Week 30
July 25th, 2016
East River Ferry
Williamsburg Bridge
An overcast day for trip #30 but at least the temperatures were much more pleasant. I had a friend with me today, Jill. She had never been to Brooklyn and never ridden a New York subway before. So lots of firsts for her today. My time with Jill was great, but it didn't end up being a favorite trip mostly because I was aggressively hassled by a man on a bike. I think it bothers me more the day after than it did yesterday. It can be par for the course when you do photography on the streets of a city (which is totally legal); you never know who you may need to deal with. More on that incident below.
Onward.
He was outside of Grand Central next to the Pershing Cafe. Interesting marketing strategy.
Loved the name!
What I like about this photography project is that I notice all sorts of things I don't think I would otherwise. Often when I get home I will Google to find out more about things that I saw. Maybe everybody knows about this English-Speaking Union and I'm the only clueless one? I did have to look it up.
From their website: "The English-Speaking Union of the United States is a network of 68 Branches throughout the country, whose members celebrate English as a shared language to foster global understanding and good will by providing educational and cultural opportunities for students, educators and members."
Nice to see a more averaged size mannequin.
Only I would happen to notice a bunch of discarded books with the top one being "Authentic Knowing". I'm really into spirtual books. Almost took this book but I wasn't sure why the box of books was sitting out, didn't want to steal.
These hearts were all over this area of the city, painted on doors, windows, etc.
For my new addition to 52MM, the People Leaving Drinks page. I got the idea from Week 29 when I saw the sticker #peopleleavingdrinks and found out that's a thing on Instagram. :) This is the first entry for my new page. A worldly cup. Only special abandoned drinks will make the cut.
The East River Ferry. You can see the Queensboro Bridge and Roosevelt Island towards the right. The U.N. building on the left. (and could this look any drearier)
Leaving Manhattan, the U.N. building.
First stop took about 2 minutes to get to, somewhere in Queens I think. That's Jill taking my picture. :)
We spent most of our time upstairs and outside on the ferry to take pictures. As we were exiting, I stopped to examine the first chair I had sat on when we first got on the ferry because the fabric on the chair was really wet! This little girl's Mom, behind her, sat on the same chair that I did on the ferry. She said something to me about also sitting on the wet chair so I was not the only one with damp shorts. Bizarre because it was in the enclosed area, zero reason for the fabric on the chair to be wet. I am, of course, assuming it was just a bottle of spring water that got spilled. I don't want to think what else it might have been.
We got off at the North Williamburg terminal. Empire State Building in the distance. I may win an award for dreariest pictures of Manhattan with this set today!
I heard the East River State Park had pretty views.
Maybe the night views are nice. The park itself was nothing spectacular, looked rather unkempt.
There were a lot of soccer camps going on. What a view these kids have of Manhattan while playing! Of course kids could care less.
Starting to make our way through Williamsburg (Brooklyn), came across this record shop.
The shop's two passions were vinyl and Brompton Bicycles.
They had an air dispenser available for your bicycle, how thoughtful!
The Brompton Cafe!
So what is a Brompton you might ask? I did. I had no idea it was a folding bicycle.
I thought this was some kind of art when I took the photo, but I believe it's just a Brompton bike folded up!
And of course there is a niche group of people who race these bikes.
The restaurant Shelter looked really awesome from the outside. Googled it, it's a pizza and empanada place. Online the images looked amazing of the inside. May put this on my list of places to try sometime.
One way to try and rent your apartment is to write a description on the plate you had pizza on and stick it to a pole. You're welcome.
The graffiti art was cool, but I loved that the building's name is "National Sawdust Co." Now long gone, the space is used for musicians.
This was inside a dentist's office lobby.
This, however, was not inside the dentist office lobby.
I'm not after Henry, either.
All the ones I've met have been able to talk.
I saw this phrase painted on sidewalks a number of times around Brooklyn today. I Googled it, but nothing special came up.
I frequently see stickers made to promote businesses or blogs stuck on random things. This one looked rather weathered. I did look up the Tumblr blog but it was no more. The title was "tothineownselfbetrue".
Absolutely loved the taped on letters!
Welcome to Interesting things... You are one of only two for today!
If you're curious about the cost to rent or buy a place in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn.
Why yes, Grandma is wielding a large knife.
No surfing.
Didn't take long for someone to make a business out of Pokemon Go!
Flea market type store. The mural behind the stuff was gorgeous. The old Domino Sugar building, featured in the mural, is just down the street. We went to go see it but there was nothing much to see (construction seemed to have taken over).
I love this image because it is just so darn random.
You probably noticed I've switched to the fish eye lens. I watched an interesting YouTube video over the weekend about using the fish eye for street photography. One guy showed how he would put his camera on (or almost on) the ground, pointed slightly up and take a photo. So I tried that for a while. This guy figured out what I was doing and gave me a big smile and wave. I'm so glad that most people I meet in the city are like this.
I love this one (besides cutting off the woman's head on the right). They definitely thought I was weird bending down to take this shot, but they didn't say anything. I think the perspective is interesting, her feet are so large and her head so tiny.
This didn't seem like a deal to me.
Pedestrian entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge from the Brooklyn side.
Jill snuck into this one.
He was just sitting there.
This project has taught me some much needed patience.
It's a pretty bridge but full of (mostly ugly) graffiti. The subway runs down the middle of it (to the left in this photo) and cars are a level below.
They keep the bikes to one side of the bridge and the pedestrians on the other. MUCH more civilized than the Brooklyn Bridge.
Welcome to Interesting things...it's kind of the combination of your large tote and the funky bike.
And here we have the man who aggressively hassled me for taking his photo. As he rode by, I had already taken one pic when he put up his hand. I was smiling as I took the photo and I truly thought he was waving. He yelled something as he went by but I didn't think much of it. It was actually several minutes later that he suddenly came up from behind and pulled his bike right in front of us (inches), blocking our way. He was yelling at me to delete the photo I took. The law is on my side, it is perfectly legal to photograph anyone in public. OF COURSE you must use common sense. In this case, when I took his photo I was just practicing shooting from down low with the fisheye lens. His picture never would have even made it on this blog page except that he had to physically and verbally come after me which earned him a spot on the page (but he is obscured). He used his bike to block my being able to walk away over and over which I felt was over the line. Long story short, I held up my camera and he watched me delete a photo (the last photo I took of him). I put my camera back by my side and was finally able to walk away. He did keep yelling at us, something about would I take a picture of someone in a bathroom. Whatever, dude.
And I know you can't spell.
So that was our day in Brooklyn. Too bad it ended on a bad note but there is always some risk when you go into New York; add a camera and every once in a while you might tick someone off. Today was that day for me. Certainly not my intention.
Until the next Magic Monday!
xo,
~mc
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