Snapshots

Long ago, I realized that I am completely inept at using a camera. This doesn't prevent me from often 'seeing' shots that would have made a great picture, if only I could have grabbed it exactly as I saw it. I saw one today and thought I'd share it as a word picture.

I was walking down 40th street between Madison and Fifth Avenue (notice the cool ease with which I now refer to these locator references!! Every single time I come to New York, I have to relearn the irregular maths of the Avenues -- it's quite charming and oriental in a way, this perfect grid, with the counfounding multiplicity of avenues between Third and Fifth -- like the crooked line of the Persian carpets -- you know the one: the rogue thread that carpet designers consciously introduce within their gorgeous designs in order to avoid appearing to challenge the perfection of Creation) when I saw a woman standing with her back to me, near a large cement trash-can. I noticed her only glancingly, a broad and somewhat dumpy figure dressed in what appeared to be a grey striped outfit, noticeably belted, reaching down to her ankles. A moment later, as I passed her, my impression of her altered dramatically -- she was an elderly Geisha, dressed in traditional clothes, including the white make-up, putting out her cigarette with a guilty look over her shoulder!