Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Skin City II

Is it art? Well .... yes and no. I was walking in Times Square on a Saturday evening and the usual street hawkers were out - all the cartoon characters, faux Elvises, Spidermen, naked cowboys and cowgirls, and women with nothing but a g-string and some body paint - hustling for a buck per photo op. This was most definitely commerce, it's what a buck will get you these days.




That same day there was an artist with a contingent of willing models for his body painting efforts.





The beat cops were not happy about it. They told the artist to wrap it up in five minutes. When his audience protested in the name of our constitutional rights to free artistic expression, the police said the crowd was impeding pedestrian traffic. So I pushed my way through the crowd (putting myself in jeopardy of bodily harm from others in the dense crowd of art lovers .... oh, what lengths I go to for my readers!) to get as many shots as I could. I knew it wasn't a crowd of people just interested in lewd prurient exposure because of the interest shown in the more 'rotund' objects d'art (ahem....).



Men were well represented also.





As were a few more attractive morsels.




Monday, August 5, 2013

Times Square

Some quick posts of photographs from around Times Square taken within the past week. These first two were shot on West 47th Street between Sixth and Fifth Avenues, known as the 'Diamond District' of New York. These were two diamond merchants who were out on the sidewalk to hustle business from people walking by who just happened to be carrying a pocketful of diamonds or gold - not kidding .... really ....




After my walk around midtown I sat in Times Square to watch the circus walk by, and saw this young gentleman enjoying a tasty treat .... oooohhhhh yummmm ..... dirtwater franks.