Breaking in a thoroughbred

At the time I photographed this young thoroughbred being broken in (probably 1955), I was flying cargo planes to Australia for Freddie Laker. We used to have a stop-over in Karachi on the way. In London I exercised polo ponies in Richmond Park three mornings a week and I missed my rides when I was away on the two week round trip to Australia.

I asked at the hotel if there were any stables nearby and they said I should try the racing stables. I was not at all sure I could handle a race horse but they gave me one of their nice gentle retired animals. I still scared myself galloping across the desert.

I was lucky enough to be there one morning when this young horse was of being broken in. He had not yet had a saddle put on him. It was one of the first photographs I took with my Rolleiflex 2.8E

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.

Waitress with armful of glasses

Botanica has a new manager, an Englishman, originally from the Islands. Along with him, two new waitresses of great skill and courtesy. Braced with a shared Hemingway (that as yet, unbeatable cocktail, the daiquiri), we drove home to Garrison listening to "A Most Wanted Man" by John le Carré. The journey has never gone quicker. The book is a perfectly aimed swipe at the complicity of all the governments fighting the war on terror; riveting characters and suspense.

Opposites attract

Together in Red Hook for four years, since she was fifteen and he twenty, this devoted couple live in harmony despite their appearance of being worlds apart. He talks admiringly about the forty and fifty-year-old rockers you can see in Greenwich Village who really know how to turn themselves out. But waiving his left hand in the air he said proudly, "I never go out without this."

Off to Brunch

Was it last night that made this couple so happy, or the anticipation of brunch? They were laughing when I first saw them, stepping off the sidewalk the other side of the intersection, and they were still laughing as they passed me. In their state of mind I could have waived a red flag at them and they would not have noticed my standing almost in their path with my camera.

The last of summer.

Two straight knees - one bent knee

They didn't seem to know where they were going. She wears her bag as armor. He travels light, perfectly trimmed hair and side whiskers are enough. All I had to do was to hold my camera more or less vertical at my waist and technology did the rest: accurate focus and exposure.

A picture of indecision. A Saturday of unenjoyment on Bedford Avenue.

Solemn moment

More that Nikon shutters are as smooth as silk than my hand rock steady, but I believe that this photograph was taken at 1/5th of a second. Diner is a marvelous place where the waitress sits or crouches at your table and reels off the menu from memory and writes it at the same time on the paper tablecloth. Wine, (Julianénas out of a ten litre box, yes box, decanted into litre bottles) pasta and chocolate cake, out of this world. And a couple, heads together, her hand holding his ear. Why? Maybe just trying to concentrate on who owes what for the dinner.

Envious moment

I dug this out of the files: the bar at the Bolshoi, Moscow, 1980. The place much more brightly lit than Diner so no camera shake troubles, this time with a Leica. In this picture I want to know what the passing man is thinking as he watches the couple about to gobble up their glasses of champagne. Or is it the girl he's looking at?

Roberta's best

There is as much to say about Roberta's where this girl works as there is to say about her. Roberta's, for me, has the best pizza in Brooklyn (crisp crust and simple fillings), the best prices, the most pleasant staff and the atmosphere of a place where you feel you will be missing something if you did not go there regularly. The people who run it grow food for the restaurant in greenhouses on their roof. They also have a radio station.

This girl is Bushwick exotic: tattoos, beads, short skirts, lots of color and friendliness, plus much knowledge of where good food can be found in Brooklyn. We missed her the other night when we went. She liked the doorway and lent against it in this languid way without any prompting from me.

Woman sitting with one shoe off

As I walked by I said "Don't move you look wonderful like that." Immediately she moved - people almost invariably do. You have to say it very quietly and slowly, if possible accompanied by a gentle gesture that implies: "Stop". She put the can of beer down farther enough away, she thought, not to be in the picture. She returned to her pose and forgot, possibly, about her only wearing one shoe.

Lion and gazelle

They walked past us on Wythe Avenue, Williamsburg. I leaped on them, and a few yards from where we were I saw a possible background. They followed me and it was done.

Hungry girl with chipped fingernails

It was hot, dusty and noisy. Three friends were sheltering in the shade of the overhead tracks of the F and G train on 9th Street near the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. They were waiting for the shuttle bus to take them to Ikea. At first the girl wanted to get rid of the cake and drink, but I said no, they were essential to the picture and told her how terrific she looked holding them.

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman had become well known around this time for her film still series. I asked her what she was doing now and she said that she had spent the last six months watching television. Just anything, soap operas, anything. But she was going to get down to some work soon.

Barbara Kruger

Ms. Kruger showed us into her studio, and asked us to sit down. She sat in a place round the table which was in shadow. I could see a spot a few feet from where we sat where the light was good. I asked her if we could do the picture there but she wouldn't budge. I explained that her face was in shadow. "That's alright," she said. I tried to explain that really it wasn't alright, and that the light was very good in the spot that I had pointed out. I would then take three frames and be gone. No, she would not stand there. I then asked Cathy, my daughter, to stand there and said, "Please look, doesn't she look good?" "Yes, she does." I took my three frames and we departed.

Outside Fairway

If I find a subject as we arrive at Fairway, it gets me out of helping with the shopping. Here is a young woman on her break from Fairway checkout with her friend's arm.

Baker at Bakeri

I did him standing, sitting, straight on, and in profile, full length and close up. This was the one though, sitting, behind the fence, finishing his cigarette.

We were looking for bread, but Con Ed had not yet put in enough electricity for the ovens. Caroline was not , however, going to leave without a brownie. Delicious, she said.

Leopard hug

We're talking to Carly (see July 5th and June 9th posting) in Goodbye Blue Monday and this lovely girl with a glowing complexion and tattooed forearm, plonks herself down on a stool and beams at us out of the gloom. She's followed soon by her friend who beams at us too. (Most of the beaming directed at Nicholas who was with us last weekend.)

I think they are both there to help keep the place running smoothly, a bit of waitressing and clearing up etc. Although the whole atmosphere of the place during the day seems more like home to the people there, with Carly doing the work of coffee making and keeping in touch with Matthew, the manager, by cellphone, as to the comings and goings. (See posting June 9th.)

Caroline filling a gap

I had been filling gaps in the garden due to the excessive rainfall. Certain plants had rotted in their pots, notably borage. Caroline agreed to fill this gap. She said she did not want to be a permanent stop gap, so I found some lovely pink phlox last weekend at Gowanus Nursery in Carroll Gardens, and although they do look nice, I thought Caroline did the best job.

Jim Galloway, woodworker

We walked into his woodworking shop and he lifted his earphones from his head and said, "Good afternoon." We said, "Good afternoon," and I said, "What a wonderful place this is." He thanked me and asked if I came from England, and when I said yes, he said "but not all of you." "No," I said, "that is quite right because I am half Russian." "White Russian?" he asked and I said, "Yes."

Now, how does a man who works in Brooklyn, lives in Queens, (his family have been there for two hundred years) and who has never left the United States, recognize an English accent that is archaic enough to be in a museum, and then detect something about me that suggests that I am not entirely English. I did not ask, and he did not tell me. He did, however, tell me of a girl who worked at the bakery next door, who had a double headed eagle tattooed on her shoulder and said she was a Romanov (have to follow that up). He was also able to relate accurately the battle that took place between the American and British forces around Brooklyn and Fort Washington, as described by James Fenimore Cooper in "The Spy." I had introduced the subject and described the action inaccurately. Later I reread the passage in the book and he was right down to the last detail.

Claire in the garden

Claire is in charge of the Summit Street Community Garden in Carroll Gardens, a job she inherited from the founder, who now is away quite a lot after she built a house in Santa Fe. This hot Saturday afternoon Claire was there with her friend tidying up and planning next year's changes. An exceptionally large rosemary bush, probably eight feet wide and five and a half feet high is one of the garden's features. As we admired it, she drew her secateurs from her pocket and clipped off half a dozen twigs for us.

I took a photograph with her friend by the rosemary but when she started talking about her life I got this one. Her hands, as we can easily see are never gloved. It is not only the dirt in her finger nails, but the way she has arranged her hands that drew me to this particular shot - one of many where her hands were in the picture.

After Barnard, trying to figure out what to do before graduate school, at the suggestion of an aunt she and her friend started Beastly Bites Animal Supplies. Later, after it became a success, they sold it. Now Claire describes herself as a community activist.