tee + tea = too tease!

With all the writing I have been doing for final papers and projects, and the writing still to come, I am worded out. Enjoy day 20, the letter "T".





i scream

See full album here

ssssssssss...

When I think of "S", I think of snakes. I'm terrified of snakes. They're icky and slimy and there's just something about their cold scaly serpentine bodies and forked tongues that just makes me shudder. That's my confession for tonight.







See full album here.

a pirate's favorite letter

"R" is for "random," which many people incorrectly substitute for "arbitrary."



This one is another Chelsea Market find. That place was a goldmine for photographs of all sorts, not just letters for this project. My heart literally skipped a beat when I spied this "R" up above me in the rafters. Not an easy one to spot, given its location and orientation. Like the hot dog "Q", I've been sitting on this one for a few weeks, eagerly awaiting its unveiling.







See full album here.

q, queue, cue

I've been waiting for this day for a while because I took some of these photos very early on in the project. Contrary to what I thought, the letter "Q" was not all that difficult to find; other letters have proven to be more challenging. The anticipation to post this letter was almost great enough to make me accelerate the process, but so far, I've managed to remain true (minus one late day) to the one-letter-a-day stipulation that I set for myself at the start. Believe it or not, I'm 17 days in. Just nine more days to go until "Z".


hot dog
This has to be my most favorite photo of the set by far. I could not have asked for a more bizarre, yet opportune, photo opportunity to cross my path. The placement of the half-eaten hot dog on the rim of the garbage can was perfect. This is "found art" at its best.










See the full album here.

'p' is for 'heath'

There are only a handful of people who will get this title, but with some digging around, you may enter into that secret cult. Don't worry: you won't be asked to drink poisoned Kool-Aid in some tropical South American rainforest.

I made a few digital prints today that I'm very excited about. They include all three photos that I posted on this blog yesterday. Tonight, I give you the letter "P".




I photographed this fire hose in Chelsea Market. I had to ask a group of teenagers if I could squeeze behind the table they were eating lunch at. There's nothing like momentarily intruding on the lives of adolescents to make anyone anxious. They're can be unpredictable! Fortunately for me, this group hailed from a pleasant tribe of pubescent homo sapiens and they granted me access so I could work on my project. I didn't stick around long enough to listen to any snide comments they may have made behind my back.







Not a terrific photograph, but I found it amusing that a sign and signpost shaped like the letter "P" would have a "P" crossed out. This sign is also a double negative of sorts: no parking and no littering. New York City has gotten creative with its signage. Especially clever? The use of a push-broom to cross out the "P" on the sign.

See full album here.

changing it up

Just to break up the stream of alphabet photos, here are a few of the other photos I've been taking recently.


golaso!
Heath and I went to an MLS game at the new Red Bull Arena in Harrison, NJ, yesterday to see the New York Red Bulls take on the Philadelphia Union. Fun times, and I nabbed a few photos of this penalty kick goal that put the Red Bulls ahead 2-1.


times square model
I was in Times Square with my photography class on Tuesday night, talking about taking photographs in low light, experimenting with shutter speed and flash. Toward the end of our stint, this model showed up with a few photographers. I made my way toward them, and looking official with my DSLR and external flash, I fired off a few frames of my own! This model was so bold. I loved the way she just stood there, the expression on her face one of power and confidence.


dry reflections
I'm loving the reflections of the light off of the ground. Generally, one sees this type of effect after it rains, when there's still a layer of water on the ground. However, it was completely dry tonight. (Apparently, lots of movie producers will hose down roads before filming, just to get that bright, shiny street with great reflections.)

N-O

Are there any other consecutive letters of the alphabet, aside from n-o, that can stand alone as a word? There are a few: ab, ef, and hi. A few combinations form acronyms that we use fairly regularly: bc, cd, jk, and uv. Curiously enough (or maybe not), no three-or-more consecutive letter combinations form words or acronyms.

[This is my lame way of posting both 'N' and 'O' together today, because I missed posting yesterday and want to stay on track.]



















See full album here.

magnificent and majestic M

It's so late. And I'm late in posting. Conducted about four hours' worth of interviews for several projects today and spent the evening transcribing. Priorities, priorities... Sleep should be one of them.










see full album here

L is for the way you look at ...

Only on day 12, but I feel as if I've been at this forever. Almost halfway there! It's actually quite cool to look at the album in its entirety and I'm excited to see what it will look like when it's full, A to Z. At some point, I should go into the album and caption the photos with the various comments I've been sprinkling through this blog project.


bike every day?
A folding bike, an object of my desires, though not very high on the list. I think part of my fascination with it comes from my living in the city this year. With only three-and-a-half weeks left, I wonder whether my fascination with folding bikes will disappear once I return to (semi-)suburbia.


f(x) --> f(-x) ; (x,y) --> (-y,x)
I could probably be a bit more elegant in using mathematical notation to describe the reflection and rotational transformation I made to the original photograph to get it to its present state. However, such eloquence currently eludes me and so I stick with basics.



It's been a while since I've included photographs of bicycles and bicycle parts, but I'm excited to have posted one yesterday and two today.

see full album here

every kiss begins with...

see the full album here

jay...jay... (one of a blue jay's many calls)

Not much to say tonight about this letter. I'm actually very excited right now about a trip my photo class took to Time Square this evening. Created some beautiful portraits while there. Toward the end of our "class", a photo shoot came onto the scene. I sneaked in with my camera and fired off a few frames, too. Will post soon!


air duct
I spied this massive air duct at Chelsea Market last week during a visit to Google's NYC headquarters. (The first 'b' posted earlier in this project is also housed at Chelsea Market.) It's one of those things that I think most people walk by and never even notice. So profound is our ability to filter out irrelevant objects in our lives. It makes me wonder what might happen if our irrelevant filter goes awry, causing us to miss things that really are relevant?


simplicity
Sometimes beauty rests in simple elegance. This wooden umbrella handle certainly falls into that category.

see the full album here

there's no "I" in team...

...but there is an "I" in win.

What a great saying, not necessarily because I think these are words to live by, but because I do enjoy the clever manipulation of an earnest lesson meant to emphasize the value of teamwork. This does highlight the conflict inherent in competitive endeavors, which often leads to a situation in which the individual's best interests are seemingly no longer aligned with those of the group. How do we teach children to deal with these challenges, for which there are no right or easy answers?

aitch

closed gate


wooden beams
These beams form the support for the stairs and small stoop up on the second floor of our apartment. I'm always amazed by how sturdy they are -- they have withstood lots of weight without fail. In some way, they remind me of those guys in the gym who lift a ton with their upper body but have skinny chicken legs. Somehow, those legs manage to hold up their brawny torsos.


broken fence post
A broken fence post at dusk steps in as a lowercase 'h'. I love the shallow depth of field, in which you can just make out the house in the background. I had some reservations about walking through the neighborhood, firing off flash photos in the direction of people's homes. Seems a little sketchy, if you ask me. I was waiting for someone to come running out screaming at me. Didn't happen, though!

g (clef)

As a kid learning to read music, I was fascinated by the beauty of the treble clef, also known as the G clef. Not only does the clef look like the letter 'g', but its center wraps around the second line of the staff, which corresponds to the G note. I saw the following atop a fence and immediately thought of my piano-playing days.


G clef


steamroller
The town of Dedham is finally repaving our road after decades of neglect. I have not lived here for decades, but the stories the neighbors tell corroborate the scores of potholes that litter our neighborhood.


tea kettle

f

Quality over quantity rules the day. "F"s were hard to come by, and though I ended up with 5 or 6 photographs, only these two made the cut.

I've been wondering about how children learn the alphabet, and whether they "see" letters in a way comparable to this project. I think that children, their minds malleable and their imagination much more willing to play along with their senses, will look around and just perceive things in ways we, as adults, would never think to do. At times the letters just jump out at me, as I imagine happens for children, while at other times, I actively scour my surroundings for any semblance of letters of the alphabet. The latter proves quite cognitively taxing.





fancy fence
The curlicue designs of railings, fences, and gates contain letters galore. Some of them are beautiful works of art!

the letter e

'E' is for exceedingly late, which is what my BoltBus was this evening. I ended up on the corner of 8th and 34th with over a hundred other would-be passengers, all of us eagerly shifting toward each approaching bus, only to recede in dejection upon learning that that was not our black-and-orange steed come to rescue us from citydom. My ticket was for 6:30pm. Finally, at 7:30pm, a bus arrived, but the 6pm passengers had to board first... Yes! The bus was that late!

But here I am, comfortably nestled in my seat, stomach full of Chipotle's chicken fajita burrito, blogging away. Today, day five, is that of the letter 'E':





meter maid, part II
I double-dipped on the parking meter, something I wanted to avoid as I began this project, but the opportunity to photograph both a "D" and an "E" was too tempting.


tail light
I forget which SUV I found this tail light on, but I've seen several since and, from now on, will always think "E" when I see one. This is a bit like one of those optical illusions, Escher-like in that the image is not quite possible. The E is formed from both the black and colored parts of the tail light. If you look at the colored segments separately, you only have the arms, and no body, for the letter 'E'. And yet if you look at the black portion only, the 'E' has a body and four arms. Oops. Somehow, in its gestalt, we have an 'E'.

d

It's late. My two soccer teams both dropped our games tonight, and for some reason, my usual "Let's just have fun, win-or-lose" attitude is in hiding. Maybe it's because my co-ed team hasn't won a game yet, and we forfeited to a team that we could have beaten on Sunday due to low turn-out. Tonight we lost to another team in a game that we could have won. D is for 'darn it'.

PS. I added another photo to the 'C' post.





drink


door handle


meter maid

It's funny to look at this photo because my initial thought is "time's running out." That's certainly the case for this post, as I'm past midnight, even though I started the post on the correct day, 4 minutes before my deadline.