New York and "What are you Listening to"?

Video by Ty Cullen

This video is adorable. In a city where everyone is rushing from one place to another and people don't make casual conversation or talk to strangers on the street, it is reassuring to see people connect momentarily. You get a sense of part of each person's personality as defined through the type of music or artist they are listening to. We get a soundtrack of these people's lives during a moment in time. When I lived in New York my life felt like a soundtrack. Just walking down the street is exciting and feels like music!

Reflections in glass, designer glasses on fashion slaves,
skateboards flippin’, boom boxes and bicycles,
messengers and bakeries
fried food, chicken parmigiana and pizza, gourmet mac ‘n cheese and egg-shaped seats below street level
Walking and smoking - I never could
Asians, Russians, Puerto Ricans, Italians, Armenians, Irish, Africans
Sushi, Greek, Cuban, Haitian, Indian, classic Americana diners
Delis, markets, lights
24 hours, bullet holes and cats, dogs and dogs and dogs
Slush and trash and holy shops
Musical subways, dark and sleepy and pensive
Coats, gloves, scarves
Rain, Soho, all over the world
Relatives, friends, babies’ bundled cheeks
Peking ducks hanging by limp necks in restaurant windows
Fish air, naked trees
Sparkling sidewalks at night

That was, in part, my daily experience in New York. Makes me inspired just thinking about it. Here's another little tale.

WHAT INSPIRES YOU? WHAT GETS YOU LISTENING? WHAT MUSIC ARE YOU LOVING RIGHT NOW? WHAT MUSIC LAYS HEAVY ON YOUR HEART?

(Documentary) Photographing Other People's Suffering - Why I Can't.

Earlier today, I was thinking about what it is about me that I can't photograph other people's suffering. Some of the photographers that amaze me, like documentary photographers Robert Capa, George Rodger, and Mary Ellen Mark - whose work, in part, documents wartimes, homelessness, and the hardships among world cultures - put painful or unpleasant images/realities in front of our eyes that are so stripped down that they're purely and simply beautiful.