3 09 pm est   [ photo edition ]

When I take my camera out on a walk, I generally don't look at things any different than if I didn't have it along. I don't think this is true of most people.

I find the window displays on Madison Avenue to be absolutely fantastic. Window dressing is an underappreciated art form. My favorite thus far have been a display of expensive antiques nestles in upright tires, and a make-up store with natural colored pots of make-up nestled amongst stacks of logs and wood chips. These newspapers bound in pink were accompanied by stacks of thousands of sheets of pink paper. Pink must be in this season.

Today is one of those startlingly clear days when the sky is neon blue but the air is sharply cold. The tree branches spun their fractals for me.

Even the briefest walk in Manhattan will take you by a half-dozen construction sites. Everywhere, blockades erected, lights strung, sidewalks overturned, traffic rerouted, caution tape blaring...

I was in a mood to take pictures of "things". I didn't want to explain to people why I wanted their pictures, for this often led to a lesson in what the web is. I was in a non-interaction mode. I needed to go to the drug store for shampoo and a permanent marker. If images struck me, I would capture them, but I would do my best to avoid people. I succeeded very well.

I stood in the middle of the street and aimed my camera. I wondered how long I could stand there. The light was red, so I wasn't blocking traffic, but people get very antsy with a camera aimed anywhere near them. I hurried along.

Architecture appeals to me in ways I cannot explain. Anytime utility is produced artistically, I am rapt. Everything is old here. Everything is new in LA.

The man you can barely see in the lower left-hand corner kept staring at me and my strange camera. He would have agreed to be photographs. Some people like to be artistic subjects. I do.

This was the corner where the man handed me a rose. I didn't remember that until just now. Aren't the blossoms lovely?

This is the view outside the drug store. It is so radically different than any view you could find in California, but I am at a loss to explain how.

This fantastic red building begged to be photographed. It caught my eye on the walk back too. I am a big fan of white walls, but some day I want a yellow kitchen [yellow and white] and perhaps I'll paint the outside of my home some outrageous color. Perhaps just the trim... I wonder how my husband will feel about this plan. No doubt he will indulge my nonsense if it is important enough to me.

I was absolutely startled to see a woman in a fur coat at the drug store. I went incognito to get a picture of her, since most store employees get very jumpy about any sort of filmming or photographing inside their walls.

No one would wear fur in California; it is quite the faux pau. Of course, if one had a fur coat, today would be the day to wear it. But I would expect to maybe see one at an opera, but not at the drug store. One aisle over, I discovered a second one on a woman who looked like a slimmer version of my grandmother. There were even more on the way home. This New York is a different beast.

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