Manhattan Bridge, DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY
April 28th, 2012 Permalink
April, 2012 Archives
The Cherry Blossom festival is this weekend in Brooklyn at the Botanical Garden. I recently learned that the Japanese garden in Brooklyn is one of the oldest outside of Japan. It was constructed in the early 1900s and created by Japanese landscape designer Takeo Shiota. According the the Brooklyn Botanical Garden website, Shiota came to America in 1907, driven by an ambition to create, in his words, “a garden more beautiful than all others in the world.” Japanese culture will be in full bloom this weekend in Brooklyn. It sure is a beautiful place to spend a day.
Mr. Ho, a taxi cab driver, was off duty waiting for his customers to finish dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant when I struck up a conversation with him. He’s from Brooklyn (Sunset Park) and has lived in New York for 32 years. He told me that he knows the streets of New York quite well and was excited to have his picture taken. He even gave me his address so that I can mail him a photograph.
This man carried a cooked pig in a cardboard box for several blocks along a crowded Main Street in Flushing, Queens. The joy and excitement of street photography is capturing these moments in their natural state. After all, it’s not everyday you see a pig in a cardboard box being carried on a busy street while cars and buses zoom by, children eat ice cream cones and teenagers carry shopping bags.
I spent the day photographing Chinatown in Flushing, Queens. The Chinatown in Flushing is a hub of continuous activity. It’s authentic and astoundingly diverse. It takes you moment to absorb the scene and appreciate all the beautiful faces that surround you. Faces with stories. Stories with an audience. We catch a glimpse of each other and wonder. Hmm, what’s his story? Where’s he going? Where is she from? Yes, New York continues to amaze me. Unlike any other place, this is the world’s city. Every language has a home here. I can be anywhere – Mexico, Russia, Japan, Turkey, Africa, Taiwan, France, Korea – yet still know that I took the Subway to get there. Keep exploring. Get on the bus. And be home for dinner. Yes, this is New York City. This is America.
More pictures from Flushing, Queens to come.
