Somebody's mother... I'm sure the woman in the photo is somebody's mother so in deference to mine, I'll be kind. But let me introduce you to Isham Park and to my dry ironic sense of humor in one fell swoop. I liked the composition of this photo, with the grass drifting softly into the background and the bench pulling the eyes hard to the right. But what motivated this snapshot was the contrast between the sleek, sexy undergarment models gracing the back page of the newspaper and the appearance and body language of the woman reading it. Doesn't it make you wonder who's wearing what? And just what's in that pink plastic sack on the bench beside her?

It felt like Spring when the photos on this page were taken, but the trees in this next photo gave lie to the feeling. I liked the different shapes and tanglements of the three trees, set off by the very green grass and shrubbery, and the wonderful translucent blue sky. Blue sky. I gotta think we're wired to laugh out loud and do cartwheels when the heavens hit just the right shade of blue. (I was particularly glad this and the other photos on this page worked out because I was testing a point-and-shoot camera that had just come back from repair at Doc Audio-Video in Bayside, Queens. More about them later on.)

I have, on many occasions, been accused of going out of my way to photograph dead trees. Actually, that's not true. I don't go out of my way. But I do like the textures and chiaroscuro of trees, and sometimes that means dead trees. This particular specimen looked alive to me, but it was a little early in the season to be sure. I can report, however, that it didn't move at all while I framed, focused and photographed it with my little camera. It stood so still that even though the camera was just a point-and-shoot, the resulting photo is good enough to view in enlargement. (Click on the photo for a bigger view.)

As we finish our walk through Isham Park, we're reminded once again that rustic as it may be in parts, it's still a city park overlooking busy Broadway. (It's the park in the center of our map). As we descend the last steps from Isham Park -- most of the park is elevated some hundred or more feet above street level -- we're greeted by this nice bit of preemptive graffiti. I think this is a peculiarly New York phenomenon. Merchants, like the Hermis Cleaners on Broadway, commission graffiti-like art to decorate tempting solid walls and security gates in the expectation that free-lance graffiti artists will not deface their brethern's work. Strangely, it seems to work. We'll see more of this preemptive graffiti later.

Now it's time to see what I do when I'm working.