Yearly Archives: 2007

About the Snap: Madison Avenue

Madison Avenue


Tourneau Jewelers, Madison Avenue, New York. 1982.

Date: 1982
Place: Madison and 54th
Modus operandi: Street shooter in a suit
Weather: Cold and grey
Time: 2 pm
Gear: Leica M3, 35mm Summaron
Medium: Kodachrome 64
Me: I’m in love
My age: 31

Of New York’s grandest avenues, Park can claim to have the largest apartments. Fifth has the world’s greatest view. But Madison Avenue has something neither of those dowagers could ever lay claim to. Chic. Sorry, no word in the English or American languages for that.

Given that I worked in what was then the Citicorp Center at Lexington and 53rd, I used to make a habit of keeping the Leica in a desk drawer and sneeking out from my 41st floor office to mosey down Madison Avenue. And this wonderful European street, for New York is the most European of American cities, always rewarded me with something. On this day that something was this gorgeous brunette in Tourneau’s window – the one where I would go to gaze at the Pateks I could not possibly afford.

Wall Street – Paul Strand

A great photograph.

The collapse of the latest bubble on Wall Street prompts mention of what may be the finest picture ever taken of that great locale.

Now brace yourself, it’s by Paul Strand, a photographer who is vastly overrated.

This was taken shortly after Alfred Stieglitz had taken Strand aside and talked him out of his genuinely frightful soft focus phase, and I think you will agree that Strand’s newly found religion of objectivism is a standout image in the age of modernity.


Paul Strand, Wall Street, 1915

Arounder Magazine

The best yet on the web

English pro photographer Rod Edwards dropped me a line the other day, attaching a QTVR of a church interior he had photographed. As I am learning is typical of Rod’s work, the finished piece just oozes quality. And this is one of Rod’s first QTVRs! He also happened to make mention of a site which is basically a QTVR magazine named Arounder Magazine.

By a quantum leap this is the best web presentation of a magazine I have yet seen and the QTVRs accompanying most of the 141 (!) pages are a joy to behold. True, Florentine buidings are never hard on the eye, but it takes a very good technique to do them as well as they are executed here.