New York Stories: The Cold Wait. Brooklyn, NYC 2005

20th Avenue Station, N Train, Brooklyn

So, Craigslist was the reason I was here. You know, that online classified ads website of sorts where you can scrounge, virtually, other people's unwanted belongings. It's a huge garage sale on the net.  Some dude just posted on CL (that's Craigslist to you!), selling his 135mm 3.5 Carl Zeiss Jena, a lens that I have always drooled about, for 50 bucks. Now that price is ridiculous - it's a steal I tell you! I do have a passion for old camera lenses - especially those European ones in M42 screw mount. What's not to like? These babies have excellent glass, wonderfully calculated optics, are built like tanks (and weigh like one too), can be bought for cheap if you are lucky (hey they are old lenses and I'm a cheapskate) and best of all, they can be used on modern Canon DSLR's if you have an appropriate lens-to-body adapter and are fond of focusing your lens manually. But I am going off tangent here immensely.

To cut a long story short, I didn't get the lens. That shyster sold it to another guy who probably ran down the middle of 20th Avenue in Brooklyn holding the prized lens up high like it were an Olympic torch. He sold it an hour before I arrived in Brooklyn, after I took a circuitous route from my place in Queens, switching trains twice in the process. What a schmuck, he had me wasting an hour of my time in the subway seated across a wino who kept staring back at me (this was New York after all). 

Dejected (read: pissed), I walked back to the station , gloved hands in my pockets to keep those digits warm, the hood of my parka encapsulating my head to hedge my head from the frigid February wind. On the way I passed a pizza joint, got a slice, folded it in half lengthwise, and wolfed it down my throat, washing it down with a can of Coke. Somewhat satiated, I went back to the Subway station, got out my MetroCard and swiped it to get past the turnstile, no mean feat with thick gloves on. 

I descended down to the platform, and that's when I saw this gem of a scene. Three backlit human figures each with a post of their own. They were sheltering themselves from the wind, that's why they had their backs to the post. It was if the photographic universe aligned for me - a Latino, an Eastern European, and an Oriental all in a row  in a subway no less - all donned in Gotham black - with the train coming in seconds - you just can't get more New York than that. They were stoic, immobile, like those gargoyles perched on a brownstone in Broadway, and the only sign that they were alive was the cold fog of breath ballooning from their mouths as they exhale.

I took out my camera, powered it up, peeled off my right glove to be more tactile at the controls and made this shot, with the right sleeve of my parka obscuring the upper right corner of the frame. I just managed one shot when the train arrived, the doors flung open and the gargoyles became alive, lithely entering the warm cabin where they became human again. In seconds the doors closed and the train made its way forward (leaving me as I bent to retrieve my right glove, which fell on the floor), its massive hulk pulling away until it disappeared into a dot. And I was alone, the immobility passed on to me as I stood on the cold platform.

And then it struck me. Wouldn't it be cool if one of the three was the one who purchased my Carl Zeiss Jena? 

Shot was taken with a Canon G6, at the hip using the swiveling screen for framing. Av mode set at -2/3 EV, lens set at hyperfocal focus. Brooklyn, New York, February 2005

New York Stories: The Kiss

Mid-Manhattan, New York City July 2008. Canon 1d Mk2/17-40L

On an afternoon when the heavens were brooding and threatening to drench everything in Manhattan, a yellow cab skidded to a halt outside a glistening sidewalk, just a bagel's throw away from Grand Central Station. The rear door flung open and an old lady piled out, straight to the rear compartment where she started to haul out a dog-eared wheeled duffel bag, clearly on its last days of travel. A man in his thirties got out as well and helped the lady who just shrugged and let him heave the bag down to the sidewalk. And finally an umbrella mushroomed over the cab as a young woman stepped out and closed the door, and the cab sped off in search of another fare. 

The old lady grabbed the bag from the guy and dragged it behind her like a belligerent puppy, its wheels squealing in oil-less protest, towards the entrance of the station. The young couple, free for a fleeting moment, turned towards each other and under the shadow of their umbrella they kissed, tentatively at first and after the first peck it turned into one that you know was the kind of kiss that belied the fact that they would not see each other for a while and turned into a massive longing hug that no doubt left them both feel that there were no other people in the universe but them two. Time stopped for what seemed an eternity.

And then they parted, the fellow left standing on the sidewalk while the two ladies entered the portal on the right which was a passage that leads to the subway that can take them anywhere in the city, or to Grand Central Station where trains can bring them to nearby New Jersey, Connecticut or Boston, or a ticket counter where one can purchase fare for shuttle that will take them to JFK airport. He stood still on the sidewalk, long after the ladies were gone,  as stiff as a bookmark that separates two chapters, and the rain began to pelt him until it masked the tears that were shed. It was goodbye.

I love New York City, where even mundane events in ordinary people's lives lead to open ended stories.

Photo taken with a Canon 1Dmk2 with a 17-40L lens, at 17mm, AV mode with -2/3 exposure