David Alan Harvey Loft Workshop, entry # 17: Times Square, p6: chosen from above

A few of those on Times Square who hope to be chosen from above.

A large digital screen stands near the north approach into Times Square. Most of the time, this screen is filled with real-time, moving images of the people who walk and congregate below. Those who pass by beneath can look up and then search for themselves among the oncreen crowd.

Virtually every sighted person who passes by beneath does scan the screen in search of themselves - along with any friends and loved ones who they walk with. At intervals, the people on the screen will be replaced by an ad, but just for a short time. Then the people reappear to again search for themselves, more excited now than before. They know the moment of choosing draws near. Soon, a dancing girl jiggles across the screen and then either this young man or an attractive young blond woman follows, a yellow Polaroid camera in hand.

As soon as the young photographer appears on the big screen above, those down below begin to wave and shout to try and catch the attention of the photographer, who is not actually there, who cannot see them, because the photographer is only a video recording of someone who once held a Polaroid camera, but is now off somewhere else, doing something else. A computer now controls everything that happens onscreen.

Even so, those down below grow excited, each hoping that they and their loved ones will be the next to be chosen by this non-existant photographer.

And look! Up there on the screen! See the man standing on the pink plaza, pointing his camera upward toward the screen, toward the image of the photographer from above! 

IT'S ME!!!

And please take note of the boys dancing behind me. You will not see them again in this post, but please remember them. They desperately want the non-existant photographer to take their picture. They want their presence upon this earth to be noted; they want to be recognized as unique and special individuals. They want to be chosen from above.

I will point my camera at them. I will take pictures of them. They won't care. I will be oblivious to them. All they will care about will be their quest to gain a flash of recognition from the fictitious photographer above.

After the imaginary Polaroid photographer appears, s/he plays with the crowd for awhile. The hand of the photographer's digital likeness reaches down to the image of the street, plucks the image of an individual from the crowd, flicks it up into the tops of surrounding skyscrapers and then brings it safely back down to the onscreen street.

After just a little more teasing, the big moment draws close. From his or her station above, the likeness of the photographer appears to point the yellow camera at the anxious crowd, most of whom are eagerly waving, shouting out, pointing, trying to get the photographer's attention, pleading with the photographer to point the yellow camera at them, to choose them.

And then... the picture is taken! A tiny segment of the larger screen randomly selected by the computer appears as a screen shot within the borders of what looks to be an actual Polaroid print. Only a few of those faces that look up so eagerly appear within the frame. For them, the ones chosen by the computer, joy follows. Some grow ecstactic. Their presence on this earth has been recognized from above. They feel as though they will live forever.

In just seconds, the Polaroid picture dissolves into pixels. It exists no more. The faces of those down on the street continue to peer upward, each hopeful that he or she will be among the next to be chosen. Some give up. They have waited here long enough. They have not been chosen. They walk away.

Here we are! Choose us! Our follies are behind us now. Choose us!

Waiting faces aglow with an expression akin to rapture.

Some raise their hands, as if to catch the spirit.

The raised hand.

All peoples, all nationalities, are here.

It is not only interdenominational, but completely interfaith - the Christian alongside the Muslim, the Jew, the Hindu, the agnostic and even the atheist. When the moment nears, it does not matter who they are. They hope to be chosen... but maybe there are just a few who are not quite convinced.

Where you come from or what you believe is immaterial. If you are chosen, you will be chosen. If you are not, you won't be.

They await the moment.

My children are deserving, even if I am not. Do not be misled by the mischievous looks upon their faces. My children are deserving. For the sake of these beautiful and innocent children, choose us!

But the fictitious photographer above will choose whom s/he will.

One has come, accompanied by an angel.

They have been chosen. Their joy is beyond compare.

At some point, I notice this little girl behind me - so eager, so excited, so thrilled; so innocent. She reminds me of my own daughters when they were small. She causes my heart to melt. I badly want her to be chosen - just as I would have my own daughters, if we had all been here back then when they were small, if such a thing had existed back then.

The man who appears to be her father picks her up. They all wave, hoping to catch the attention of the fictitious picture taker from above. I frame them, then watch their faces. Suddenly, I see the light in their eyes ratchet up a notch, their smiles grow bigger. The little girl is pleased. The dad is thrilled. I snap the picture. They have been chosen.

See? There they are, in the Polaroid frame, looking up at themselves. They have been chosen. And look! In the frame just in front of them! ME! Taking their picture at the very moment they became numbered among the chosen.

This means... I have been chosen, too!

But I did not know the hair atop my head had grown so thin. When I look in the mirror, I never see the top of my head - but there it is and my hair is growing very thin. This truth cannot be denied.

I have been chosen and it is a bit of a shock to me.

Ok - I have one more Times Square piece to post. Maybe I will get it up tonight, but maybe I won't, because I have another significant task that I must complete before I go to bed. I could have got it done by now if I had not watched the football playoff games today, but I did. I wanted to be with my wife, and my second son, to eat pizza with them and they watched the games, so I did too. I was pleased with the first result and disappointed with the second. I wanted to see the Patriots and the 49'ers go at it in the Super Bowl. That won't happen now.

Please bear with me for just a little bit longer. I will make the final Times Square post. In my own opinion, it should be the best of the Times Square posts. Afterward, I will finish my coverage of the workshop.

I will. I promise. And soon.

David Alan Harvey Loft Workshop, entry # 16: Times Square, p5: my search for 15 seconds of fame lead me into glamour photography and then on to the divine

What is this 15 seconds of fame advertised in the background? I was determined to find out.

This is what it is. People who want to be famous for 15 seconds go somewhere down below this big, ever-changing, electronic billboard, pay a fee, get their picture taken in a patriotic setting and then their image appears right here, on this billboard, for one-quarter of a minute. I never went in to check on the cost - I figured the salesman might be such a persuasive hustler that he might convince me I needed to be famous for 15 seconds, talk me out of my money and I might then have to forgo my evening shiskkabob and pretzel.

Some people standing near me said that it cost $15.00 - one dollar for every second of fame. I can't verify that figure, but, if true, then it is a real bargain for sure.

And what happens when the 15 seconds of fame that you paid so dearly for comes to an end? You get swept right off the electronic billboard, that's what. You get replaced by the real celebrities of Times Square, the electronic billboard glamour girls. They get a lot more than 15 seconds, because everyone is much more interested in looking at them than they are at you, anyway.

Fortunately, the flag still flies in its place, doing its part to preserve modesty.

Oh, oh! The breeze wavers a bit, the flag unfurls the wrong way. Modesty is lost.

Officially, us serious photojournalists and true photographic artists express a certain amount of disdain for glamour photography - it is just too shallow a medium for us. Officially, that's how we feel and we are proud to state it. But unofficially, deep inside, we are all just a bit jealous. How could we not be?

Take me - how many times have I frozen myself half to death, turned my feet into blocks of ice, just to try to get a few decent pictures? I will do it again. I will freeze - to get a picture.

And meanwhile, some effete guy down in New York City is strutting around a warm studio, with all these hot ladies - the hottest in all the world - and he is giving them orders, saying things like, "lay down here, take this off... no put it back on and take this off instead... no... no... that's not what I want... take them both off -- and stretch out just a little more... and turn your left cheek just a tiny bit this way... No! No! No! Not that left cheek! Your other left cheek!"

And someone is paying him really good money to do it.

REAALLLY GOOOOOD money.

So, despite our official disdain toward these photographers, how can we help but be a little jealous?

But suddenly, here on Times Square, I, too, got to become a glamour photographer.

Look... see for yourself:

Glamour photography, shot second-hand by me as I gazed up at the electronic billboards of Time Square.

I even got to photograph a beautiful lady who rose above the mundane crowd to kiss a red deer on the nose. This wasn't a red-nosed reindeer - this was a red deer, with a black nose.

I had heard of these black-nosed red deer and how rare they are. There are less than 900 of them in all the world. They live on a tiny island in the Great Salt Lake and nowhere else. Trophy hunters pay a million dollars for a permit just to shoot one - one being the full quota for one year. The waiting list for permits is 50 years long. It would be even longer than that if enough wealthy sportsmen believed they would live long enough to use it.

At great expense, one was brought to New York City and Times Square for the glamour shoot.

It was fun for awhile, but pretty soon all this glamour-shooting overwhelmed me. The faces of these beautiful women broke up into rigid pieces, and rearranged themselves together wrongly.

Nobody looks like this.

I decided I wasn't cut out for glamour photography, after all.

It was time for me to return to the street, to get a dose of reality.  He must have been out here, looking for joy, looking for something to uplift his soul. I hope he found it. Look up, Mister. Joy glows above you.

Down here, on the pavement of Times Square, there was also glamour to behold. Real, live, flesh and blood glamour.

Many faces lit up in smiles.

There were beautiful faces, divine faces. When she discovered my camera looking her way, she made a point to hide her braces behind locked lips, but I did not care about her braces. She was beautiful, braces and all -- divine. How blessed I felt just to be able to shoot a few frames of her. The man to her right - what a fortunate fellow, to have the fingertips of one so divine come to rest upon his shoulder.

If she would have but rested her fingertips upon my shoulder for three seconds, I would have felt truly blessed. But I am shy. I did not ask her.

"Ask and ye shall receive," He said in the Bible.

I did not ask. I did not receive.

"Ye have not, because ye ask not."

Yet, I do have.

I have in spades. Divinity surrounds unrighteous me. It is everywhere, in whatever direction I look - divinity. Truly, I am blessed. 

There were tattooed faces - one with many tattoos. And the man who owns the tattooed face speaks in a soft, gentle, voice. At least he did to me. Someone told me he is famous and he probably is, but I do not keep up with fame the way I once did.

Etta James just died... so why bother?

She was divine. Her voice was divine.

Johnny Cash. He was another one who was divine.

He left too, not long ago, just like he knew he would.

He is a rickshaw driver. He is pedaling the bike that pulls the rickshaw. His rickshaw is empty.

This does not mean that business is bad for him. It just means that right now, at this moment, his rickshaw is empty. Maybe it is often full. His eyes do appear to be searching the crowd for potential customers. However often his rickshaw is full, he still always needs to find another load of riders.

This also was taken when I was shooting what is destined to become my pending entry, theoretically titled, "Chosen from above."

She is beautiful - as beautiful as any of those pictured above. She doesn't look very happy at the moment. I hope it is just a momentary thing. Maybe she is not unhappy at all, but just lost in thought, thinking about things I know nothing of.

Sometimes people ask me, "why do you look so unhappy?" when I am feeling quite happy, but am just lost in thought.

Last night, I stated that I would complete all my wandering about Times Square outtakes coverage between the time I got up this morning and the time I went to bed tonight. It just isn't working out that way. First, I did not get up this morning. I got up this afternoon. In the morning, I was struck by blessed sleep and I took full advantage of it.

It is now 11:53 PM. On one hand, I feel like I could go for hours yet and maybe I will, one way or another, but I feel that I have posted about as much as is reasonable to post in one day. Too much, perhaps. I had meant to be more disciplined in my selection and posting of pictures than this - as disciplined as David Alan Harvey would be. But, for all his teachings and my strivings to learn, I remain, after all, Bill Hess. Undisciplined and unruly, never knowing when to stop. I completed the workshop, but I have yet to obtain David's kind of discipline.

It would be pointless for me to post any more pictures today, so I will stop now. I still have at least two more Times Square posts to make - the main two, the two that most fit my theme of finding religion in Times Square, secular religion and street preacher religion - each striving for glory. Maybe I have three posts left. I will try to keep it to two. 

David Alan Harvey Loft Workshop, entry # 15: Times Square, p4: of cops and cameras, terrorists and criminals, in target #1

Officers Iocco and Kerekes, at work, Times Square, New York City.

Officers Iocco and Kerekes pose for pictures with a tourist.

Officers Iocco and Kerekes pose for pictures with another tourist.

Officer Iocco. It is he who we who wander Times Square rely upon to keep us safe.

Young woman poses with Officers Iocco and Kerekes. The two cops willing posed with everyone who asked - and while I was nearby, everyone who asked was female. Not a single male asked. The two young cops did not ask for money from people who wanted to pose with them.

Someone else could come onto Times Square in a New York cop costume, ask for money and then all kinds of people would be willing to pay him for the right to pose with him.

I wonder if most of those would be women, too?

Maybe next time I go to New York, I will buy a cop costume, head to Times Square and test it out.

I looked up the ten most photographed places in the world. Ten cities were named, with a landmark in each one of them. New York City and the Empire State Building was number one. I don't how they figure such a thing, but I don't believe it.

It may be that just about every tourist who goes to New York takes a picture of the Empire State Building, but those same tourists also go to Times Square, where, for every frame they shoot of the Empire State Building, they probably shoot 10, 20, or more in Times Square.

I have no stats to back me up. Logic just tells me it is so.

Cameras everwhere.

Cameras looking here, cameras looking there, cameras looking at me, cameras looking at you - and Angela, too.

People posing with sketches of themselves in front of camera so that they can get their picture taken and prove that they were really here, in Times Square, in New York City, where a world famous artist never spoken of by the critics sketched their likenesses onto paper.

And this is what all these cops are charged to protect. The most crowded area in the most crowded city in the United States, the number one target for terrorists from around the world - not to mention would-be pick-pockets, thugs, shysters, murderers, rapists and hucksters.

Still, I felt as safe in Times Square as safe can be. Certainly safer than in Wasilla. There were no loose dogs to bite me, no ravens to steal from me, no moose to jump up and down and stomp on me, no ice to send my feet flying out from beneath me, no snowmachiners or fourwheelers to roar blindly down the same path I walk upon, no frostbite to steel my ears, toes, fingers or nose away from me.

Even so, and as interesting a place as Time Square and New York is to visit, I prefer Wasilla.

Cop at work in Times Square, New York City.

David Alan Harvey Workshop, entry 14: Times Square, p3: amidst the chaos and clamor, glimpses of love, unabashed

We can always hope.

Surprised, anyone? 

What does it mean, when one closes her eyes while the other keeps his open? I don't know. The possible answers are many.

I spoke briefly with them. They are tourists from one of the northern European countries - I forget which one. I do not really know the nature of their relationship. They could be best friends. They could be something more. Whatever it is, it appears to be good.

I could have saved this shot for another post I will put up sometime between now and when I go to bed. I plan to title it, "Chosen from above" - but the truth is, until I actually post it, I cannot be 100 percent certain what I will title it.

When you see it, remember that these two were a part of it.

Love rapidly sketched out. I wonder why the artist switched their places around, moving her to the left, and him to the right?

All I can say for sure is that they are beautiful and there is a bond between them.

She loves her dolly too much to leave behind in the hotel, or whatever other place they might be staying.

Mother-baby love.

A time to comfort.

The wedding had apparently taken place elsewhere, perhaps in one of the Times Square churches - located a short distance away on two intersecting streets. Now the bride and groom had brought their parties to the square for picture taking purposes.

Amidst the clamor and chaos that is Times Square, the photographer works to pose the bridal party.

Boy! That is one big camera bag he carries!

The groom and his party pose for their official picture. And here am I, an interloping photographer, sneaking in a frame for my own purpose.

Brother and sister love - sometimes, there is and will be distance between them, but I bet that in the long run, it is the love that will win out. Of course, I cannot be certain of anything - even if they are actually brothers and sisters. If they are not, they are good standins, anyway.

No need for me to elaborate.

David Alan Harvey Workshop, entry 13; Times Square, p2: No, Sir, I did not take a picture of Priscilla's butt!!!

Sometimes, I happen upon a scene and I do not see a picture immediately, but I see the potential for a picture. I think a picture is likely to happen soon, so I prepare myself. So it was when I found Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. She was standing there, her back to me, striking a pose, nothing happening. I framed the scene in my camera, so I would be ready when something did happen.

I fired off one frame that I knew would be worthless, because that is the kind of thing I do. Immediately, the good fellow to the left stepped into the frame and said to Priscilla:

"The guy behind you just took a picture of your butt!"

I reacted quickly and shot this image before the lie had totally left his mouth, so that I could document it.

Priscilla turned to look behind her and see who it was that had just taken a picture of her butt - but I had taken no such picture! Yet, in such a situation, one cannot explain such a thing, as to do so would be awkward indeed and would only make matters worse.

So, I just continued to shoot pictures as the man grinned his smug and warped grin as he continued to walk on by.

Priscilla was cool and collected, unphased by it all. She continued to perform. She struck a new pose. My false accuser walked smugly out of the frame, feeling very pleased with himself.

The little girl was most entranced.