Hanami

April 22nd, 2013 | Posted by Jill in a little brooklyn love | brooklyn botanic garden | slow down - (1 Comments)

One of the very first things that Zach and I did when we moved to Crown Heights was invest in a membership to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I’d never visited the gardens before moving to this side of Prospect Park, nor did I ever consider myself the kind of person who would wander aimlessly under the canopy of trees. Boy, was I wrong.

Every year now, I can hardly contain myself as I wait for the glorious display of cherry blossoms. This year, I started checking the CherryWatch page in mid-March, hoping for signs of an early bloom. Finally, five weeks later, the cherries are starting to pop. As long as we don’t get much stormy weather or wind this week, I predict that next weekend’s celebration is going to be a doozy. In a really good way. Of course I’m going to be out of town. Figures.

cherry blossoms foreverweeping cherries

ANYWAY. Over the last couple of years after many meandering walks through the garden, I’ve thought a lot about the concept of Hanami. Initially, I always thought of hanami in a very literal sense: stop everything, get thee to the garden, see the flowers, and take photos to try and capture a piece of the magical cherry blossoms.

In the last couple of years though, it has evolved moreso into a rite of passage for spring. It’s almost become an emotional spring cleaning for me, because it seems to satisfy my need to cross a bunch of stuff off my checklist. The cherry blossoms give me my annual assignment:

– Get out of the house!
– Get your act together for the year’s gardening plans!
– Go see your friends and family. Don’t be a recluse!
– Be active! Ride your bike! Get to the gym! Get moving!
– COME SEE US AT THE GARDEN!

The cherry blossoms are very practical blossoms. It’s hard to argue with their logic.

promise of spring

So this weekend, I did as I was told and tore the house apart for a round of spring cleaning. I also managed to do a lot of yoga, purged a boatload of paperwork, and got to see the cherry blossoms through the eyes of my five-month old baby cousin, Olivia. The gardening plans are starting to form slowly but surely and I’m confident they’ll come together. (I want to try my hand at roses. Thanks a lot, Marie.)

I don’t know that I owe all of the productivity to Hanami, or to the cherry blossoms, or even to our upcoming vacation this week. But I do think that that it’s a concept I should try and embrace more in my life. The practice of simple appreciation, of gratitude for the beauty which surrounds, of slowing down and being more present — these are all things which really require practice.

And I need lots of practice.

Untitledshinto spring
heavenly

Finding Inspiration

February 18th, 2013 | Posted by Jill in a little brooklyn love | film - (2 Comments)

There is a tree outside the shuttle entrance at Franklin Avenue and Eastern Parkway, about a half mile from my house. Even though the whole parkway is lined in hundreds of trees, you really can’t miss this one. It’s propped up by a grossly outsized concrete pillar – easily ten feet high – as a kind of crude stake. I have no idea what its story is, but it’s mesmerizing to behold. I don’t think it’s physically possible for me to walk past it and not stop to gape. It’s so ridiculous.

Every time I walk by I wonder whose idea it was to install a concrete mold around this tree, bring in a concrete truck, strap it in with a steel belt, and call it a day. Surely there was a team of people assigned to the installation – it’s far too big for one arborist to accomplish alone. Were they from the Parks Department? A local neighborhood group? Maybe the MTA. It is right outside a subway station, after all. All the pastoral beauty of Eastern Parkway, the nearby Brooklyn Botanic Garden… and yet.

Welcome to the neverending Seinfeld monologue inside my head.

cyborg

I think I might know a thing or two about how this tree feels, at least if it believes in awkward literary devices. Lately I’ve felt restrained by the mountains of work that come across my desk every week. I’ve accomplished loads and loads in the last few months, but it’s been all work and no play. Most every day I’ve woken up thinking about deadlines and gone to sleep dreaming about emails I just couldn’t get to that day. All my other goals and creative hopes have been (temporarily) laid aside. This has to change. I need more.

At the beginning of this year, I put together some lofty New Year’s resolutions – or I should say ‘just lofty enough to be remotely achievable if I can stop binge-watching television.’ I’ve felt a little superstitious in sharing them, but let’s just say I’m very happy with progress so far. Insanely happy. Of course ‘taking more photographs’ is up there towards the top, but so are some long-postponed goals of collaboration and creation. Things are happening, and it feels so good.

But rewind a month and a half ago to the turn of the year. I was in a dark place, a serious downswing. It took a few weeks of being creatively miserable to realize that I had the power to change. Circumstances can’t always change, but my attitude sure can. And it needed to — FAST. So I dug into my bag of tricks for some pretty simple home remedies. When I’m feeling down and in a creative slump, these two things are simple and really help elevate me:

1) Spend time with people who creatively inspire you. TALK. Talk about your dreams and frustrations. Vent, if you have to (but not too much — no one likes a perennial whiner). Ask for advice. Like-minded creative people are your spirit animals. LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN. Ask them about their projects. Listen to them talk about their successes or failures. Communication puts everything in perspective. And then once you’ve done all that fancy communication: MAKE CRAZY PLANS TO COLLABORATE. It’s amazing what impact a little accountability has.

2) Get off your butt and DO something. This is the simplest, but it’s often the one I struggle with the most. (see above: binge-watching television shows) For me, GOING and DOING is usually most effective when it’s done within the framework of what I know best — my neighborhood. If I’m feeling particularly angsty, taking my camera for a walk around the neighborhood where everything is familiar is medicine. I force a new perspective, I see things in a completely different way. It’s restorative. Corollaries: Crown Heights is beautiful and wandering aimlessly is totally underrated.

These two tips never fail me. I may have to repeat them a few times – as my neighbors will attest to after seeing me wander around in the cold this weekend – but eventually I find my way back to center. And now with six weeks of 2013 behind me, I can really say it and mean it: HAPPY NEW YEAR! Good things are coming. I can’t wait to share.

old steelghosts of neon past
Rx

shuttle

welcome home

Sandy roars through Brooklyn

October 30th, 2012 | Posted by Jill in a little brooklyn love | weather - (1 Comments)


“Hurricane Sandy,” by Jane Kratochvil.

The last couple of days and nights have been full of anxiety and nerves as Hurricane Sandy locked in on the East Coast. Though many of us in Brooklyn were spared some of the horrible destruction and fires that Breezy Point in Queens experienced, it was still gut-wrenching. Waterfront neighborhoods like Coney Island, Sheepshead Bay, DUMBO and Red Hook were all victims of heavy flooding and electrical fires. It was scary to watch the local reports and photographs come in on Twitter, but it’s so evident that social media services like Twitter have so fundamentally changed how the media works in emergencies.

Though power is (eerily) still out for a huge number of folks in Manhattan, there’s lots of amazing coverage of the storm and its aftermath. This round-up of photos on The Atlantic is a must-see, and photographs have started to pour in on our Flickr group, some of which I’ve featured below. If you have photos you’d like to see featured here, please contribute on Flickr on contact us via email directly.

My thoughts are with all those recovering from the storm. Please be safe and let us know if there is anything we can do to help!

“Manhattan, 10/30/12,” by Jonathan Percy:
Manhattan 10/30/12

“Hurricane Sandy, the next morning in DUMBO,” by Barry Yanowitz:
Hurricane Sandy, the next morning in DUMBO

“Fort Greene Mercedes Smash,” by Matt Nedbalsky:
Fort Greene Mercedes Smash

“Morning After Sandy,” by Vitaliy Piltser:
Untitled

“Go Away Sandy!,” by Joel Zimmer:
Go Away Sandy

“Statue of Liberty, Sandy,” by Marie Viljoen:
statue of liberty, sandy

“Clinton Hill Tree Down,” by Matt Nedbalsky:
Clinton Hill Tree Down

“Fallen,” by Joel Zimmer:
Fallen II

“Hurricane Sandy, the next morning in DUMBO,” by Barry Yanowitz:
Hurricane Sandy, the next morning in DUMBO

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The Slow Summer Fade

October 24th, 2012 | Posted by Jill in a little brooklyn love | coney island | film - (3 Comments)

nothing compares to the boardwalk
brooklyn beach shop
the moon, so bright it shone like a star
oh, coney
light trails and shooting stars

I’m totally in denial. The warm weather and glorious sunshine this past weekend was such a wonderful treat, so I’m just going to pretend that summer is going to last forever. Nevermind that we’re supposed to get huge snows this winter. And when we do, I guess I’ll just have to plan a tropical getaway, now won’t I?

Back a couple of months ago at the end of August, Barry, Joel, and Richard convinced me to meet them on the boardwalk out at Coney Island in the middle of the week, just because. It doesn’t usually occur to me to go on a photo walk in the middle of the week because of my work schedule, but it was just what I needed. It was so therapeutic to stroll down the boardwalk, taking everything in and savoring every last drop of the summer. The ocean breeze was perfection.

Coney Island is so much quieter during the week, and especially so once the sun goes down. The pace of life slows the further you get from the train — the elderly couples strolling along the boardwalk, men fishing off Steeplechase Pier, the gentle lap of the waves against the shore in the dark. It was a perfect opportunity for some long exposures with my Pentax 645N. I’m still trying to get a hang of the beast — the 645 format, the digital displays, the automatic exposure settings all feel space age compared to the ancient cameras I’ve been using the last few years. I’ll get there someday.

Oh, Coney. You’re the best.