Caution Tape on Mill Street

(You can see it bigger if you click on it.) Every photo I've posted on this blog for the past year has been taken on medium format film with my Hasselblad camera. But a month ago I got an Olympus XA, an old Japanese rangefinder that fits in my pocket. This picture and the next one are taken with it. It doesn't capture quite as much detail as the Hasselblad, but I can keep it with me and pull it out when something in the neighborhood catches my eye.

Boy After Climbing

I was watching some boys play baseball on Verona Street and someone hit it over the church yard fence. While the pitcher went after it, this guy showed off how he could climb those wires on the right (which was impressive but the landing on the jump down interested me more photographically).

New York Dock Co.

If you can tell me anything about this building, I'd like to know. It's out on Imlay Street, between the road and the cruise terminal. There are actually two nearly identical ones (map). To me it looks as if it's old and crumbling, but has never been used. If you click on the photo you can see that the words "New York Dock Co" are written across the top in the cement siding. I heard a rumor that someone is considering turning it into condos, but I can't confirm that. I shot this on a beautiful evening after a big rain. Access to this lot (with those nice big parking spaces painted on it) is only open when a cruise ship is docking, so it felt like a lucky opportunity to size the structure up when the Queen Mary II was in port.

Downpour on Pioneer Street

This is a little throwback to the beginning of the summer when it rained every day. I snapped it huddled under a tree. I was lucky to make it home without flooding my Hasselblad, and happy to get this shot of big rain drops and headlights.

Wildflowers

(please click on this image to see it bigger) I love the people and streets and strange old buildings of this neighborhood, but after a couple of years photographing those things, I loved shooting some wildflowers in Red Hook. Down on Van Brunt Street, past the shipping terminal there is this little lot. The sign on the fence says it's some sort of public protected meadow. One summer evening the gate was open and I stepped in and made this picture.

Rugby at the Ballfields

Brooklyn Women's Rugby had their first ever home game and I was invited. They play at the Red Hook ballfields, and one of their players follows Here in Red Hook and asked me to come out and watch. I was honored.

I watched most of the game standing next to this guy. I thought he was the uncle or boyfriend of one of the players, but turns out he just comes down to the track from where he lives in Sunset Park, to work out. He was from Puerto Rico and said he'd never seen Rugby. He couldn't believe how violent it was and was surprised nobody had broken their neck yet.

The team in the solid light blue, from somewhere in Long Island, was more experienced and outmatched our local upstarts. But Brooklyn took the beating with rowdy vigor and heads held high.

Portrait with Tissue

I see this man very often, never in the same place. I've only talked to him this once, interrupting him from his cleaning because the light on him was so beautiful. He was very willing to be photographed, though skeptical. I love that he didn't completely stop wiping his windshield as he turned to me for the picture.