Heat/Water/Humidity, originally uploaded by Josh Derr.

This is what it looked like outside at 8am this morning: hot and sticky.

A Banksy in Dumbo, originally uploaded by Josh Derr.

Not one but two new Banksys have turned up in New York City . Here’s one of the two that popped up in my own neighborhood.

Water/Dock pano, originally uploaded by Josh Derr.

As mentioned by @epc and @DumboNYC, Dock street and a small section of Water street in Dumbo have been striped for two way traffic. What’s odd is that such a tiny section of Water has been converted to two-way traffic; basically between Dock and New Dock. So from Fulton to Main, Water goes two, one, two, then one way again. ==-=—-

Why? My guess is that its to facilitate access to the space DOT has setup underneath the Brooklyn bridge for the upcoming painting project. The far end of Water street near Old Fulton is complicated by ongoing water main work.

On an aesthetic note, paint stripes don’t go well on the belgian brickwork.

Spent last Sunday walking around the Coney Island Boardwalk with a couple of friends. I hadn’t been an a year or two, and much has changed. Many of the amusement parks are now gone; a swatch of the boardwalk was closed for repairs. Yet the overall vibe was still there, though a bit muted from the cloudy weather. Made for dramatic photos however…

Red Hook Sunset/No better place, originally uploaded by Josh Derr.

I’ve recently discovered the art of photographic split-toning. A complete 180 from the rich oversaturated colors of HDR, split toning tends to mute colors nearly completely into one or two color tones. I’ve been playing with warm orange-yellow highlights and cold green-blue darks, much like the cold weather and warm insides of of a NYC winter. The tricky part is balancing out the color levels; the contrast tends to be much more subdued, and my color vision is weak in the green-blues. In fact, I’m feeling a good portion of the processing of this out by numbers and theory, so please let me know if how it looks to you.

Ever since milk and I had a falling out some years ago, I’ve been keenly interested in all things dairy-free. So when fellow photographer and friend Kelly Courson of Celiac Chicks posted a recipe for dairy-free chocolate mousse, I was intrigued. Then, Kelly challenged me to not only to make it, but to photograph it as well. So with my pride, professional reputation, and a good amount of chocolate on the line, it was on.

Here is recipe below is as originally posted by Kelly at Celiac Chicks. Well, not exactly as she posted it. I’m going to add my own annotations and narrative, as well as my photos.

INGREDIENTS

• 12 oz. of really good chocolate, I used Dagoba bars chopped up and measured. It might be fun to try to make it with some of their flavored chocolates, like Lavender Chili pepper
• 4 eggs, room temperature.
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 pinch of salt
• 8 oz. hot coffee

Ok, so far, so good. Chop up the chocolate into fine bits. Resist the urge to eat the chocolate. Dump everything except for the coffee in together and blend. Here was my first mistake; allow me a moment to explain. I own a mixer and a immersion blender. It turns out neither of these items is a substitute for a proper food processor. The immersion blender appears to be suitable to the task, so long as it remains immersed. And on a low speed setting. I think you see where I’m headed with this. If not, proceed with the wrong tool at your own risk. You have been warned.

Blend. Then blend some more. Once the mixture start to look smooth, slowly pour in the hot coffee. Blend. Blend more. Once it reaches a smooth consistency, try a little. If you used really dark chocolate, you may want to add some sugar, or if you’re in a really fancy mood, organic blue agave sweetener (ok, yeah I used the agave stuff in mine). Blend. Continue blending. I think you want to be whipping lots of air into the mixture at this point.

Ok, you can stop blending now.
Pour the mixture into whatever small containers you have available. Here I’ve poured the mousse into 4 ramekins.

Side note for the guys. Ramekin: a small fireproof dish used for baking and serving individual portions. Remember that, you never know when that sort of trivia will win you one of those “battle of the sexes” trivia games. Trust me on this one.

Back to the project at hand. Cover with wrap and put in the fridge to cool. Make sure you actually have room in the fridge first. This may seem a obvious and simple step, but is often overlooked.

After a few hours, check on the mousse. When its ready it should be light but firm. You could eat it all yourself, but wouldn’t you rather share the chocolate goodness with your friends? Enjoy.

Final note. Cooking and taking photos of the process is nowhere as easy as you’d initially think it’d be. Nor is cleaning chocolate mousee mixing off of the ceiling, walls, and your lens.

Oversized/Special Delivery, originally uploaded by Josh Derr.

The DOT workshop directly underneath the Manhattan Bridge took delivery of a very large… well, I’m not really sure what. I’m going to hazard a guess and say it’s a industrial size dust collector. Surrounding it were about 10 DOT workers trying to figure out how to move it off the flatbed and into the yard.

View this picture large and check out the rich texture of the metal, rust and fading blue paint. It’s beautiful.

The Brooklyn Rail

A quick note: This month’s issue of The Brooklyn Rail includes a nice write-up about my photography. Check it out either online or in print…