Mexico City

Seven days was just not enough time to explore Mexico City. A week after being home and I still find myself daydreaming about the streets and the people there.

Hidden Harbor / Working Harbor Sunset Tour, 2009

Last night I went on a sunset cruise through New York Harbor with Michael and his parents. The Hidden Harbor Sunset Tour was sponsored by the Working Harbor Committee, and for two hours the guide pointed out and explained tug boats–both pushers and pullers, graving docks, floating drydocks, container ships and ro-ros, ferries, fireboats, bridges, barges, tankers, cranes, warehouses and other industrial maritime features. We saw a lot of water traffic, and the guide pointed out that although there are much fewer container ships these days they are much bigger. It was awesome to see everything so close up.

Our boat started at the Pier 16 near the Brooklyn Bridge, and we sailed around the edges of Brooklyn by Red Hook and Sunset Park, and even went into the Eerie Basin for a bit. Next we passed Governors Island on our way to Staten Island, through Kill van Kull and past Snug Harbor. After slipping under the Bayonne Bridge we traveled up to Port Newark and Port Elizabeth. Finally we headed back, passing the Robbins Reef Lighthouse and the Statue of Liberty.

The weather was absolutely perfect, and the harbor looked bright and vibrant. I’ve posted quite a few photos here and will post more in the series over the next few days.

Go Humans Go, 3/11/09

On average, my Atomische photoblog gets about 600 page views per day, reflecting about 200 unique visitors, who look at an average of 3 photos each. That doesn’t include robots, like Google, Yahoo and others, who visit the site every day looking for new posts.

Yesterday around 10am I noticed a huge spike in traffic and peeked under the hood to see what was up. Following through the chain of referrer links I discovered that the lovely Mrs. Mudskipper posted a link to my photo over on the social bookmarking site reddit. A handful of visitors there voted the image “up” which kept it on the list.

So, by the end of the day my site had 4759 page views, made by 4066 unique visitors. That photo “Go Humans Go” received a total of 3833 views. (Take note that without the reddit bump, my site would have had traffic far below normal.)

To Mrs. Mudskipper, whoever you are, I say thank you for helping bring my art to the people!

Holi, 3/15/09

Today was my second time attending the Hindu spring festival Holi (also called Phagwah or the Festival of Colors) out in Richmond Hills, Queens.

Last year I had no idea what to expect, and it took me a while to get into it. I was also worried about dust on the camera. This year I planned ahead and made a clear plastic camera cover.

There’s a short and sweet parade, mostly for sponsors and politicians. But the fun really starts at the end when the crowds gather in the park to exchange colors. Everyone goes a little wild, with kids throwing colored powder, baby powder, and also color liquid at eachother. The teenagers get really crazy, but the little kids and grownups get into it too.

The rowdiness is fun but never gets out of control. Everyone is smiling and laughing. The festivities really bring people together, and total strangers have no shyness about approaching eachother to apply colors.

In the photo of me above, each unique color was gently and lovingly applied by hand by a different total stranger.

Escalade EXT, 3/14/09

Went solo today, so made a very fast efficient trip. Sprinted to the G train, got off on Broadway and walked west, then up and down the streets of south Williamsburg until I got to the bridge, then over to Bedford and south again to Broadway, then east back to the G train. Round trip was about two hours. I took a total of 225 shots, including about 50 of a single, very interesting textured wall. More later, but here’s one for posting on Atomische tomorrow.

Winter Beach, 2/28/09

Yesterday I went on a photo safari with Trevor. He selected Coney Island as our destination, which was a great choice. I love the beach on a winter’s day. It was a little gloomy for photos, but just sunny enough. We started at the 8th Street/Aquarium stop, and walked to the very east end of the board walk, all the way to Sea Gate. (Talk about odd–I really need to figure out how to get into Sea Gate for some photos.) Along the way we diverted out to the end of the Steeplechase Pier. My eagle eye spotted a distinctive box in one of the trash cans, and sure enough it turned out to be the container that crematoria give cremated remains in. So we missed an ash-scattering ceremony. I wondered if perhaps the recently departed was one of the hard-core fishermen that hangs out there in the summer.