"Baby loves Bruce," New York, January 2006

Don't have too many pictures of babies, but I'm resourceful. I can come up with something. (If it wasn't one from this series, it was one from my collection of The Gates because I don't think I have any other babies in any photos in my digital archives.)

That's Jen Chapin, daughter of Harry, singing Woody Guthrie's "Oklahoma Hills" to close out The Nebraska Project, a free concert that opened this year's New York Guitar Festival. In her arms is her son, Maceo, named after a guitar legend. On the left is the guy who wrote and originally recorded the album Nebraska, roughly 25 years before all these artists came together to perform it.

Ruins of Alcatraz, September 2005

The Rock is old. From a military outpost to a prison to a tourist attraction, it now sits in a dichotomous state of preserved decay. While the cell block remains intact and safe for visitors, much of the rest of the island slowly crumbles, vegetation overtaking the concrete, wind rounding off the rough edges, the outpost in San Francisco Bay as dangerous today as it was to its prisoners in the past, only in a different way.

The Rock is trying to regain its past.

Central Park cyclist, February 2005

On my first shooting expeditions to Central Park last February during the Gates extravaganza, I walked up the west side of the park from Columbus Circle to 81st Street. On a crisp but clear winter day, the park was teeming with people, many of them, like me, walking around with cameras on a day off or a lunch break. When I reached the back of Tavern on the Green along the road, I stood there for 15 or 20 minutes waiting for the cyclists to come by for a blurred shot like this. Other than the University of Michigan riding uniform the guy's wearing, it's just about perfect.

One always stands out, November 2005

As if playing with a new camera weren't enough, now we've got all these easy-to-use photo editing programs that turn digital processing time into playtime. "Oh, what's this 'focal BW' tool do?" Not that the leaf couldn't stand on its own or anything; I just felt that this was a good image with which to play around and I think it holds up as a variation on the tree theme.

Kevn Kinney quartet, New York, January 2006

One day is not enough. I'm going to try to start posting Thursday challenge photos as well. (Monday might be too much, but we'll see how ambitious I get.) So to depict a group, I went with one of the musical kind. Specifically, (from left) Stephan Crump, Lenny Kaye, Kevn Kinney and Dan Zanes during "The Nebraska Project" on the opening night of the New York Guitar Festival last month. It was a splendid night of live music, when I both fell in love with my new camera and fell in love with Springsteen's Nebraska album all over again. There's nothing like the feeling of going back to a great record after not listening closely to it for a long time.

Escapee's cell, Alcatraz, September 2005

In 1962, three prisoners successfully made their way out of the cell block and off of Alcatraz Island. They're the only three to attempt an escape and not be apprehended, and though they never turned up onshore and their bodies have never been recovered, they are still considered fugitives. Although the prisoners did not disguise themselves in order to escape, they disguised their cells to make it appear as though they were sleeping, allowing them the time they needed to reach the waters of San Francisco Bay and make their way to freedom.