Sixteen year-old

If there is any success in this photograph it is due to the calm of the sitter and her choice of colors, both of her hair and her dress. Her hair, of course, is the luck of her birth, but her dress is her sense of style she has developed.

She sings solo for her school, the national anthem at special events, and in chorus at concerts, lately at Carnegie Hall. She cooks desserts and speaks French with her mother. Loves English and liked, "seeing herself in a new light."

Young musician

We went to the recording of one of Bravo's art reality shows "Work of Art" and Caroline spotted this girl in the crowd. She knew her as one of the children of a very musical family in Garrison. I went round to their house a few Saturdays ago and her mother was the perfect mother-of-a-beautiful-daughter-being-photographed. "I'd like to be a bit higher up." I murmured. A stool was produced in a matter of seconds. Not just a stool that a-wobble-and-you're-off-it, but a three step ladder that nobody can fall off. The girl took no notice of her mother. I was the conductor that day and her eyes were glued to the camera and her mother was invisible to us both. And when I asked for a black shirt mum and daughter agreed without fuss as to which one they thought I would like.

Bushwick Diva

Every three or four minutes the light from the window that lit my subject faded to twilight as a subway past on the overhead track of the J train on Broadway. Teresa lives with her husband and shares the apartment with two other musicians. They were still asleep in their room because of working late. I crept around the main room taking care not to tread on or trip over guitars, cymbals, tom-toms, wires and microphones that littered the floor.

I whispered instruction, looked at her paintings that she kept in a cardboard box on a high shelf and listened to her telling me that she liked London and disliked America because there was no National Health Service here and it was difficult getting a Green Card. She grew up in Bari, Italy. Her English was flawless.

Two Gentlemen of Williamsburg

Only ten days ago I wrote that soon I will not want to stand around street corners in the biting wind looking for subjects. Yesterday we sat in the warmth of Diner in Williamsburg, staring only at back views lining the bar. So, fortified with ham and cheese I decided to brave it and wait on a nice open piece of ground away from clutter and not crowded, where Broadway and South 6th Street intersect, shivering a bit but feeling that someone would turn up. And they did. First Danny, top, wearing his father's jacket, bought in the 1960s on Carnaby Street in London. He said,"You're lucky, I was thinking of putting on my down, then you never would have stopped me and asked to take my picture."

Levi, below Danny, is a guitarist and seventeen-years-old. He was on his way to a recording session. His friend has a large empty loft, well away from the BQE, Williamsburg Bridge and the overhead subway. He is from Bozeman, Montana. He found his guitar somewhere (he says it sounds a bit like a banjo but he likes that). He also found his bicycle, a classic English Raleigh. I saw him whiz by on South 4th Street and shouted. He turned in his saddle but continued peddling. I shouted again and he started back towards us. He said later that he thought we were lost.

Carly and friend relaxing

Carly and a friend having a smoke outside Goodbye Blue Monday. She is almost unrecognizable from the picture I took of her inside the club two weeks earlier. What is it? The clothes, lighting, mood...? We heard The Steve Pardo band with Lindley Cameron playing something swingy and lilting.

Richard Butler

I met Richard Butler in the Café Maya in Cold Spring, New York with some mutual friends. This was a restaurant that I loved not because I particularly liked the food, but for the two reasons I always love or dislike a restaurant: because of the other people who go there and the welcome and service you receive from the owner and staff. Here we thought the world of both our fellow diners and the staff.

Richard told me he was a musician, and judging how he looked, I thought he was probably a violinist with the New York Philharmonic. In my ignorance of rock music I had never heard of The Psychedelic Furs.

Heather St. Clair, artist

Here is Heather with one of her paintings. The light for this picture comes from a window that her friend Ralph helped me cover with a sheet to diffused the sunlight. Having helpful people around when photographing is fine. Ralph fell into this category, but people who stand there, too close to you, and just stare, can be a nuisance. "Do you think you could give us five minutes and we will be done," usually works. I don't think I have ever had anybody time me and then return to interrupt things again.

David Dasch

As soon as I saw this man I was struck by the depth and symetry of the lines bracketing his mouth. David Dasch runs a one man advertising business from his house in Beacon, NY. He is also a musicologist who plays transcribed Schubert and Beethoven on the guitar. A Morgan guitar made in 1954. "That was before the rush, before everybody wanted one." In order that I had a clear view of the blue walls, David and I moved a settle out of the way. He thought I had levelled it and I thought he had, but it fell, hitting a postcard stand which in turn hit a picture on the wall, miraculously not breaking the glass in spite of it falling to the ground. Such are the hazards of shooting in people's houses. We picked everything up and began again. He couldn't have been nicer about it.

I'm impressed with Nikon. This is the first picture I have taken on the D40 at 800 ISO, needed in this shot as it was a dullish day, and I did not want to supplement the window light.