There was a time when I’d invoke the names of great photographers up here when I posted photos of industrial things.

Those days are over.

Nope.  Today I will invoke the name of student I had a couple of years ago called Sidney Nieves, who studied in the school I work in with his brother Hamilton.  Naturally we called them “the Nievi” even though that is incorrect.

Sidney was idiosyncratic and by that I mean extraordinarily funny.  One time he comes up to me and says “I’m like Kevin Hart.”  I said “you are so much funnier than he is!!!!!”

My favorite moment with Sidney was when we were passing by the Deer Island sewage treatment plant in Boston harbor.  Sidney waved to the tanks and said “hello poopies!!!!”

And now I do the same.  Say hello to the poopies!!!!

Seemed to be going around today:

I’ve been thinking lately that there are two kinds of people in the world — ocean people and mountain people.  Ocean people get energy from going to the ocean obviously and mountain people from going to the mountains.  Sometimes people who live in the mountains are born ocean people and vice versa.

I can’t figure out if I’m a mountain person or an ocean person.  Living in Boston next to the ocean makes me feel good.  I never thought about that when I lived in New York, which is between two rivers but near the ocean as well.  I think about it living in Boston all the time, how I need to see the ocean but then the river makes me happy too.

Check out my fellow seafarers:

Of course Bill Cunningham will get mentioned a lot up here in the next couple of days because he recently passed away but also because I take a lot of my influence as a photographer from him.

My favorite thing to photograph are people.  Scenes are boring.  Anyone can photograph something that is already pretty but a thing in motion or that is making some kind of a shape?  Well, that is truly great.

As usual, Downtown Crossing provides a great venue for this.  Bill looked for stylish people and I do too sometimes but usually I photograph people wearing REALLY interesting things.  Or be-thonged weirdoes.  Where are you be-thonged weirdo this year, BTW?

Until he gets here, we have this interestingly attired gent:

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Jazz Age party on Governor’s Island, expecting to see Bill Cunningham, a bit of a celebrity around these blogging parts and one of this blog’s patron saints.

Unfortunately Bill wasn’t at the party and I thought maybe I’ll see him at the party in August or he was a bit under the weather from all of his nights out.  I did once see the man, fast asleep on the ferry over to Governor’s Island.  His life seemed pretty intense and non stop.

Then I read a couple of days ago that he had suffered a stroke and then I heard he passed away and I cried.  As I documented several times on this blog, I met him on a couple of different occasions.  I wouldn’t call us friends.  I was a huge fan of his.  When I met him at the 1920s party on Governor’s Island, he was incredibly engrossed in his work but when I met him again in Boston about a year ago and he was very kind and we had a good conversation.  He seemed amazed about how Boston had changed since the way it had been when he was growing up.  He even took my photo.

I mentioned before that I loved Bill’s photos even before I knew who he was.  I grew up in New York and my parents always read the New York Times.  I remember seeing his photos in the Times and thinking that he captured the city the way it actually was.  A lot of people try to capture New York but they get its glossy version.  Bill captured the real version of it with every single kind of person that walks the street.  It didn’t occur to me until later that he was capturing fashion.  I just remembered thinking that he was a person who really captured what was going on in New York.

I heard in a documentary once that everyone has a vision of New York in their mind, even if it is made up.  Its different when you actually grow up there, the way I did.  You think the idealized version is kind of off or wrong, but Bill captured it the way it really was.

In 2010, I watched the documentary “Bill Cunningham New York” for the first time.  I subsequently watched it once a week for about three years.  I was mesmerized by what they showed Bill doing and his funny relationship with the people he worked with at the Times, especially John Kurdewan, his layout man at the Times.  In the movie, it shows the hilarious interactions between John and Bill and their obvious affection for each other.  I particularly love when Bill tells John to stop his antics and to make the page right for the way he wants to do it.  It was a nice moment between people who had an obvious affection for each other.  I even followed “Work for Bill C,” John’s Instagram page about working for Bill.  The pictures up there were out of control adorable, with Bill getting cupcakes with cameras on them from John and other sweet moments between them.

In the documentary, you also got to know Bill Cunningham the person.  In the middle of the documentary, Bill said “money is the cheapest thing.  Liberty and freedom are the most expensive.”  Bill never touched money and he believed that to take money was to be a slave to someone else.  It took me a while to catch on to his message, but it is one that I have tried to live my by.

Bill also says that everyone thinks fashion is frivolous but to do away with fashion would be like doing away with civilization.  He also said that fashion is the armor that we use to survive everyday life.  Recently, my relationship with fashion and clothes has changed and I can see the wisdom of this quote, about how we use clothes to shield ourselves against the indignities of everyday life.  It also changes how we relate to different people.  When we’re dressed well, we stand up taller and people notice us.  When we aren’t, people don’t notice us as much.  How we all look matters a lot, a lot more than we actually want to acknowledge.

Now with camera photos and digital photography, daily life is broadcast all the time but Bill Cunningham was the first to do that and in a way, he did it in the best way too.

Goodbye Mr. Cunningham.  You will be sorely missed!!!!

No movement here.  Just a zoomed in shot that I adjusted, slightly:

Come on.  Of course I’m mad at you.  You put a knife in my heart:

The entry in which I speak about painting that look like your close friends.  Now let’s start with our subject:

This is a painting of a Persian ambassador to the Court of St. James from the 19th century.  And seriously, what a magnificent painting and of course, what a magnificent ambassador.  Look at that face and that outfit?  I mean sable, silk and a saber?  Why don’t ambassadors dress like this these days??  In another life, I met a few ambassadors (WHO CARES) and they did not look like this.  And let me tell you, ALL ambassadors should look like this.  Who knows when you are going to have to use a saber and why not ALWAYS carry one?

Also, now I’ve waxed on quite a bit about this painting, which BTW hangs in the Harvard Art Museum for another reason.  It looks like my friend Majeed.  Now let me describe my friend Majeed.  He’s an artistic, particular kind of a person.  Majeed is picky, but in the best way possible.

Whenever I’m in the museum I photograph this painting and I post it to Facebook.  My friend laugh that Majeed is simultaneously existing in the world and in the painting and alive in the 19th century and so therefore is probably a vampire or something, which I totally believe to be the truth.  Majeed are you a vampire??  Could we clear this up once and for all???

Choose a life outside of the plastic, statue:

For the past five years, I’ve attended the 1920s party on Governor’s Island.  Every year I have a different feeling about it, a different impression.  Overall though, I feel like its just a big movie being played out in front of you with all of the people playing a character in their own miniature movie.  Then again, I guess that’s real life too.

Too deep.  Let’s look at some photos: