"Gems..." 5•Sept.•09

Mechanic Quincy Sam pauses in an engine storage room at C & H Auto Salvage in Campbell Hall, NY on Friday, September 4, 2009. Sam spoke of the Cash for Clunkers program and the vehicles that eventually turn up at C & H Salvage. Times Herald-Record/CHET GORDON

It's been a good week for making images. (seems like I haven't uttered those words in quite a while - at least here in print.) Nice light. Wonderful stories. Great people. Attentive & respectful reporters. Met a "Master Tailor" earlier in the week, and it was a joy to listen to his soft Jamaican accent, as I observed his flow and "groove", if you will, while he hemmed a pair of trousers in his backroom workshop.
Initially I'd mistaken him (at right) for a "Trini" (Trinidadian) as his British vocabulary and enunciation was just simply elegant. Caught up with an articulate mechanic working in a auto salvage yard yesterday, and for a brief minute or two, "I had him." (top) Chased the new Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan up in Monticello on Tuesday night. He's the third leader of the New York Archdiocese I've photographed through the years. Also wanted to include a few images from a "Zumba" dance instructor from two weeks ago where I'd put up two small remote strobes to light up a library's community room for their early morning dance class. Find those images in the slideshow below.
The unexpected has a quick and unforgiving way of finding you and simply dropping "gems" right in your lap. If your antennae are up, with all your little technical aspects in place, and you're truly prepared mentally, physically and at times even spiritually, something beautiful can happen. The alternatives are that you pass them right by. And I hate stepping out of an opportune moment mumbling to myself, "I'm missing pictures..." -cg.

*(Click the arrow at the bottom left of the player to start the slideshow, or click the image / or the arrows at lower right to scroll through the show manually. Enable full screen viewing by clicking the 4-way arrow icon above the credits button at lower right of the player. You can stop the small continuous slideshow in the right column by clicking the pause II button.)