Woman enjoying life

Cigar smoking, cookie eating, happy as a lark woman, outside 84 Diner in Fishkill, NY. I wanted to go somewhere big and busy. Here it was, the diner I had passed a hundred times on my way to Newburgh, where the parking lot is always full and you get exactly what you expect in huge quantities, served by waitresses who weave through the tables and past each other at the double. A granny, with a tender hold on her grandchild's hand is given, with a reassuring smile, the right of way in this whirlwind traffic of nimble plate carriers, as the waitress stops dead to let her safely through.

Smoking lovers

In this photograph, taken in London in the buffet of Waterloo station, thirty years before I took the couple at Diner (above), there is more expectancy than surprise in the young lady's expression, and not a scrap of aggression. In fact, even without their shared love of tobacco, they seem made for each other. You could not be sure of that in "Surprise". Those were still the days when it was polite to light your girlfriend's cigarette for her and always before your own. And there is more in her look than the sweet anticipation of that first delicious drag on her cigarette.

Unknown man with cigarette

As we approached the lights at 8th Avenue and 9th Street in Park Slope, a man weaved around behind our car and appeared beside us. I lowered the window and said I would like to take his photograph. With that he took out a cigarette from the pack he was holding. Caroline likes to smoke once in a while so I took it for her.

"Do you want a light too?" he asked.

"No," Caroline said, "I'm going to keep it for later, thank you."

"What I actually wanted was to take your picture." I said as the light turned green and I had to move. "I'll pull up over there," He followed us.

I took the photograph and he said he had lived in Brooklyn all his life. I then asked him what he did and he replied, "I live, in Brooklyn." I don't think he was hard of hearing, just his way of not wanting to tell me anything.

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.

Manager of Goodbye Blue Monday

As we walked from the glare of the sunlit street into Goodbye Blue Monday in Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY, we could see almost nothing. A lamp glowed here and there and the vague sign of daylight showed from the end of the room. I said, "Too dark for pictures," and left.

Out in the street again, Caroline said that she thought there was a garden and went back in to find out. She returned and beckoned me in saying that there was a garden and we could get a sandwich. The garden, in fact, was a junk yard, containing amongst other articles, cast iron wood stoves, TV sets, shopping carts, hand trucks and welding equipment.

On the left was an open ended shack with a dozen folding chairs in front of a stage, and rough wooden benches down two sides. On one of these benches sat a young man in his robe and pyjamas smoking a cigarette. He introduced himself as Matthew, the manager. He told us he lived across the street and this was a night place, hardly anybody came during the day.

A photographer and his assistant were photographing a model with a head of bushy brown hair that the assistant combed and brushed a lot between shots. When it looked right, the assistant became a wind machine by vigorously flapping a piece of cardboard, no doubt found in the garden, and no larger than an 11x14 print, close to the girl's head. It was remarkably effective and spread the hair just the right amount.

The Last Vice

Stan Rubinstein is a pianist but no relation to Arthur. I sat down next to him on a bench outside the restaurant Building on Bond in Boerum Hill. His wife told me that cigar smoking was his last vice; she has eliminated all others. Jazz is his first love but he doesn't play much these days as his left hand is a bit stiff.

"I'm a tough old Jew from Brooklyn and nothing is going to get me down."