! LOL!!!

Photo of the Day

Sunset in Harlem
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

Today's photo of the day is of the sky after the sun setting as seen from my apartment window. I used the camera app, Cameramatic which I found out about after harassing a poor young man in Italy whose acquaintance I made one morning as we were frantically dashing to download new hipstamatic lens on the FB page last year.

We were both posting that we were having problems and ended up trouble shooting together. He's a fantastic photographer, whose photos, for me, have a lot of intensity and weight. We became contacts on flickr and I also follow his work on the Instagram app. Recently he started using this filter and I nearly flipped for every photo I saw that he took using it.

I don't really know how to explain it, but this composition really makes me feel something, something sort of melancholy and nostalgic but not in a manipulated way. The simplicity of the over contrasted silhouette, grainy over processed due tones and film sprockets. It really makes me think of a simpler time i guess. Simple and familiar. I grew op in a house of photography and this is what it felt like.

Photo of the Day

Untitled
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

I've lived in Harlem for 3 years now and only today did I find the shoe repair place just a few blocks away! I am thrilled!

You can't high tech shoe repair! It's old school. It has to be. Cobblers are old school. I'm just so glad that the guy seems nice. I am so excited to go back and take pictures, you don't even know! I like his set up a lot. He's got a poster of MIles Davis to the right of the counter and this great row of shoe shine chairs. And of course that wonderful smell of shoe polish. Mmm! I love that smell.

I took my cowboy boots over there this afternoon. They've been collecting dust for over a year but are in great condition. I'm not about to let another summer so by without them. YAY!

Hard Boiled Review from 2006

I am currently reading "Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words" by Jay Rubin, a  nice dense review of Murakami's books by friend and translator, Jay Rubin which I found in Chelsea his week on a table foe seven bucks. I had exactly seven bucks on me. I had heard about this book in another book on Murakami's literary popularity entitled "A Wild Haruki Chase" compiled and translated by the Japanese Foundation. Since Murakami's latest book which is already released in Japan is not scheduled to be released until October of next year, I've been lusting after anything else I could find by or about him on and off for months. Once I start a book by Murakami, it's pretty much light out on the "real" world until I'm done. No matter what is happening (at least in most cases, I found his last novel surprisingly disappointing l and actually gave it away.) I can open a book of his and be completely submerged.

What Jay Rubin does, albeit not always successfully but as well as can be expected for someone as elusive as Murakami, is take you through his journey as a writer and through his strict disciplinary
process while trying to answer some questions about the strange way he develops characters and where his stories come from inside of him, who his greatest influences are, early and late. It's really revealed a lot more about him for me than I expected and it's thrilling finally to be able to connect some of his strangest plot devices to some logical although at times dream like sensibilities. I continue to be a huge fan.

I was updating this latest read in Goodreads when I  came across a review I wrote 5 years ago of one of his, to understate, most ambitious and eccentric novels.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Haunting. Made me think of Radiohead's "Where I End and You Begin." Even if you've read three Murakami books by now, you're still not prepared for this! I can't even explain what this book is about. All I can say is that he does for the literary world what Michael Gondry does for movies. Somehow, as crazy as it all seems, it expresses, at least for me, the intricate workings of those who live very deeply within their own minds. Murakami's imagination crosses a traditional boundary into a whole other level of possibilities. He sometimes reminds me of Robert Cormier (The Chocolate War) who I used to love to read when I was younger because his storytelling disturbed me in a deeply provocative way. The theme of something ominous shadowing a deluded sense of safety combined with humor, sensuality, adventure, intelligence and an irreverent hope. Incidentally his characters (mainly male) always cook great food and listen to jazz. I love that.



View all my reviews

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Oh, it's about to go down...

Photo of the Day

Untitled
Originally uploaded by TheWanderingEye

What I love most about skate boarding competitions is that moment right at the edge where the boarder is suspending in the air for a few seconds. It looks so fun and freeing but I would never try it myself.

I regret not being able to catch the moments that occurred here on my camera yesterday but I was in such awe just watching and only caught the last five minutes or so of it with a good friend and co-worker. I've never seen it on real life before, only on television. I would really love to see it again.

Photo of the Day

Bryant Park Chess Match
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

Bryant Park has a series of public spaces set of for games in the summer: bocce ball, ping pong, and chess. I love watching people pay chess, not so much because I love chess but because it brings all kinds of people together. They just gather in crowds like it's this big tournament and there's just this air of contagious excitement around it.

I have however never, ever seen a woman or a young play, at least not in Bryant Park. If I do, you definitely will too.

Fortunately for me, these guys had just set up as I was finishing lunch with a co-worker so there were no spectators yet and I was able to walk up and politely take a shot which the older gentleman said was fine with him. I love how focused looking people are when they play chess. It's so cool! Sorry. I'm a geek.

Photo of the day

Originally uploaded by Zanalee

The obligatory summer sandal shot. Except I really kind of like these shots actually. I'm sooo glad that I put my four favorite pairs of sandals from last summer in a bag in the back of the closet all winter so that I wouldn't have to scramble all over the place like a mad person looking for them this morning.

This is one pair. They're a bit dingy from wear but I still love them. I promise no more wardrobe shots after this...maybe.
LOL!

Photo of the Day

Little People's reading table
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

This is one the little kids reading table at "The Reading Room" in Bryant Park. I eat there at least once a week when the weather gets warm. I love the idea of bringing books, magazines and periodicals outside for the public to read whenever they want. I rarely see kids there but again, I love that they provide the space and books for them as well.

Photo of The Day

Originally uploaded by Zanalee
I have decided to do a "Photo of The  Day" entry in addition to my regular entries every day for a bit. I will post a pic I've taken (usually from my flickr account) and say a bit about it. And that's it.

This is a building in Chelsea around 18th Street where I was this morning. I love the red brick and the moldings around the window frames. I took this using the Instagram app. I added a cirular tilt shift effect.

Octo-Mind

My mind has countless arms
Reaching,
Some I can't even see,
Some I don't even know about
And perhaps for my sake
May never get to see,
That is if my self remains as always
Never free.
My mind has countless arms
That reach.
They grasp and pull and tug
Like a baby
And like a thug
Like a weaver
And like a bum.
They wave fondly at others
And shake a fist at some.
My mind is making arms that will
Preserve my legacy.
My mind is making arms that will
liberate and strangle me,
and sometimes they both feel the same.
But my two hands that I can see
Are vulnerable and empty.
They sense the underlying game.

-Zenzile Greene
(Written in Bryant Park)

It's been a while, kind of...

I think my last entry was on how I learned the true meaning of my name on my birthday. I am now sitting at a reception desk where I work weighing the pros and cons of attending an honors ceremony by catching a ride with someone I despise to a place I hate to go. Not much has changed.

Oh wait that's not quite true. I've gained more weight, my knees crack more and my back pretty much hurts all the time if I'm not careful. I've noticed that all the chiropractors at the practice I go once a week are all male an all white. This is not something that would have occurred to me about 15 years ago. Now it's starting to make me wonder. I can't buy food anywhere anymore without wondering about the conditions of the place, what the benefits are like and whether that bored and depressed look on the cashier's face is that way for many of the same reasons mine is often. I wonder if they're exhausted from fake smiling all day and pretending to be civil to supervisors, they'd just as soon see dropped off of a tall building. I wonder if their lives are treadmill like and what they do to temporarily relieve that each day. I guess for me, photography is a very big part of what I do to escape from the banal routine. Writing used to be this for me but hasn't been for quite some time. I think photography and nature may two of the last few places I can go to breath anymore.  Everybody's got their something and that is mine. And if it wasn't for the work of others I don't know if I would feel the same. Creativity is fed by creativity so if you're not inspired, neither am I. Thank God for nature.

So let's see, where does that leave me? It's scorching hot today, about to get worse tomorrow and I'll be upstate with Fran this weekend, maybe taking in the new Woody Allen film and if it's not too hot maybe a game of catch on the Ramapo High Football field. I like playing catch with Francis. It's very calming and reminds me of when I was girl playing baseball with my dad and brother in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. We talk, we laugh, we get to just enjoy being outside. Yeah, I'm an expert at escaping and relaxing. But regardless, there are some very practical, some very urgent matters that are starting to catch up with me. If I can tackle even one of those this summer, I would feel pretty triumphant.