the straight and the curls

This was in Brooklyn, I remember that well. I'd always get lost there. While Manhattan was a precise and simple network of vertical avenues and horizontal streets, Brooklyn was a mess of avenues, streets, roads, courts, and others.

But that's not to say I got lost this time, because I didn't. My classmate had brought me to his place to go over the short he would be directing and I was to shoot. When I got out of the car on this street I was taking in the fences, the faces, the bricks, the gardens, and I recall turning at the front door, on top of the steps, and looking back down. Since I used to carry my trusty old Canon FTQL everywhere, it was up to my eye in a jiffy and in a moment I was through the door.

bars of shadow

While at the film academy, I used to visit the MET often. It was only on the fourth visit there, my first time with a companion, one of my classmates, that I learnt the $7 dollar fee on the sign was only the 'suggested' donation. I had been paying the full 7 every time before that, and I ran the amount of money I could have saved for food(!) through my head as my friend quietly placed a quarter in the tray and stepped away with the tag. Stepping forward I quickly tucked the dollar bills I had ready into my breast-pocket and searched for a quarter. I slipped it onto the tray and endured the glare the guard behind the counter gave me as I closed the coloured tag onto my collar and shrunk away.

It was during that visit I took this picture. I remember it so well because I remember as well how happy I was, planning how to spend the money I had just saved. I couldn't bare to think of what I could have done with the money I had carefully spent on my earlier visits. I reasoned that it was the least I could do for the MET, considering how much it was giving me.

Still, during my subsequent visits, I used to pay a couple of dollars or more atleast because I felt so guilty giving them just a quarter. Maybe because it was too much like mistreating a teacher one is fond of.

I'm beginning to slowly get my old black and white slides scanned.

the passion of the drummer...

We were carrying our equipment in the subway as we changed trains, on our way to a location. And as my team-mates hurried through the open doors of our train, I spotted this chap beating away at the drum set. I knew exactly how this shot would turn out as I pressed down on the clicker. In a moment I was jumping through the closing doors of the subway. This was back in those early days when I still imagined I could get stuck in those sliding doors until the next stop. Later, I could never remember which stop we had changed trains at.

bicycle, snow, post, bars...

Before that winter in new york, my idea of snow was tiny flakes of soft whiteness floating down to earth. However that soon changed. My first day, my idea of snow was the cold wetness of my trousers when I entered a building. My first week, it was the ice on the pavement and road I kept slipping and falling on, flat on my cold bum. My first month, it was the cold, the wet, the ice, the flakes, the covered rooves and branches, the crunch with every step.

I took this shot after a day of class. When it was taken, it was actually darker than it looks here. I was on my way back home. There are some interesting little details in this one. For instance, that's NYFA in the top left corner.

gugenheim...

This one was taken outside the Gugenheim Museum in February of 2003. We were doing a student film in the area and I had never seen the building upfront before. Ofcourse I had seen pictures and read articles on it, always fascinated by both its exterior and interior structure and beauty, but this was my first opportunity to truly appreciate its scale and dimensions.
Here, I especially liked the snow on the branches, outlining them.

new jersey shoes...

My first room when I was studying at NYFA was 2 miles from a PATH station in Jersey City. So every morning it was either getting a ride, or walk. There were so many things on the way I could have and really should have taken a picture of, but I was always occupied by either thinking up excuses for being late or just plain running.
I used to always pass these shoes hanging on the wire, and one day, rather than just pass below wondering as I always did why it dangled instead of walked, I took a picture. The week before I shifted to another apartment, I noticed another pair was keeping it company a few feet along on the wire. It didn't occur to me to take a picture then because I was too busy realizing I would miss the long walk, and those shoes.

rest of the old scans...

These are the remaining 6-year-old scans of my first comic that I've recovered from the floppy.