Rocco Galatioto, nice photos and good food

The unforgettable Mookie, my beautiful Belgian sheep dog who was truly a wonderful, loyal and loving animal. I will never forget him. He died in 2006 at 15 years of age and I still mourn him. Animal lovers will understand.

We just went to see My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater. It was a lovely production but it had an ending that deviated from the original production. At any rate I took some photos with my iPhone and want to share them with you. 

There was a magic when shooting middle format film that can never be achieved with digital. As you may already know from past posts, my favorite 120 black and white film was Tri-X professional. It had a speed of 320 as opposed to 400 for 135 Tri-X that was also my favorite small format film. I used to develop them in Kodak D-76 full strength to reduce grain although in 120 this was not a problem. This film had a tonality that was purely magical. I'm not one of those who misses film and goes around with film cameras. I had to do too much dust and hair retouching and the chemicals were not good for my health. Film also created much pollution and waste. Sadly, digital because of it's ease of use, killed photography. Too bad but nothing lasts forever.

The sight is magnificent but every time In have seen it from Newport, Oregon it has been very grey. Go figure.

  The Columbus quincentennial was celebrated in New York in the summer of 1992. The ships from the old Soviet Union were moored on the Brooklyn waterfront. They were wonderful ships but because of the political turmoil back home the crew was very worried about their future. I was able to get on board and buy Russian cigarettes. Very strong; definitely not part of Marlboro Country. But I did manage to take some photos using color negative film that I later scanned.

These images were shot on Sixth Avenue near Radio City in April of 1990. I was Earth day and while there were the usual predictions that in 10 years the world would literally end every one was having a grand time. What can I say.

Spaghetti con salsa semplice di pomodoro Pizza di patate e zucchine Minestra di ceci e verdure Trinche di maiale con mele With winter still showing it's stuff, one way to alleviate it's discontents is with comfort food. I've been cooking a lot during this period of mourning. These are not dishes from this sad period because I do not think it appropriate to shoot food at this time. Nevertheless, I've bee doing much cooking during this period because we Italians believe that we can cure everything with good food and lots of cooking. At any rate these typical seasonal dishes warm up the body, the soul and the heart.