David Alan Harvey Loft Workshop, entry # 16: Times Square, p5: my search for 15 seconds of fame lead me into glamour photography and then on to the divine

What is this 15 seconds of fame advertised in the background? I was determined to find out.

This is what it is. People who want to be famous for 15 seconds go somewhere down below this big, ever-changing, electronic billboard, pay a fee, get their picture taken in a patriotic setting and then their image appears right here, on this billboard, for one-quarter of a minute. I never went in to check on the cost - I figured the salesman might be such a persuasive hustler that he might convince me I needed to be famous for 15 seconds, talk me out of my money and I might then have to forgo my evening shiskkabob and pretzel.

Some people standing near me said that it cost $15.00 - one dollar for every second of fame. I can't verify that figure, but, if true, then it is a real bargain for sure.

And what happens when the 15 seconds of fame that you paid so dearly for comes to an end? You get swept right off the electronic billboard, that's what. You get replaced by the real celebrities of Times Square, the electronic billboard glamour girls. They get a lot more than 15 seconds, because everyone is much more interested in looking at them than they are at you, anyway.

Fortunately, the flag still flies in its place, doing its part to preserve modesty.

Oh, oh! The breeze wavers a bit, the flag unfurls the wrong way. Modesty is lost.

Officially, us serious photojournalists and true photographic artists express a certain amount of disdain for glamour photography - it is just too shallow a medium for us. Officially, that's how we feel and we are proud to state it. But unofficially, deep inside, we are all just a bit jealous. How could we not be?

Take me - how many times have I frozen myself half to death, turned my feet into blocks of ice, just to try to get a few decent pictures? I will do it again. I will freeze - to get a picture.

And meanwhile, some effete guy down in New York City is strutting around a warm studio, with all these hot ladies - the hottest in all the world - and he is giving them orders, saying things like, "lay down here, take this off... no put it back on and take this off instead... no... no... that's not what I want... take them both off -- and stretch out just a little more... and turn your left cheek just a tiny bit this way... No! No! No! Not that left cheek! Your other left cheek!"

And someone is paying him really good money to do it.

REAALLLY GOOOOOD money.

So, despite our official disdain toward these photographers, how can we help but be a little jealous?

But suddenly, here on Times Square, I, too, got to become a glamour photographer.

Look... see for yourself:

Glamour photography, shot second-hand by me as I gazed up at the electronic billboards of Time Square.

I even got to photograph a beautiful lady who rose above the mundane crowd to kiss a red deer on the nose. This wasn't a red-nosed reindeer - this was a red deer, with a black nose.

I had heard of these black-nosed red deer and how rare they are. There are less than 900 of them in all the world. They live on a tiny island in the Great Salt Lake and nowhere else. Trophy hunters pay a million dollars for a permit just to shoot one - one being the full quota for one year. The waiting list for permits is 50 years long. It would be even longer than that if enough wealthy sportsmen believed they would live long enough to use it.

At great expense, one was brought to New York City and Times Square for the glamour shoot.

It was fun for awhile, but pretty soon all this glamour-shooting overwhelmed me. The faces of these beautiful women broke up into rigid pieces, and rearranged themselves together wrongly.

Nobody looks like this.

I decided I wasn't cut out for glamour photography, after all.

It was time for me to return to the street, to get a dose of reality.  He must have been out here, looking for joy, looking for something to uplift his soul. I hope he found it. Look up, Mister. Joy glows above you.

Down here, on the pavement of Times Square, there was also glamour to behold. Real, live, flesh and blood glamour.

Many faces lit up in smiles.

There were beautiful faces, divine faces. When she discovered my camera looking her way, she made a point to hide her braces behind locked lips, but I did not care about her braces. She was beautiful, braces and all -- divine. How blessed I felt just to be able to shoot a few frames of her. The man to her right - what a fortunate fellow, to have the fingertips of one so divine come to rest upon his shoulder.

If she would have but rested her fingertips upon my shoulder for three seconds, I would have felt truly blessed. But I am shy. I did not ask her.

"Ask and ye shall receive," He said in the Bible.

I did not ask. I did not receive.

"Ye have not, because ye ask not."

Yet, I do have.

I have in spades. Divinity surrounds unrighteous me. It is everywhere, in whatever direction I look - divinity. Truly, I am blessed. 

There were tattooed faces - one with many tattoos. And the man who owns the tattooed face speaks in a soft, gentle, voice. At least he did to me. Someone told me he is famous and he probably is, but I do not keep up with fame the way I once did.

Etta James just died... so why bother?

She was divine. Her voice was divine.

Johnny Cash. He was another one who was divine.

He left too, not long ago, just like he knew he would.

He is a rickshaw driver. He is pedaling the bike that pulls the rickshaw. His rickshaw is empty.

This does not mean that business is bad for him. It just means that right now, at this moment, his rickshaw is empty. Maybe it is often full. His eyes do appear to be searching the crowd for potential customers. However often his rickshaw is full, he still always needs to find another load of riders.

This also was taken when I was shooting what is destined to become my pending entry, theoretically titled, "Chosen from above."

She is beautiful - as beautiful as any of those pictured above. She doesn't look very happy at the moment. I hope it is just a momentary thing. Maybe she is not unhappy at all, but just lost in thought, thinking about things I know nothing of.

Sometimes people ask me, "why do you look so unhappy?" when I am feeling quite happy, but am just lost in thought.

Last night, I stated that I would complete all my wandering about Times Square outtakes coverage between the time I got up this morning and the time I went to bed tonight. It just isn't working out that way. First, I did not get up this morning. I got up this afternoon. In the morning, I was struck by blessed sleep and I took full advantage of it.

It is now 11:53 PM. On one hand, I feel like I could go for hours yet and maybe I will, one way or another, but I feel that I have posted about as much as is reasonable to post in one day. Too much, perhaps. I had meant to be more disciplined in my selection and posting of pictures than this - as disciplined as David Alan Harvey would be. But, for all his teachings and my strivings to learn, I remain, after all, Bill Hess. Undisciplined and unruly, never knowing when to stop. I completed the workshop, but I have yet to obtain David's kind of discipline.

It would be pointless for me to post any more pictures today, so I will stop now. I still have at least two more Times Square posts to make - the main two, the two that most fit my theme of finding religion in Times Square, secular religion and street preacher religion - each striving for glory. Maybe I have three posts left. I will try to keep it to two.