An Exercise in Happenstancery

I'm back! Go to my Flickr page to view images of my daily commute. Sounds boring, but it aint! Honest!

I like to wax poetic sometimes about my commute to work by bike...that rather than subjecting myself to the hellish underworld of the subway where one gets to know other New Yorkers in a really up-close-and rarely personal way, I'm experiencing "The City" in a real way, that I'm interacting with it in a way that for me is more physical than abstract, more active than passive, that I'm giving my brain the kind of exercise it does not get when I'm sitting still, because I'm still quite a bit when I'm at work or at home. And, of course, I like to say that I see a lot of cool things.

A few weeks ago, I was coming down the Manhattan side of the Manhattan Bridge, the sky was a perfect blue screen. The outlines of the Chinatown buildings were clear and sharp. It was just a beautiful day. As I descended into the buildings of Chinatown, I glanced to my right (the north) and the image of both the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building...framed in perspective on either side by rows of tenament buidlings dwindling into the distance...flickered into my line of vision for a second and then was gone. The moment was so brief but so vivid, I started thinking how it's a shame a lot of what I see doesn't really translate when I try to talk about it. So, I started investigating camera mounts for bicycles. After a lot of searching I finally went to Campmor and found this. I should have just gone there first.

Anyway, I've been taking photos every day since. Pretty much everything that comes out is the result off dumb luck. I don't have the luxury to point and shoot, I just hope the camera takes the photo in time and I don't wobble too much as I'm using one hand to steer and the other to push the button. I've created a flickr account just to upload the many many pictures I've taken over the last month. The photos seem to fall in 4 or 5 categories. Portraits of other cyclists, Portraits of Pedestrians at sidewalks, Bridge photos, abstract night photos, and traffic images. The one I'm showing here, is by far my favorite. You Go Girl!

Indeed.

I'd love to hear what people have to say to go check 'em out.