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You are here: Home / Photography / Ten Perfect Days in New York, with a Few Showers

Ten Perfect Days in New York, with a Few Showers

May 15, 2013 by Iskra 4 Comments

Crossing The Brooklyn Bridge
Crossing The Brooklyn Bridge, with 10,000 other people. © Iskra Johnson

I have recently returned from ten incandescent days in New York City. Or rather, eight incandescent days and two with thunder and lightning and flash flood alarms. It’s that kind of world. Although I have been to New York many times it had been fifteen years since my last real visit of any length, and I had never committed that primal rite of passage, The Walk Across the Brooklyn Bridge. Over the years it had evolved in my mind into an epic solo journey with only myself, the wind, and ancestral vertigo as company.

Ahh, those 10,000 other people, what did I know? And all of them walking home from Manhattan against my little tide. I can’t say enough about the beauty of tarps, and tarps with boldly censored grafitti which, for a person who makes their livelihood decoding the alphabet, is very close to bliss. I traveled well-protected in this billowing crib, although several Brooklyn-bound bicycles nearly took out my camera arm.

Walking Man With Brooklyn Bridge Bicycle Locks
Brooklyn Bridge Pedestrian With Lost Bicycle Locks, © Iskra Johnson

I would like to thank my dear friend and talented photographer Teresa Morani for showing me the Wonders of DUMBO and in general guiding me through the circuit overload of this astonishing city. (“Why,” asked a new acquaintance on the tarmac at La Guardia, “do they keep re-naming parts of the city that we already know some other way? What the hell is Dumbo?” I feel her pain, but I can’t really resist an acronym that stands for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.” It pretty much lets you know that you are entering a city where people live steeped in place. They notice things. (And of course, once noticed, things become very expensive……) Here are a few of the 1,734 moments glimpsed as I mostly walked Manhattan and Brooklyn, avoiding Google maps and asking someone new every few blocks where I was and where I was going. Many of these images will be available as prints at a later date and will be posted in the prints or photography section of my website. (Click each image to see larger.)

Carousel At Dumbo
Carousel At Dumbo
The Bubble
The Bubble, © Iskra Johnson
Central Park Spring Sky
Central Park Spring Sky, © Iskra Johnson
The Player
Music at the Edge of the Park, © Iskra Johnson
Goddess Of Culture At The Met
So Much Culture, So Little Time (at the Met) © Iskra Johnson
 The Bridge From Dumbo
The Bridge From Dumbo, © Iskra Johnson
47 Angels
47 Angels, © Iskra Johnson
A Tree In Brooklyn
A Tree In Brooklyn, © Iskra Johnson
Three Windows
Three Windows, © Iskra Johnson
NOTICE
NOTICE, © Iskra Johnson
Manhattan Fire Escapes Morning
Manhattan Fire Escapes: Morning, © Iskra Johnson
The Chain
The Chain, © Iskra Johnson
The Tower
The Tower, © Iskra Johnson
Liberty from the Shore
The Statue, © Iskra Johnson
A Room OnThe Street
A Room On The Street, © Iskra Johnson
Looking Up
Looking Up, © Iskra Johnson
Intersection
Intersection , © Iskra Johnson
Crossing with Signal
Signal, © Iskra Johnson
Improvements
Veil with Tree, © Iskra Johnson
Orange Veil
Orange Veil, © Iskra Johnson
Chess-In-Washington-Square
Chess In Washington Square, © Iskra Johnson
Empire-At-Night-(From-the-Highline)
Empire at Night (From the Highline), © Iskra Johnson
AboveThe Clouds
Above The Clouds (Coming Home) © Iskra Johnson

Last night I went for a walk to see if I was happy to be home, and I was. This city is so quiet people whisper in restaurants and you can hear the clouds scrape against the sky. There is the occasional disturbance, if you look for it. As I walked towards the bay I heard a raucous shrieking and looked up to see nine crows chasing a bald eagle. They kept going until I lost sight of them far beyond the edge of the park. Here at the frontier there is time to think and recollect. Every night I am dreaming of buildings, and then I wake up and plant peas and divide the baby lettuce. If you would like to know some of the places I went while in New York and the things I recommend here is a short list:

The Highline (Oh Seattle City Council, please please please, can we do this with five feet of the viaduct??)

DUMBO

The Met, Most especially the exhibit of Civil War photography, best viewed after getting lost for a few hours in the Cycladic art collection, just for historical perspective

MOMA, especially Dieter Roth’s “Later this will be nothing.” Also, I suggest having lunch there in the cafe for several hours while reading a novel, perhaps Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit from the Goon Squad”. People will be having very interesting conversations one eighth of an inch away from your elbow, mostly in “foreign” languages, but you may hear about the custom fireplace that very nice looking man is installing for those people with the third home on Fire Island. It’s taken him two years and it’s not yet done.

Gagosian Gallery, Anselm Kiefer’s new exhibit “The Morganthau Plan” And while you are there will you please pick up the book for me? It wasn’t in stock the first week. The other book, Next Year in Jerusalem, is crazy wonderful so I have to assume this one is too. If you see the stereoscopic displays of the Civil War scenes at the Met first it will make these paintings look very different. I think anybody planning to wage a war might want to stop in to these two exhibits before firing up the drones.

Rosanne Olson’s “Rapture” at Robin Rice Gallery. Sublime.

Central Park on a sunny day. There is no greater bliss. Blow a bubble for me.

 

Filed Under: Photography, Recent Posts, Travel Tagged With: 10 perfect Days in New York, artist's eye on Brookklyn, Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park on a sunny day, photography of New York, street photography New York, The Highline

Comments

  1. paula says

    May 15, 2013 at 11:52 pm

    Looking Up is my favorite. Now I want to spend some time in NY. Thanks for sharing your vision.

    Reply
  2. Sherrie Lovler says

    May 16, 2013 at 4:54 pm

    You captured the city so well. Makes me homesick.

    Reply
  3. Maureen says

    May 17, 2013 at 10:37 pm

    Some great shots, Iskra! By the way, I don’t think those are lost bike locks. There’s a tradition of lovers buying a lock and attaching it on a bridge or other structure then throwing away the key as a sign of their never-ending love. I think that’s what you’ve got there.

    Reply
  4. Iskra says

    May 17, 2013 at 10:52 pm

    Lovely! That adds so much. “The Lovers’ Loch”

    Reply

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I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in wh I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in which I let the story of place, museums, witness and culture unfold as it wishes. It’s an old-style post before I had “newsletter consciousness.” (Sigh….when you send out a post with one image and a show announcement and maybe five more words and someone writes, “perfect length to view on my phone” you may be tempted to perform more of the same and forget the original muse, born long before success was judged by how well thoughts fit within 2x5” square inches. A few excerpts here and first link in bio to read the entirety. Witness and elegy is where I seem to live. Painting is acrylic ink on panel, a piece I have yet to resolve but like to see into for the next step.
If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s still yours! Yesterday I started early and went to an island in the middle of the blue sea to be in beauty and celebrate life. As we walked the beach we met a young boy also born on 9.11. His parents had brought him to Vashon for the same reason, and he had found a perfect moon shell for his own birthday present sent from the sea. It was such a lovely moment, to remember the world is young no matter how old we are.
Taking the last golden days of summer for study. T Taking the last golden days of summer for study. The Volunteer Park museum has an exhibit showing the influence of the Edo arts in Japan on Toulouse-Lautrec and I went to see it last weekend. As you can see from these images, I seem to have no interest in Lautrec— True! But these details of woodcuts and paintings on silk fill me with a quiet rapture.
Walking Meditation Walking Meditation
RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid
Sunday Morning Meditation: River and woods, stone Sunday Morning Meditation: River and woods, stone and light.

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