Currently I am working as an author for a Dutch travel guide called '100% New York'. It will be a revised edition
so I am not writing a whole new guide, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of work to do.....
Everything that is already in the guide has to be checked.
(do places still exist or did they close, have opening hours changed, is it still nice enough to be in the guide at all, etcetera)
Of course the publisher wants me to find all the new and great places for our Dutch tourists, so I  have walked up and down the city to find new, exciting places of which I think they are worth mentioning in the guide.
My first deadline is coming soon, at the end of April, and that means I am working very hard at the moment, making sure everything is ready before my deadline expires.
Unfortunately I don't really have time at to go outside and make photos.
So therefore I am treating you with this shot of my desk where I am spending a lot of time these days, haha. 

Today I am linking up again with Ashley Sisk for the Scavenger Hunt and this week's prompts are


* Simple
* Grain
* Transportation
* Stitch
* Bubble(s)


Here are my interpretations:

Simple
Eggs in a bowl. I think it is simply beautiful

Grain
Jane's Carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park, I simply added the grain

Transportation
A bike, perfect for transporting yourself and maybe some groceries

Stitch
Made this panoramic view of my teeny tiny apartment with my iPhone and used
the app Photosynth to stitch it all together.

Bubble
It turned out that it is difficult to catch a bubble like the one I photographed.
But after a few attempts I finally managed to press the button of my remote control
on time and get some real action shots, haha. 

Unfortunately I am not flying anywhere exciting this weekend (in fact, I'm not flying anywhere at all), but the photo is very fitting for Skywatch Friday,
don't you think?
Have a nice weekend!

Taken this morning from the Bow Bridge in Central Park.
In the background you see the Lake and a group of people who are taking a tour through the park with a guide.

Taphophile Tragics

For a while now I have been following some other Bloggers who contribute to Taphophile Tragics. 

Had I not seen the beautiful photos everyone makes at cemeteries and the interersting stories they write about it I would not have thought of going to a cemetery to make photos. But this weekly meme got me interested. 

As per the Taphophile Tragics website:

Taphophilia is an interest, morbid or otherwise, in graveyards and cemeteries. Graveyards were attached to churches, whereas cemeteries were specifically set up for the burial of the dead.

A taphophile is one who finds they are attracted to walking around cemeteries, reading the headstones and musing upon the familiy history contained therein.

This weekend I went to The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York to make photos. This is a enormous cemetery and was founded in 1838. Green-Wood is 478 acres of hills, valleys, glacial ponds and paths. The landscape is still the same as it was in 1838. By 1860 Green-Wood was attracting 500,000 visitors a year, rivalling Niagara Falls as the country's greatest tourist attraction. People liked to come out to the cemetery with their families to have picnics, carriage rides, view the beautiful sculptures and enjoy the landscape. This cemetery was a fashionable place to be buried. There are 560,000 people buried on this cemetery, including Leonard Bernstein, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Civil war generals, baseball legends, politicians etcetera.

I have made many, many photos and had a hard time choosing which ones to post for this weeks Taphophile Tragics. I chose for the photos I made of children's graves and from gravestones that had a 'mama' or 'mother' inscription. Unfortunately I didn't have time to do more research and maybe find some information on the people who were buried. 

This is my contribution to Taphophile Tragics:

George. Son of John and Ann Gill. Died December 9, 1849. Aged 5 years and 9 months.

Our Mamie and Willie

Ma and Tommie

Our babies Thomas and Mary Jane, children of T. and E. Henry

Mama. Isabella S. Brady died July 28, 1886 in her 51st year. At Rest.

This gravestone seemed very modern to me, considering it was made in 1886. The way the carved out the word
'mama' and the engraved leaves above that are beautiful, but as said, it seems so modern for that time to me.

I have found this mural last week in Chelsea, New York.
This area is one big explosion of art galleries, street after street, after street.
And there is also a lot of street art in that part of New York.

This mural is made by South African street artist Faith47 and her Chinese husband street sculptor DALeast.
It was the first time they ever made something in New York and the first time they've painted together.
This mural can be found in West 21st street between 10 and 11 Avenue.

I'm linking with Monday Mural

Overview

 I have also found a video of the mural they painted:

One of the things I cannot resist photographing are bikes.
In this case I was attracted to the color.
This composition is very unusual for me, but there were a lot of ugly cars in the background so I decided to only photograph a part of the bike.
And I am actually quite happy with how that turned out :-)