Now, a younger generation would say they only need a phone to navigate New York City and they would be right. Tried it, just didn’t have the youngness to pull it off as the well worn week-old map would suggest! There’s just something about seeing it on paper that makes sense in spite of what my young guru friends trying to bring me into the 21st century would suggest. I did actually throw away my Starbucks card thanks to the new iPhone app. One less card to worry about. The thing is, if you always know where you’re going you don’t need to ask directions and I find that a great icebreaker when shooting photos of people in a distant country. “Not a distant country, Joe,” you say? Well, compared to my little spot in the world…

You don’t see to much of that, and defiantly not any of this…

The cool thing is no matter what you’re doing in The Big Apple, day or night, it’s not strange. In fact, it has become the norm. I mean, if you’re brave enough to dodge the cabs, lay down in the middle of the street and shoot steam coming out of a manhole(I did), you can go for it! What was funny about that was the cabs saw me, honked, kept going — the pedestrians almost trampled me. Go figure!

Have to say, I couldn’t get enough of the streets in the city and almost wore out a pair of new Nikes, so it’s probably a good thing that I returned to the quietness of Wise County or the visual feast would have made me walk myself into a coma!

Once the New York City withdrawals had subsided, taking time to digest all I took in, witnessed, learnt, the people I met has made me realize even more than ever the power of traveling and absorbing.

Where Next?