Like the shopgirls in the O’Henry stories I loved when I was a kid, I have often come to New York City to seek  my fame and fortune, and while I have come closed, I’ve never quite scaled those wondrous towers. New York is a tough town, it draws the best of the best and it no longer calls to me in the way it once did.

I found great success and great failure there, but neither fame nor fortune.

This morning, with my wonderful wife at the wheel, we set out for New York City at 7:00, I was in search of the new Canon 35 mm f/1.4LIIUSM lens.

The lens has been buzzed about in photo journals for months, and is now here. A  number of monochrome black and white photographers said it was the perfect lens to go with my Canon 7D monochrome camera.  It has been hailed as one of the best 35 mm lenses ever made.

The only problem is that it cost nearly $2,000.

I decided not to ask for support in buying this lens, I already got tremendous support for buying the 7D, converted from a digital color camera to monochrome. If I wanted it, and I did, I wanted to figure it out on my own. I am glad I asked for help in buying the monochrome camera, but I don’t care to make a habit out of asking for money.

You do it when it clearly makes sense. People will figure out for themselves if they wish to support the idea or not.

I have, as promised, been sharing my experimentation with these pictures, and have been swamped with messages from people who love the photos. I am not giving up on color, color is important to me, but adding a new dimension to my photography and my blog. This lens will take my black and white work to another level, and I plan to master it over the next few months.

If you don’t grow as you get older,  you calcify and die the first death, that of the mind. That will not happen to me. This new camera will help me see the world anew, so will the new lens. Some photographers I admire have urged me to stay with one versatile lens – the 35 mm is good for portraits, landscapes and scenes – and master it rather than switch back and forth. A chance for me to simply, focus and learn.

So we took this Sunday, I gathered up four of my beloved lens and hauled them to New York City to barter for the new lens. I won’t say that didn’t hurt, I love my lenses and have worked them hard.

Maria and I took turns driving, it was raining the whole way into the city, we got to B&H around noon, parked in their lot and went into the trading and selling exchange off of Ninth Avenue.

There was little haggling. I told them I wanted a store credit, and I needed to get at least to $1,800. My my lenses were examined carefully, cleaned with dust blowers, inserted into cameras for testing. All were all in great shape except for some loose screws in one, and the estimators – known for being tough and shrewd – offered me $2,500 for the four. I was happy, I was going home with the 35 mm. I  winced at giving up the 70-200, it was my best and only long lens. Perhaps I will get another one day.

And I didn’t have to sell the camera body for my Canon 5D, a camera I love would have hated to part with.

The trip was a success.

I had enough money to buy the new lens,  a three-year insurance policy on the lens for $300, as well as a new camera case, and a strap I like, (Black Rapids). I knew I had to get out of there before I got into real trouble – it’s like leaving the casino after a win. If you stay, you will end up losing. The din and jostling in B&H is intense, and I am no longer used to the mayhem of the big city. We had to get out of there.

B&H is an extraordinary place, vast, chaotic, staffed by honest and direct  and knowledgeable people, jammed with photographic and electronic loves from all over the world. It is a vast Rube Goldberg encampment shaking in chaos.

You look one place, pay another, get your stuff at another.  Overhead, conveyer belts move purchases from the basement down to the check-out area. It is an astounding place,vast and  overwhelming. It could exist only in New York. The store is run by a Hasidic Jewish family in Brooklyn, it is perhaps the best place on earth to buy a camera and/or lenses.

The staff is notoriously honest – they have refused to sell me things because they didn’t feel I needed them – and professional, if not always warm and fuzzy.

When you leave, you will feel like you’ve been on a roller coaster for five or six hours with your head inside the carousel organ, but you will have what you want and need and can afford.

We left B&H after an hour confusion over some computer glitches but with everything resolved. We went right to the car and drove home. We got back around 6 p.m. – we stopped in Hillsdale, N.Y. at the diner there and had a great lunch. We have a blast riding around together on trips like this, but this one was successful and tiring.

I put the lens on the monochrome and went out to the pasture and the first photo I took was of Fate, resting after a few turns around the sheep, a fitting first image. I will do some experimenting tomorrow, the speed and clarity of this lens is amazing. A new world of opportunity and creativity for me, and I will gratefully get to work on master it and sharing it with you. It feels like our lens.

There is a deeper significance to this for me, a call to simply my life and my work. I don’t need a row of big lenses, I don’t needed to be hauling lenses around and switching them all day. I want to get to know this one, and how it interacts with light and show.

Fate was a good subject for my first shot with this lens, she is, in some ways, the spirit of the place, and if there ever was a black-and-white dog, it is fate. She is literally black and white, the poster girl for the monochrome era.

Today was a great and successful day in many ways. Maria and I share the triumphs of one another, and this was exciting a new chapter. Sharing the day has so much meaning for me.  I am, as always, eager for tomorrow.