2:02PM, 12/28/2009 - Celebration Onion 2010

I bought a dozen onions and brought them into the studio for the usual shoot ‘em and eat ‘em routine. One by one I placed them on set and, one by one, little personalities revealed themselves. These are the year-end onions, the ones that aren’t in the best of shape, but are still worth eating. No longer are the stems green and bright, they’re brown and look more like the ones in the supermarket than the greenmarket, shipped from far away and weeks or months old.

Am I deluded? Onions? Little personalities? Four years of this and still thinking there are little people in there somewhere. Should I make a metaphorical reference to the year passing as layers of an onion and go cliché on everyone?

Too late.

I pay homage to 2009 with this celebration onion. I will cut into it with sharp abandon, and with tears in my eyes, throw the thin slices into a hot frying pan drizzled with sesame oil, sizzling and transforming itself into something sweet, fragrant and appealing. Oh, how 2010 should be so transformed from 2009.

Happy New Year.

Eye to Eye with Blue

A little departure from my usual musings…

Every once an a while, when the sun is out and the time is right, cats go into the day crazies (there is a similar variation known as night crazies). They skitter, they leap, they walk sideways, turn somersaults, and levitate and transport themselves, in cartoon fashion, across various vertical and horizontal surfaces.

And then they plotz.

Cats, as I understand it, have no sense of self. But after an event of wild abandon, they head off to wherever the sun is streaming and lay in the glow of light and strike a pose,

or two,

or three,

or forty – in movie star fashion, in some kind of repose as if to expect the camera to capture them in their glorious, sultry elegance.

This time I obliged.

And, within seconds, she fell asleep in heat of the sun.

Sleeping Blue

Eye to Eye with Blue

A little departure from my usual musings…

Every once an a while, when the sun is out and the time is right, cats go into the day crazies (there is a similar variation known as night crazies). They skitter, they leap, they walk sideways, turn somersaults, and levitate and transport themselves, in cartoon fashion, across various vertical and horizontal surfaces.

And then they plotz.

Cats, as I understand it, have no sense of self. But after an event of wild abandon, they head off to wherever the sun is streaming and lay in the glow of light and strike a pose,

or two,

or three,

or forty – in movie star fashion, in some kind of repose as if to expect the camera to capture them in their glorious, sultry elegance.

This time I obliged.

And, within seconds, she fell asleep in heat of the sun.

Sleeping Blue

12:43PM, 12/21/2009 East 3rd Street between 1st and A

Like the snowstorm of last Saturday, the year is slipping away. 2009 looked good for a moment (here and there) until, like the snow, it turned into a syrupy slush. So,what’s the lesson learned this year?

It was all good.

If we learn from our mistakes, we grow and move on. We don’t whine and complain about the failures; we embrace and discuss the solutions. Why did I relaunch my studio business in the middle of all this? It was time to come back. I make a lousy employee.

2009? No, not a great year by any standards. But a good year nonetheless.

2010? Well, it goes without saying (although I am, aren’t I), it’s going to be a better year by a long shot.

10:12AM, 12/14/2009 Rows of Romanesco Broccoli

Swaying like the tops of pine trees blowing in the wind, these end of season romanesco broccoli are actually an edible flower in the Brassica oleracea family (cauliflower, not broccoli!).

Now that the clocks have been set back, I don’t have to get up quite as early to capture the more dramatic early morning light (It’s not like I’ve ever actually gotten up early to shoot these). People keep asking me if I light or arrange the Union Square, Shooting from the Hip photos. The answer is always no. The light and styling of the subject just happen to be that way when I capture the image.

P.S. All my friends have commented that, “Hey, they look like Xmas trees.” Silly me.

Detail - Slipcase and Top of Book. Click on photo above to see the whole story.

The folks over at Legion Paper, the parent company of Moab, took a liking to my hand-made portfolio and featured it on the Moab Facebook Fan page. Made with Ballistics cloth, Rayon and Japanese hand made fabric, the portfolio pages were printed on Moab Lasal Matte 235.

And, as nice as the detail photos look, the inside of the book is much prettier, it has my photography in it.

2:15PM, 11/23/2009 - Watermelon Radish at Union Square Market

Watermelon radish is a beautiful root vegetable with a magenta to white center that looks like it was made on a spin art machine. Although its nickname is the bleeding heart radish there’s no heartburn here. This radish is sweet, not spicy or bitter, which is a really good reason to try it if you don’t normally like radishes in salads. The watermelon radish is different and worth a try.

Here’s a link to New York Magazine for a Mâche-and-Watermelon-Radish Salad recipe by Akhtar Nawab, formerly of Tom Colicchio’s Craftbar and his own restaurant, Eletteria.

Simply wonderful.