I Heart NY Water Towes

Such a great part of the landscape in the city © Nina Buesing Corvallo

@ The Strand

Two of my favorites: Hank Willis Thomas & Michal Chelbin @ Strand

Women Rule & Storytelling (This one is for you Eileen)

Emily Shur at Work © Lydia Burkhalter

Head over to the Nymphoto blog for the posting in our newest series: Nymphoto Op-Eds. We are starting this feature with a post by none other than the talented & prolific Emily Shur (who also happens to be my buddy extraordinaire, let me add proudly).


From Domesticated © Amy Stein

I know I said this before, but I think this will be a great year for Nymphoto. We certainly started the year on the right foot: at 12:01 AM on January 1, 2009 we published a conversation with the amazing Amy Stein. If you haven't read it yet, you can find it at: www.nymphoto.blogspot.com. (And while you are at it, why not revisit the conversation I had with Emily in 2008, you can find that interview, here.)

Amy Stein is a great example how the artist is an artist no matter what. Amy is relatively new to the photographic medium, but once she set her course, she became unstoppable, much like Zoe Strauss. And I don't think Amy "became an artist", I think she always was!


from Ultraviolet Beauties © Cara Phillips

Cara Phillips posted a great quote by Henry Holmes Smith on her blog Ground Glass that speaks about the importance (for the artist) of being a human being first. I think that is good advice. The rest will fall into place.


from Intervals © Margot Quan Knight

Fellow "Nymphette" Margot Quan Knight just sent me a beautiful quote by Duane Michaels tonight that feels very apropos: "show me something I've never seen; tell the story only you can tell."
Get to it. Godspeed, I say. Tell your stories.

Temple In The Village

Most of the time when I step into a vegetarian restaurant, and particularly a vegan one, a feeling of comfort comes over me. In that sense I guess being a vegetarian is akin to being religious. I imagine that a religious person might feel something similar when stepping into a place of worship.
Today I grabbed a little food at Temple In The Village, a small and simple Asian vegetarian buffet near NYU at 74 West 3rd Street. The food is well priced and you can load up on lots of steamed vegetables, indulge with a little fried vegge paddy or spring roll too and listen to a bit of Chopin while doing so (heavenly!). The service is also good and I always get a smile with my food.

Civility

Perhaps this is just a pet peeve, but I like 'please' and 'thank yous'. Whether it is at the grocery store, in an email, at the airport or if you ask me to pass the salt. Add the 'please' and 'thank yous' where you can, I say. It just makes life a little nicer. Same goes for adding a smile. If you don't already do this, try it next time you are at the grocery store, the post office, at a restaurant or wherever.
My parents always say "Bitte, soviel Zeit muss sein" which roughly translates to "please, you must make the time for it". Or if I forgot when I was really little and I asked for something not so politely, they would say "What's the magic word?". It's "Please".
Works like a charm.

Phitar: Picture of the Day

honey, we have a guest © Phitar

Like the rest of the web, Flickr has a lot of information to share and sorting through is not always easy, but the rewards can be great. Phitar shares his photography on Flickr, and it is always a treat.