Spent

Long week in New York. Stayed way the hell downtown in some almost renovated boutique hotel, trendy as all get-out. Or it will be when they get the walls on in the lobby. This is good, in the sense that trendy boutique hotels have futons instead of beds, which are hundreds of times more comfortable to me. This is also bad, in the sense that trendy boutique hotels have “lighting schemes,” meaning they are dark. Dark walls, dark furnishings, and strategically placed pinpoint lights that illuminate nothing. Dark. I hate dark. I was also blessed with a view of an airshaft (and an interesting semi-outdoor staircase that served the hotel), and there was no indication of the sky’s temperament from where I was looking. In addition, it was, like all New York City hotel rooms, immensely overheated and, if one tried to open the windows to let some cool air in, too loud to sleep. Not street noise — way too far down in the financial district for that; in fact, the place was scary dead at night — but the hum of the adjoining building’s HVAC and wind in the airshaft.

So, what I’m saying is that I haven’t slept in days. But it was nice to see some different parts of the city. Got some photos, nothing spectacular — it was wicked windy, which always makes shooting a challenge. I did finally break down and go to B&H Photo, however, and man was that a mistake — mercifully, I had a plan and stuck to it. Otherwise, I’m sure I’d have come out with one of everything they had. And they had everything a photographer could want. Very odd set-up completely aimed at the constant up-sell, but if you can get over that, you can deal with it.

I actually haven’t set foot in a New York City photo store in more than twenty years. On one of our first visits down there, long long ago, I had broken a skylight filter and dared to venture into one of the big photo stores to get a replacement. I told the guy what I needed and he asked to see my camera . . . next thing I knew, he had yanked off my lens, slammed it down on the counter, and was wrestling some kind of fish-eye attachment onto my camera body. And it wouldn’t go on because it wasn’t the right kind of mount and I didn’t want him to do that anyway, so I retrieved my lens and snatched my precious camera back from him and stomped on out without the filter I needed, never to return to an NYC photo store again.

Pretty sure that was the same trip where we got kicked outta the Chrysler Building. I’ve since learned the importance of wearing a suit if you want to get into places you’re not supposed to be in.