This morning, Maria and I got up early, before the sun.

We are heading to New York City on a quest of mine – to get a new 35 mm lens for my monochrome camera. I am bring four lenses with me to B & H Photo to trade in for the new lens, believed to be the best one for the monochrome camera I get a couple of weeks ago from maxmax. And from the blog community.

Thanks for your help. I was able to do this through the goodwill, faith and generosity of my blog readers, I didn’t need to go wider with a crowdsourcing campaign. There was great support for the idea of this camera, and some jeering from the usual suspects and perhaps some new ones. Photography is not a hobby for me.

It is not an identity, along with writing.

Hopefully, my friend Scott will be in the Round House Cafe and we can get some coffee to bring along (maybe a muffin or two). I love haggling at B&H Photo, it is an amazing place for photographers. I hope I am successful at getting enough money from the lenses to buy one.

A significant step for me in my photography which is not my art in a major way. I got all those lenses from another time, I love them and use them but I am ready to simply, to focus on the photograph, not the equipment. I will still have several different lenses, and hopefully, three camera bodies. I am bringing one of the Canon photo bodies with me, in case I need it to close the deal. I hope I don’t need to use it.

We will be going and coming in one day. We should get there before noon and be back in the late afternoon. I am lucky Maria wants to come to help me with the driving, and support my work. Somehow this seems like a big trip to me, although I imagine she also doesn’t want me roaming around B &H Photo by myself, that could be dangerous. It is a huge place, a giant temptation for photographs.

She is such a sweet person, she always wants me to have what I need to do my work. I feel the same way about her. We do this for each other.

My only regret is that I won’t have time to see my daughter Emma, who lives in Brooklyn – she has other plans – and we have to get back today. She will be a mother in a couple of months, I will be a grandfather. Yoiks. I can’t wait to take those photos.

Deb Foster is coming to be with the dogs and watch out over the farm. We are grateful for her. So I’m heading to Gotham, as I have many times in my writing and creative life. New York City has been good to me, I could no longer bear to live there, but it will always be the Emerald City for me. Wish me luck, I’ll report back later.