Ray Sachs
Legend
- Location
- Not too far from Philly
- Name
- you should be able to figure it out...
My daughter was finishing up her final medical school rotation in Brooklyn this last week (with graduation and the start of her residency in June) and I went up for a few days to get in my NYC fix and to make sure she had someone around to celebrate with when she finished up what has been a pretty gargantuan four year undertaking...
So the purpose of the trip wasn't photograph, but I brought some gear along and did a fair amount of shooting anyway. I was staying in a part of Brooklyn without much to shoot, but made it into Manhattan and some of Brooklyn's more interesting neighborhoods as well. Almost everything I kept was street stuff, plus a few scenics from the Brooklyn Heights promenade. I mostly ended up walking around with either the DF and a single prime (a 24 or a 35) or with just the Coolpix A. For 95% of what I shot, I could have gone with just the Coolpix A.
The most interesting thing for me were the ultra-orthodox Jews in the Borough Park area where I was staying (my daughter's hospital was just around the corner). I'm nominally Jewish myself (raised as a reformed Jew, but only hold onto a few cultural vestiges as an adult), so somewhere waaaaay back in my ancestry, these are my people. And yet, when I'm in their midst, they're as foreign/alien to me as anyone on earth could be. They remind me a lot of the Amish, who I live around, the key difference being that the Amish live and work on farms and the the ultra-orthodox are more urban creatures. And many of them, from what I can tell, spend their days and nights studying Torah. Even the little kids, while acting like any other little kid, dress and wear their hair in the traditional and mandated ways. I must say I'm aware of a connection more than I actually feel one. Here are a few from this neighborhood, which I was somewhat reticent to shoot, but I did anyway...
NYC 2016 - DF-21-2-Edit by Ray, on Flickr
NYC 2016 - DF-23-Edit by Ray, on Flickr
NYC 2016 - DF-17-2-Edit by Ray, on Flickr
NYC 2016 - DF-30-2-Edit by Ray, on Flickr
Most of the Yeshivas where these folks study and worship are carved out of little row homes in the neighborhood - no big houses of worship, just lots and LOTS of little out of the way places.
NYC 2016 - DF-14-2-Edit by Ray, on Flickr
So the purpose of the trip wasn't photograph, but I brought some gear along and did a fair amount of shooting anyway. I was staying in a part of Brooklyn without much to shoot, but made it into Manhattan and some of Brooklyn's more interesting neighborhoods as well. Almost everything I kept was street stuff, plus a few scenics from the Brooklyn Heights promenade. I mostly ended up walking around with either the DF and a single prime (a 24 or a 35) or with just the Coolpix A. For 95% of what I shot, I could have gone with just the Coolpix A.
The most interesting thing for me were the ultra-orthodox Jews in the Borough Park area where I was staying (my daughter's hospital was just around the corner). I'm nominally Jewish myself (raised as a reformed Jew, but only hold onto a few cultural vestiges as an adult), so somewhere waaaaay back in my ancestry, these are my people. And yet, when I'm in their midst, they're as foreign/alien to me as anyone on earth could be. They remind me a lot of the Amish, who I live around, the key difference being that the Amish live and work on farms and the the ultra-orthodox are more urban creatures. And many of them, from what I can tell, spend their days and nights studying Torah. Even the little kids, while acting like any other little kid, dress and wear their hair in the traditional and mandated ways. I must say I'm aware of a connection more than I actually feel one. Here are a few from this neighborhood, which I was somewhat reticent to shoot, but I did anyway...
Most of the Yeshivas where these folks study and worship are carved out of little row homes in the neighborhood - no big houses of worship, just lots and LOTS of little out of the way places.