Easter is as important as Christmas in the catholic calendar. I appreciate it more somehow because it does not get distorted by the mad shopping rush and the sales. It’s amazing that it can still shut down the New York Stock Exchange and all trading in the USA. But it is not the day off from work, as much as the importance of the day. My biggest problem with the Catholic Church is the corruption and the preaching of how to go about it. So I don’t go to church that often. I live my best way based on some moral principles. I like Buddhism for the Zen chapter where you sit back and think about nothing. There is a strong element of concentrating how to be in charge of your emotions.

I am including 4 images from Saturday. One is from a passenger window of passing though a ghetto. In a run down part of town stands a shiny black Cadillac. Perhaps this could be a good metaphor for the current state of American car industry. I hope they break out of it. There was some amazing engineering that now needs a new age efficiency.

The other 3 images are from the church mass itself. I heard the rumor that only Polish and Italians bless their food on the day before Easter Sunday. Oddly enough because of the internal politics of this church the all Polish tradition was done in English. There is a deeper story here but since I do not have hard facts I will pass on it.

It is now March 21st, 2008 and this is the first post for 2008. A lot of changes have been happening and a lot of great things coming to life.

To begin, I am now beginning to shoot Digital. Somehow I was torn on the idea of cheating myself by making this change and a lot of ethical questioning went into the decision. Somewhere near the end I asked my friend Don if that is indeed the case and his response was "Cheating against who?". And so I purchased a Canon 5D and have begun working with the camera and digital process. I still shoot film for my personal work and will as long as will be manufactured.

In addition, one thing I absolutely love is Magnum and photojournalism. Far from being in the front line of news I am venturing into Wedding photography with a business partner. Since we both have day jobs with somewhat of a career track our focus is networking and opting to photograph high end weddings. The income generated from these weddings will be there to fund traveling and business expenses. The idea is to do something I absolutely enjoy. And if I do not have to photograph weddings every weekend but selected few in a year I will be able to work on my photojournalistic reportage though a somewhat orchestrated event.

Late last year I also made a decision to get back on two wheels after 4 year absence. With 2007s left over at the local dealer I got a great price on a brand new Vespa GTS. I love the little Vespa. At about 70-75mpg this is the ultimate warm/hot weather transportation around the NYC Metro area. It will go as far as 76mph but its hard to tell via the speedometer because they tend to be always inaccurate at such high speeds for scooters.

So posts now will be on everything from scootering/photographing to photographing and lighting. My life is photography. It always reinvents myself and gets me to be more involved into observing. It is what I love about it. I was considering altering the title of this blog which I might still do but for now I need to think of what the name could be. Discipline is the biggest lesson I have learned in the last few months. I intend to use it to help me vent here on the blog over ideas that have been in my head.

In this post, the pictures are of no significant photographic value other then display the cool Italian design of simple transport.