Catching up on e-mail...

This woman was sitting at an outdoor table of a small restaurant/coffee-shop on the west side of Columbus Avenue at 73rd Street. It's the first time that I've seen anyone in this particular area (which is near a gym that I usually visit 2-3 times a week) with a laptop, and I was delighted to see that she had a Mac.... and not just any old Mac, but a MacBook Pro. (But not a MacBook Air :) )

Note: this photo was published in a November 24, 2008 blog posting entitled "Mobile Tech Secrets for Getting Things Done On the Go." It was also published in a Dec 14, 2008 blog entitled "5 Fantastic Blogs To Improve Your Life." It was also published in a Jul 13, 2009 "Pimp Your Mac" blog titled "Pimp my Mail." And it was published in a Jul 24, 2009 blog titled "Step Away From the Computer." For some reason, it was also published as an illustration in an undated (Nov 2009) Mahalo blog titled "Macbook Air Battery." And it was published in a Nov 20, 2009 blog titled "Breng de klanten service naar de klant." It was also published in a Nov 23, 2009 blog titled "Customer Retention: How to Retain Existing Health Club Clients and Attract New Ones." And it was published in a Dec 4, 2009 blog titled "Every Mum Wrestles With Returning To Work."

More recently, it was published in a Jan 3, 2010 blog titled "Sunday Confessional: I Can't Stop Facebook Stalking My Ex."

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This is part of an evolving photo-project, which will probably continue throughout the summer of 2008, and perhaps beyond: a random collection of "interesting" people in a broad stretch of the Upper West Side of Manhattan -- between 72nd Street and 104th Street, especially along Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.

I don't like to intrude on people's privacy, so I normally use a telephoto lens in order to photograph them while they're still 50-100 feet away from me; but that means I have to continue focusing my attention on the people and activities half a block away, rather than on what's right in front of me.

I've also learned that, in many cases, the opportunities for an interesting picture are very fleeting -- literally a matter of a couple of seconds, before the person(s) in question move on, turn away, or stop doing whatever was interesting. So I've learned to keep the camera switched on (which contradicts my traditional urge to conserve battery power), and not worry so much about zooming in for a perfectly-framed picture ... after all, once the digital image is uploaded to my computer, it's pretty trivial to crop out the parts unrelated to the main subject.

For the most part, I've deliberately avoided photographing bums, drunks, drunks, and crazy people. There are a few of them around, and they would certainly create some dramatic pictures; but they generally don't want to be photographed, and I don't want to feel like I'm taking advantage of them. I'm still looking for opportunities to take some "sympathetic" pictures of such people, which might inspire others to reach out and help them. We'll see how it goes ...

The only other thing I've noticed, thus far, is that while there are lots of interesting people to photograph, there are far, far, *far* more people who are *not* so interesting. They're probably fine people, and they might even be more interesting than the ones I've photographed ... but there was just nothing memorable about them.