Our friend Dave was having his big Four-O birthday party tonight, duly celebrated on the rooftop of his apartment building. Took a few shots that are unfortunately way too private to display. I ended up not taking any other photo today, so what you see here is a crop. You’ll just have to imagine the rest

I was walking in Chelsea when my eye wandered and stopped on this street collage. If you are familiar with the size of a subway map, you will agree that it’s rather large. Else, look at the brick in the top right corner. I really like how it all comes together.

Not a very interesting image – at least to me – and I assure you, nothing deeply psychological to interpret here either. I only had five minutes until midnight to find something in the apartment, set it up and shoot. The bright colors attracted me and that’s about it.

I was gonna make you guess what it is but realized how difficult a task that would be given my wife’s first reaction upon seeing the photo: “Ewww, gross, what is that? Some sort of rotten food?”. Huh, well, no honey, you do eat it that way, it’s one of your rice cakes. To be fair, I do occasionally take shots of gross stuff, including rotten food… I find it rather interesting how some subjects become so unfamiliar when taken up close. It really shows how little we pay attention to details.

I can’t believe how many shots of that ugly kitchen wallpaper I took over the course of my project 365. Jasmine’s artwork is now proudly hanging on top of it, and it just looks wrong. Please give me a plain white wall for me to really appreciate it. All the painting does now is draw more attention to its surroundings, and I really don’t want to see it. It’s gonna have to move to a better place. The only thing standing in the way of improvement is a nail. How can we become so complacent?

Jumping up and down on our bed is a favorite pastime of Jasmine. She usually tries to clear everything up first, or should I say rip it all apart and throw it away. Cushions do stay to prevent a potentially nasty fall though, and she gets some much needed supervision. Fun times.

I shot it on the opening night of the US Open, from the Arthur Ashe Stadium. I figured I already took a photo of the famous tennis court last year so I had to innovate a bit. I tried a panoramic view but it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Instead, here’s a very low key photo of the Citi Field stadium, home of the New York Mets baseball team.

The Sunken Forest is a very unique ecosystem found in Sailor’s Haven, on Fire Island. Surrounded by dunes, it gives the illusion of resting below sea level, hence its name. The vegetation is so abundant that it actually gets rather dark inside the forest. It’s also much cooler, something that was really appreciated after the long walk under the scorching sun.

As you can see on the photograph, trees adopt some very interesting shapes. Due to salt spraying and windy conditions, they are molded and unable to grow past a certain height. You guessed it, the height of the surrounding dunes. I enjoyed my walk there very much. The tide was so high that the whole beach was getting flooded by the incoming waves, an interesting experience.

Should you be interested in learning more about the forest, check out those two very informative videos:
Fire Island: Sunken Forest Pt.1
Fire Island: Sunken Forest Pt.2

We spent our week-end at Ocean Beach, on Fire Island, graciously invited by friends of ours. It really is a pleasure to walk around at night. Aside from sporadic parties (who wouldn’t want to party there?), a very quiet town. Seldom lights, too, making the use of flashlights a necessity. Seriously, it’s so dark that I almost squashed a mouse. It was running across the boardwalk and I felt something touch the underneath of my shoe as I was about to step down. Thankfully, I was able not to, and it ran away. Once in a while, we’d find lawn lanterns, such as this one. They were emitting light in very pleasing patterns. When I took this photograph, I didn’t even realize that there was a net on the lawn. As for the quality of the picture, sorry folks, that’s the best PG-13 shot I took that day.

We were walking with a friend in Chelsea when I stumbled upon this tag. Mixing up reincarnation and in vitro fertilization in one single sentence wasn’t something I expected to read. While I do not believe in reincarnation, I guess I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong… as long as the content of the petri dish isn’t some sort of amoeba. Come on, I deserve a little better… I hope. Whoever tagged it, thank you. You chose a really nice spot, I’m a fan of the rusty metal door.