Queen of the Highways and Byways
I actually have a long backlog of window display photos to post, since I've been shooting but not processing them. I took these near the end of March.
To make things easier on my patience and wallet, and since I'm often unable to sleep that "early" at night anyway, I'm occasionally taking the drive into Manhattan to shoot windows at about 2 or 3 a.m., though I still sometimes hit some traffic. It's deserted enough that I can sometimes feel like everything is just there for me, which is an amazing feeling for being in Manhattan. Night trip have been especially nice as spring has come in, which means the night air is cool in a refreshing way instead of lethal way--though the winds near Bergdorf Goodman can still be intense and cold--and smells sweet with plant life. Though the other night it smelled something like rosemary in my neighborhood. Despite my allergies, pain, and skull pressure issues, I've been loving this spring in a way I haven't felt in years, excited and eager to be outside and thinking the world is beautiful, aware of myself in the world, alive.
Driving at night brings me back to my late teen and early twenties, when I spent a lot of time out on night drives with friends, just shooting the breeze and/or listening to music and enjoying life, or doing road trips. I lived in Pennsylvania then, which requires a lot more driving, especially when I was home in the Poconos instead of at college in Pittsburgh. I had some road trips out with my brother and his friends that would curl your hair, though they're hilarious in hindsight and make great stories. (Like, short version, the three-hour drive to Philadelphia one night in a malfunctioning car spewing carbon monoxide into the cab and needing more gasoline every 40 miles--at least I wasn't paying for gas--only to arrive just as everything on South Street closed for the night. Then driving the three hours back trying not to fall asleep or die. That was also the night I walked right into a lightpole. At least my brother managed to buy a leather jacket he liked just before the last store closed.) Anyway, I miss having a road partner. At my age, almost nobody keeps the hours I do.
Though driving at night like that, sometimes it feels like I am a teen or in my twenties again, still young, still whole, never left it.
Anyway, this clutch of window display photos is varied, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Louis Vuitton, Versace, and Dior, and you can find them at my Flickr account and my deviantArt.
Just for here, have a corner look through the back of Louis Vuitton's front corner window at the Dior at Bergdorf Goodman windows across the street, 3-21-14.
