Columbia Teaching Fellow

He wondered why I knew he was a writer. He wanted to know who I was. He asked polite, clearly announciated questions in full sentences. I told him that I had photographed quite a lot of writers including Baldwin and Beckett and that seemed O.K. I had some pictures on me to show him what I had done in Brooklyn. We sat for quite a while and his friend talked to Caroline about dogs. He told me he was on his way to New Jersey which he had been trying to get out of all day. "I'd rather be shot."

Girl with gold earring

She and her friend were lugging shopping up the steep steps of Morningside Park. They were on their way to one of the scores of picnics that crowd the park on summer evenings. I think they were happy to have an excuse to stop and put down their bags. Just as I had arranged my subjects and set the camera, two of their friends, young men, started to clown around behind me and make the girls giggle. I was saved by a mother or aunt ordering the young men to leave us alone and to carry the bags the rest of the way to the picnic site.

Morningside Farmer's Market

He was loading up the unsold produce at the end of the day. His farm was in Kingston, NY and on Saturdays they had stands in Queens and Brooklyn as well as Harlem. He delivered and picked up from all three locations.

Saturday night dinner

Went to Brooklyn and saw nothing. Returned with dinner from Fairway's, above. Ham on the bone from Maine, good, but a little smoky. Dried fruit, gherkins, tomatoes and salami all excellent. Top right are dried cherries marinated in Dow's 5 year old Tawny port. Extravagant you might say but the dried cherries were extremely sour and I already had the port which was too sweet to enjoy. But it did a wonderful job of taking the excessive sourness off the cherries.

Esther Williams, bar owner

"I get in at 9.30 every morning. The bar maids get in at noon. I am eighty-three and I have cancer."

Earlier, Esther was outside her bar supervising the delivery of supplies. Caroline asked her if we could have some water for the dog. She beckoned us in and produced a large Tupperware full of water for Louis and put it on the floor for him.

She has owned and run The New Casablanca for forty years, more than twenty of those years with the man she eventually married. "One New Year's Eve he asked me - I thought he never would."

Her husband died eighteen years ago. She hunted the shelves and cupboards under the bar and brought out her wedding album. "I get it out every so often." It was a large white leather book with sewn gilt borders on each page.

She thought Bedford Stuyvesant was still neglected by the city. In the last election Mayor Bloomberg got fewer votes in her district than any other. "He ought to come and see us more."

Couple in doorway

"May I photograph you?" I asked.

She thought for a moment. "Do you work for an attorney?"

"No, I don't."

"That's O.K. then."

A window was flung up and a head appeared. "I'm going to charge you for using the door space."

The couple posed and I asked them to move a little. "Can I punch him in the nose?" And nudging him with her elbow, "Stay sexeee."

Mother and daughter

They came out of their house in Bedford Stuyvesant as we passed. They were off to catch a train to Dance Africa in Fort Green.

We wondered why her daughter was wearing plastic sandals. Maybe her dancing shoes were in her mother's bag.

Girl in white shirt

I wasn't paying attention and I missed my chance as this girl and her friend came out of the gate of their house in Bedford Stuyvesant. I hesitated and they were gone. An hour later we ran into them on the same street coming in the opposite direction. One does not often get a second chance. I took them together but this shot was the best I thought.

Bushwick artist and friend

As soon as people say yes to having their picture taken I start work - always afraid they will change their minds. This means I have to do them more or less where they are standing. However tempted I am to ask subjects to come with me and stand by the magnificent foxgloves in Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, I have never asked, and I doubt if I would get anybody to agree.

I also assume that everyone is on their way somewhere so this cannot turn into a morning's work. I adopt a certain speed but no rush. This couple were on a street with too much distracting contrast in the background. I didn't know what to do. Casting around I spied a good background a hundred yards down the street. All was well: they were going that way.

You can't ask people you meet in the street to go home and change if you don't like what the are wearing. I did like what this couple were wearing though it was puzzling. We have a woman in a summer blouse but a woolen winter skirt and carrying a leather jacket on an 85 degree day.

Girl with floral earrings

Spotted on the steps of the High School on the way from the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens to where our car was parked. She is a 9th grade hip hop dancer.

Chef who would

We revisited Prospect Heights and failed with the chef at Bristen's Eatery. Adamant about not having her picture taken. People either say yes or they say, "No thank you I'd rather not, or, wagging their finger, they say, "No pictures." There is no persuading them. Money would do it, I suppose. I've never tried.

Go up the road to Breukelen Café. Have a coffee and Caroline nips outside to make friends with a woman and her spaniel. Five minutes later I follow. Never mind the spaniel, the owner is special. "I'm not shy, go ahead." she says. By coincidence she is a chef. Cooks at the attractive place next door, Dutch Boy Burger.

Man from Jamaica

He was outside his apartment building on Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. "Take it!... Take it!" he said, "and send me a copy." To the question of where he was from originally he replied, "Jamaica, and that's not Jamaica, Queens".

Woman cradling a Rolleiflex

She was given it by a photographer she worked for. My favourite camera and format, the square. I must follow her example and use mine again. Film is still plentiful.

Monica, Mania and Michael

Monica was delighted at the thought of having her picture taken. I explained that I had been photographing Newburgh for the last fifteen years for a book. I pointed to a wall and asked her to stand in front of it. She shuddered when she saw the name ........ Gang scrawled on the wall. "I don't want to be affiliated with them," she said. "Stand away from the wall and you will cover it," I replied. After I had done the two of them together I asked Monica if I could take her alone. She released Mania without a qualm and posed by herself. Mania stood riveted by the dog and the camera's click and whir. Here are the two pictures.

Monica

Here is Monica alone without her child.

Man in hat and mac

The hat was the first thing I noticed, then the firmness of push that he exerted on the baby carriage. He was on home duty, it was Sunday, and although he spends the week testing his inventions to destruction at his laboratory, he is more than happy to push and nurture his son on the weekends.

Anything that has to be demolished on stage in a theatre he builds. He tests it to destruction ten times to see that it works properly. "Left it late for the first child."

Poodle walker meets friend

Are they talking dogs?

Tender moment

A day of extremes - high winds, bad lunch, then purchase of Louis's favorite dog food and reuniting with Daniel at Botanica in Red Hook for a Hemingway. Discomfort, annoyance, satisfaction, sadness and joy. It was a sad day for this couple on the stoop of his house in Carroll Gardens but they did not turn me away.

Couple in grey

I said, let's just go to the bus stop under the raised section of the F in Gowanus. I'd had luck there several times. Nobody at the bus stop but low and behold along comes this couple as we continue on our way. They run a business making chalk boards and slate boards for arranging food or anything you feel like, and often dress like they are here, in grey.

Georgi at Caputo's Bakery

She stepped outside for a smoke as we past the bakery, Caputo, on Court Street, Brooklyn. Been there one hundred and four years - the bakery I mean. Caroline bought a bag of biscotti and finished them before we got home.