Hot Dog in the City
24 hours NYC
Start the clock: 24 hours.
The flight from Raleigh. A cramped taxi ride from Kennedy to the Marriott Marquis.
We just make the 3:00pm show. Water for Elephants. Excellent. Some musicals strike a chord with me.
Dinner at an Italian restaurant. Molte bene.
Wife and daughter off to Book of Mormon.
Son and his partner off to Top of the Rock.
I’m free to roam with my camera for a while.
Late drinks with the family before bed at the hotel bar. The Brooklyn Lager goes down easy.
Back in our room I start to go to sleep. I’m very tired. In that twilight between awake and asleep I think of a friend long dead. She dated Hunter S. Thompson but it didn’t last. He should have qualified his approach to life: it’s sometimes better to be shot out of a canon than to be squeezed out of a tube.
Awake at 5:45am.
I’m quiet as I collect my gear and softly close the door behind me.
It’s Memorial Day, 2024.
The crowds from the last night are gone and I have a picture in mind for the 617 camera that I want to make real.
Bright light from the video screens. Exposure will be tricky.
I must not forget to compensate the two stops for the center filter.
The subject is a big hot dog, an art piece. Surreal.
I move in as close as I can.
The 72mm lens does wide lens things.
The 65’ hot dog is now as big as a skyscraper.
A photo in Times Square is like playing a slot machine. I waited for baseball and a Coca Cola, both go well with the subject.
Back to the room. Bagels and coffee.
Then we go to the zoo in Central Park, much calmer than Times Square last night.
Laguardia next, a short wait, and we are in the air.
I listen to Radiohead’s The Bends and watch the clouds and earth move below me. No, I don’t fall asleep against the window pane.
I wish I had the Linhof 617 in my hands and really want to take a photo out the window with it.
It’s a full flight and too much hassle to pull all that gear out of the overhead.
Instead, I use the viewfinder app on my phone to see what might have been.
Thirty minutes later we land.
It was a good day.