Brexit, the Economy, and World Peace Deliberations on a NoLita Street Corner

Hearts in NoLita

 When Manhattan, the world's ultimate canvas, and dear friends from the Old Continent come together, every minute counts. The anticipation and urgency to be on time accented my self-reproach for switching to the E train at Jamaica instead of riding the LIRR all the way to Penn Station. Who knew this line had so many local stops along Queens and as many in Manhattan?

Tales of Summer, Characters, Shapes, Textures, Colors: Part 2 - Unraveling Elusive Webs

I have an aversion to anything that is smaller than my thumb, has more than two legs, and creeps, crawls, flies, or jumps—especially in an upside down position.
Aversion?
Ok, I'll come clean, fear is the appropriate word.
Thus, spiders top my list of dreaded creatures.

They use their "more than two legs" in ways that confirm any associated mystery or myth.
So, why am I up at sunrise on those muggy and foggy Spring and Summer days, camera hanging around my neck, bending over the garden or park bushes, seeking my nemesis?

Filling the Gap With Tales of Summer, Characters, Shapes, Textures, Colors: Part 1 - Uncolored Intro

Great White Egret: when mealtime becomes a summer water ballet performance.

Trying to explain a seven-month gap in posting feels awkward, so I won't even try.
The snow and ice came and went, though not always gracefully.
Spring and Summer were delayed, but compensated for their tardiness in color, variety, duration, and song.

Yes, song!

Traces, Shadows, Reflections on Gilded Ice

Inverted in gold

Cold days can have extraordinary warmth in light.
Even those that follow a brutal snowstorm.

Jonas arrived with shameful ferocity, piling mountains of the white vile stuff, forcing meteorologists to reshuffle their records, and shovel enthusiasts to reconsider the affinity.

The day after was equally brutal in temperatures and tempers. Crisp blue skies camouflaged the biting cold, which made the pulse race and breathing to come in short gasps.  On a day like this, you may contemplate conceding a few feet of property to your neighbor if it means that you don't have to dig it out of the snow.

Then, a glorious fiery sky at sunset was generous compensation—if not for the shovel crowd, certainly for the lens enthusiast.

Territorial Claims and Concessions in Low Visibility

Move over, now!

The proverbial early riser gets the worm but the loudest seagull gets the post with the coveted view. This ritual of calculated circling, followed by a swift and powerful dive, and accompanied by aggressive squawking is the winged kingdom's equivalent of pulling rank. 

Or, is it? 

The In-Between Angel and Fleeting Iridescence

An angel between the sun and the lens

Angels should not be backlighted, spotlighted, highlighted, or otherwise intentionally lighted; presumably, they are self-reliant in that respect. And if heavenly wing-bearers were to play with soap bubbles, the colorful capsules would not burst on contact with clouds.

But this is not heaven, real or imaginary, and these are not dimensionless bodies. Besides, there is not a speck of cloud here today. It is the heart of Manhattan, Central Park, where both angels and soap bubbles are crafted by human hands. Both are visible to human eyes and tangible to human minds without otherworldly intervention.

Mammatus, Anyone?

Mammatus clouds in sunset light, Long Island, NY

Mammatus!
I don't like name-dropping but I'll make an exception since this particular name meant absolutely nothing to me until two days ago! Ironic how a "scientifically challenged" person keeps running into photographic situations that require understanding physical phenomena.

Moody weather—definitely a nonscientific term—provides ample opportunity to view and capture some stunning images.

Silhouetted Passengers on Suspended Passages

The overpass at LIRR Jamaica station

New York's best-known commuter hubs, Grand Central and Penn Station, may be the ultimate spots to observe and be overwhelmed by the number of people hurrying in every possible direction, the human flow patterns, the looks of urgency and concern about time, and the diversity of the commuters and travelers themselves.

Yet, however paradoxical, these are the least likely places to consider a  link with any single person— or even think of these streams of live movement as anything but a potential hazard, were you unwise enough to impede their flow in any way.

Follow the Birds to Get to the Other Side

Low flight over water

To have lived, learned, loved, laughed, cried, worked, achieved, failed, won and lost on two continents is both a blessing and a curse, and not a small feat—trust me on this one!

I don't, consciously at least, make comparisons about how doing "this or that" in Europe is different than in the States. Or how even the dingiest beach in Greece is superior to anything on the Atlantic shoreline. Or how Times Square in New York City can take on any and all squares of the old continent and win hands-down as the most fascinating parcel of limited square footage.

The Swiss Precision of a Rusty Nail

Never needs winding or battery change!

There is solace in failing performing below par in subjects like chemistry and physics in high school. Though your understanding of the natural world is certainly impaired, there's compensation in other, more abstract, realms of being.

Like wonder and amazement at phenomena easily comprehended and explained away by one of your more scientifically inclined peers. You don't have a clue about the process—and tortures, I imagine—that light has to go through for a rainbow to appear in the sky, or a corroded slab of metal to mark the time of day with dogged precision.

Redefining the Basic Colors, Without Magenta

I see no trace of magenta here, do you?

"...but magenta isn't even a real color..." wrote the commenter.

A recent humorous post shared on Facebook about modern printers and their uncanny timing for running out of ink, prompted an array of comments—gripes to be exact.  Obviously, no argument on the subject is ever complete without a mention of almighty magenta. And rightly so.

The certainty that you cannot print a plain black and white document if this magenta rascal is running low, is all the proof I need that there is no science here, just a twisted conspiracy! 

Caught Unprepared and Unframed on Debut

Proper as it seems to write an introductory post that sets the tone for this blog, I cannot. Sure, I can come up with a couple of paragraphs about what I intend to do here but that would contradict my impulsive nature.

Not that I don't like a contradiction - on the contrary! 

No, there won't be a particular tone or theme to the words or images exposed on this page. Just me, my camera, my scratch notes, and my keyboard—complemented by my joy, sadness, frustration, happiness, anger, awe, disappointment, discovery, excitement, boredom, small accomplishments, bitter failures, smiles, and tears—in no particular order or frequency: