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Picturing New York

New York is so great. What an anthill. After a couple of days there, I could feel two spectral thoracic legs waving from my abdomen.

An artist was commissioned to erect a bunch of treehouses in Madison Square, the little park at Broadway and 23rd by the Flatiron Building. They’re very high up, on trees with smooth trunks—and the homeless people can’t climb up to them.

I always visit the Flatiron Building because my publisher, Tor Books, has their offices there. I first saw the building fifty years ago, when I was twelve. My father and I went to New York together, and he showed it to me, along with the Empire State Building. Odd to think that now I’m doing business there.

I love the big NYC buildings against the sky, and how they reflect each other. It’s a wonderland, a giant hall of mirrors.

It’s not accurate to view New Yorkers as uniformly gruff. Many of them are very friendly and talkative. And it takes very little to get a conversation going. As a result of seeing millions of people a year, the locals are anything but shy. They’re smooth, and they converse easily.

Our daughter Georgia happened to be in NYC as well, and she got us to go with her to see Camper van Beethoven play at the Bowery Ballroom, which is a little like the Fillmore, but about half as big, and somewhat seedier.

I’ve always loved Camper Van. They were big when we moved to California 25 years ago; Marc Laidlaw introduced me to their music. By now, the lead singer, David Lowry, reminds me of an eccentric old professor—fit, dedicated, and prepared to speak out. My twin. They sang their big hit, “Take the Skinheads Bowling.” [Click to see it on YouTube.] What a masterpiece.
“Last night I had a dream—it was about nothing.”

We saw a new play called Becky Shaw that was fun. Not a musical, you understand— more of a Noel Coward piece, but up-to-date. Tight, witty repartee for the dialog—the kinds of things you’d say if you had a week to ponder each line. The actors were attractive and professional. The Big Apple. We hit a couple of ballets and museums too. Vulturing the culture.

We saw our old friend Eddie Marritz. He’s a cinematographer who shoots still pictures when there’s spare time. He’s very old school in this regard—he uses a Leica M6 rangefinder camera with black and white film. He was telling me it’s important to take lots of pictures of a given scene to make sure you got the right one. And he comes up with great shots, so for sure this approach works for him.

I myself prefer the school of “think, watch, get ready, and just take the one or two perfect shots.” Like going squirrel-hunting with only two bullets in your pocket (not that I’ve ever gone squirrel-hunting, but I like the Kentucky metaphor). Or—better analogy—it’s like making each pop count when you have only twelve firecrackers to set off, as was often the case when I was a boy.

I suppose I imprinted on a conservative photo-shooting approach when I was an impecunious young man making pictures on film. And now I like to imagine that if get deeply enough into the process, merging with the camera and with the view, I can feel the right picture without actually having to shoot the wrong ones. Alternately, I sometimes think that one picture is as good as another anyway—each has its own magic.


[Tribal paintings that are massed to make a ceiling near New Guinea.]

This said, now that I’m using digital now, I do go for a “do-over” sometimes. That is, I look at my shot on the camera’s little screen, and then I reshoot right away if the image seems badly lit, or poorly framed, or out of focus in the wrong spot. And it’s also the case, that I Photoshop nearly every one of my pictures, tweaking the lighting and framing—and this is another reason why I don’t necessarily need a “perfect” shot.

In NYC, I also saw a young writer I know from publishing two of his excellent stories in Flurb, Brendan Byrne. Brendan’s taking a little time off from work (most recently he was a bartender at McSorley’s) to focus on writing. He’s hoping to write a couple of novels during his personal sabbatical. Go for it, Brendan!

I advised Brendan to be sure and try writing an SF novel as well. In my (possibly mistaken) opinion, it’s easier to get a novel published as SF than as mainstream literature. Not that the lit-biz is booming on any front. My editor, David Hartwell, says nobody’s sure what’s going to happen next.

But I never worry too much when I hear bad news about publishing. I’ve been writing and publishing for about thirty years now, and I think that during each one of those 30 years, someone has told me that times have never been worse in publishing. Especially in SF publishing!

In any case, writing SF is something I like to do.
“I know it’s only rock and roll—but I like it.”

In this connection, I like to imagine being this sculpture of Herakles, I can relate to how he’s evolved into our present time.
“Wal, I’ve still got my torso—and some of my toes.”
The guy sitting beside Herakles is sketching him on a pad. It must be great to be an NYC artist and go sketching and painting things in the Met.

Today it’s 75 degrees in San Jose, California, and 3 degrees in New York. Like two different planets, almost.

8 Responses to “Picturing New York”

  1. chris Says:

    i bet you saw a play called Becky Shaw ( not katy shaw)

    nice stuff though –

    thanks
    chris

  2. Rudy Says:

    Oops, thanks Chris.

  3. Zack Says:

    The tree houses seem like more of a mean joke than art. But that’s just me, maybe I’m weird. I always wanted to be an artist when I was little, but the last time I tried I stayed up all night trying to exorcise my personal demons. Due to an unfortunate spelling error I only managed to provide them with a vigorous workout. The weather is crazy these days, it’s 45 degrees here in Alaska. Stay warm in New York.

  4. Kehrtraud Says:

    Publishing has never been easier! Book on demand isn’t even expensive if you make your layou yourself, f. i. with lyx.
    Actually I publish some “older” books, I never intended zu print at readbox.net.
    People may read it online or may purschase it as pdf or other file for e-readers or even as printed book.
    http://www.readbox.net/author/Kehrtraud

  5. Andreas Says:

    Long time stalker, first time commenter – just a quick question – what kind of camera do you use and are you doing a lot of post-processing? I love your shots and I’m just curious as to how you get them to look so good. Thanks – Andreas

  6. Elephant Gerald Says:

    I second what Andreas said, Rudy. Do you use a DSLR or a point-and-shoot?

  7. Rudy Says:

    Glad you like the photos, Andreas and Elephant Gerald. When I can, i use a DSLR, specifically, a Canon EOS 5D, which has the virtue of a “full frame sensor chip.” I usually use a Canon prime lens, a 50 mm or an 85 mm (not the super expensive one, but the one a step down). I blogged about the 5D when i got it.

    When I’m not in a situation where I can carry something so heavy, I used to use a Sony Cybershot point-and-shoot, but I dropped it and broke it, and then I had a Sony with virtual buttons on the control screen that I can’t stand.

    As of the trip to NYC, my lighter camera is a Canon G10 that I picked up, which gives pretty solid sharpness for a small camera—though still doesn’t touch the EOS 5D. It won’t fit in my jeans pocket, but it goes in a coat pocket. I took most of the pictures in today’s post with that one.

    I tend to post process nearly every picture that I use on the blog. First I weed out the non first-raters and generally just delete them. Then I bring the keepers into Photoshop and very often crop a little (which works fine since I have big pixel counts in these modern cameras), to get the composition just right. I usually use the Auto Levels control. And then sometimes I go further, using the Image|Adjust menu, focusing on the Brightness/Contrast dialog, the Shadow/Highlight dialog, and the Exposure Dialog. Over time I’ve learned how to use these fairly well. It’s all pretty subjective, a matter of practice. It’s helpful that you can use Ctrl-Z to flip between the latest change and how the image was before the tweak, and you can use the History dialog to scroll further back among your changes. It’s quite easy to make a picture less good with Photoshop, so you have to look out for that…

  8. Andreas Says:

    Thanks for the reply…. and keep on blogging, it’s always a great read (and the pictures add a great dimension).


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