Does Music Make a Difference When Shooting and Editing Photos?
By Mitchell Slepian
Hello, readers. As my regulars are aware, ninety-nine percent of the time, the images in my stories have been shot and edited with my Nikon camera. As Paul Simon sings, I like to take photographs. My Kodachrome sits on a table next to an old Nikon that was a workhorse and is now out of commission.
Sheepshead Bay by Emmons Avenue – Edited to Sir Elton
When shooting and editing, I always have songs in my head. One of my all-time favorite songs is “100 Years,” the opening track on The Cure’s “Pornography” album. It might be the darkest, most goth album of all time. I listen to it nonstop. Here’s a taste of Robert Smith’s (The Cure’s founder, lead singer, and possibly the best songwriter ever) lyrics. “It doesn’t matter if we all die. Ambition in the back of a black car.” I listen to lots of other great artists. Some are happier than The Cure. Of course, some are just as dark. Here’s a partial mix: Bauhaus, David Bowie, Billy Joel, Depeche Mode, Erasure, Sir Elton John, Joy Division, John Lennon (probably the best musician of all time), Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley, The Psychedelic Furs, The Smiths, Siouxsie and the Banshees, U2 and The Who. And the list goes on.
Red Flower – Edited to Sir Elton
It’s not unusual for me to have some of these lyrics floating through my brain when I’m shooting. “Confusion in her eyes that says it all. She’s lost control. And she’s clinging to the nearest passerby.” – “She’s out of Control,” Joy Division “Girl of sixteen, whole life ahead of her. Slashed her wrists, bored with life. Didn’t succeed, thank the Lord.” – “Blasphemous Rumors” – Depeche Mode “Back to the howling old owls. Hunting the horny back toad” – “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” – Sir Elton and “Before you cross the street. Take my hand. Life is what happens to you. While you’re busy making other plans” – “Beautiful Boy” – John Lennon. He always nailed it. They all do.
One can be sure the songs in my head while I am shooting affect how they are taken. I might adjust the ISO and F-stop based on how I am feeling. In case you were wondering, I do not listen to music on my iPhone. I hate headphones. I used to wear my Walkman’s headphones slightly above or below my ears. Sometimes I still do that with headphones when I am Zooming or watching things on YouTube. Songs always go through my head. It gets me through the days. Or as Robert Smith says, “In Between Days.” That’s on the “Head on the Door” album.
Bees Fetching Honey – Edited to the Cure
The other day, I was editing some images from Emmons Avenue, Sheepshead Bay and the New York Botanical Garden while listening to Sir Elton. Then I switched to a mix of The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, Erasure, and Psychedelic Furs, Siouxie and the Banshees. Erasure brings back memories of camp. The Cure, Erasure, and the Furs bring back old memories of dating and driving around in my old Caddy with the girls I liked. We usually listened to those bands. My first date was to see The Cure with Love & Rockets and the Pixies as the openers. We were too young to buy beer. We shared M&M’s. I still think about all of this when certain songs play.
The Hanging Flower – Edited to The Cure
Look at the images and see if you can tell the difference. This was written and edited to Led Zep’s “How the West Was Won.” With final touches while listening The latest from The Cure: “Songs of a Lost World.”
Eight days later, Alana and Marc left camp and went home. Before they left, Alana nursed her beauties. Marc sat with the Woodsman and listened. On the eighth day, the herd of buffalo approached the babies and blessed them.
Marc got behind the wheel. Alana carefully placed the babies into her Infiniti. Alana put Depeche Mode onto the sound system and signaled it was time to go. They drove straight to the temple. Their parents were waiting. Yes, these two have parents. They are very strange. Anat, Jen, and all of the others were waiting with big smiles and gifts.
The mohel was ready to perform the circumcision on the boy. He stared at the knife. The girl was beside him. She, too, stared at the knife. The mohel gave him some Shiloh wine. Anat knew the owner of the vineyard. She had him make a remarkable vintage. Marc and Alana gave out a bottle to all attendees. The girl snagged some of it. Was this a sign she would be like her mom? As the mohel cut the foreskin, the boy just smiled. His eyes fluttered. They wanted to name him Palpatine. But settled for David Benjamin. He has this funny look in his eyes. Of course, Marc and Alana were waiting to see what he would do. Would he shoot lightning out of them, like Palpatine? The two were quite worried about how powerful their children would be. To the best of their knowledge, they are the only two born to parents who both have powers. The girl was named Sarah. They were thinking of Leia or Ashoka. Or maybe just Tano. They would probably call their kids the Star Wars nicknames. Sarah and David Benjamin seemed happy. They were dressed in cute, all-black baby clothes from Sisley.
They went to the basement of the shul for bagels and lox. Jerry was bouncing around. He was making sure Gillil was ok. A great big brother he is. Suddenly, they heard some loud noises outside.
Jay was bashing cars outside the temple. Anat immediately pelted him with raisins and dates. She was taking care of business. But Jay snuck away and entered the delivery door by the kitchen and started shooting glass. A piece shot off Sarah and Benjamin David. Marc and Alana ran over to their babies. They looked like they were smirking. They were in their strollers. The two kids looked at each other.
Suddenly, the strollers started moving. Marc and Alana got nervous. They knew the kids were ok. They knew some of their friends were waiting for this moment. They wanted it to be delayed. They certainly didn’t want their parents and other relatives to see what would happen next.
Memories of Lazy Weekend Reading with the Newspaper
By Mitchell Slepian
My mom sometimes said, my dad was married to his New York Times (NYT). My parents divorced before I was a teen. I often spent weekends with him. I have distinct memories in the mid-to-late 70s of my dad reading his Sunday newspaper and, of course, reading his copy of the daily paper on his NYC subway train from Sheepshead Bay into Bloomingdales when he was a manager of its finance department.
In 1978, a great year (the Yankees repeated their World Series title), dad, mom, my sister and me left Brooklyn for an exotic place – Staten Island. Dad now had a much longer commute to work. He took his paper on the bus or the Staten Island Ferry.
“You can read it in the Sunday papers. Sunday papers.” We know Joe Jackson was criticizing the British tabloid press when he wrote “Sunday Papers” for his debut album “Look Sharp.” Much of it rings true. But I wanna talk about the Sunday papers in a different mode. I know most people get their news from their phones. I do love Apple News. But there is something about having the old-fashioned newspaper in your hands. I still get a Sunday paper. My mom taught me to read it by placing it on a beach towel on the kitchen table. She said you’d save our and eventually your table from ink stains. The stains that got on my hands that’s what the sink is for.
My memories of the Print Edition
Some of us are old enough to remember the old school weekend NYT. It had tons of thick special sections that were delivered on Saturday. The Arts & Leisure section had information about what was happening in NYC’s museums and elsewhere. Often, you’d see how if you went to one at a certain time you got in for half price or got a free something. My dad clipped out all of this, and on Sunday, we went to Museum Mile and other spots. I have an older cousin whose dad did similar, I loved the museums. My cousin hated them. I’m a member of nearly every museum in NYC. Years later, when both of us were laid off, I spent my time at the Guggenheim, Whitney, Tenement Museum, and others. I always asked my cousin to join me. He would never.
At home on Staten Island, we got our daily delivery of the Staten Island Advance (Advance). I read it. I loved reading Moss Klein’s stories in the sports section about my beloved Bronx Bombers. My first job was in politics, serving as a press secretary for a local NYC Council Member. I pitched our news releases to the Advance and was friendly with several reporters. My sister another newspaper reader became a reporter at the Advance. I was long gone from politics when she was employed at the paper, so we never worked together. That would have been interesting.
When I was a kid, my grandparents would come over from Sheepshead Bay for Sunday afternoon barbeques. We had the NYT and Advance on the table. As we were getting ready for our hot dogs and burgers, grandpa would read both. He usually read the New York Post or New York Daily News at home. In the metro section of the NYT, he always looked for stories about Staten Island. It was funny. That never happened. That’s why Staten Islanders swore by the Advance.
Eventually in the late 90s, I moved out and started buying my Sunday papers. I started in Rego Park and came back to Staten Island. I read all the dailies, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, and my eventual favorite of the bunch, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). I would buy them before boarding the Subway or Staten Island Ferry. That’s when they sold papers all over. It was before you woke up, and your iPhone was buzzing like a madman with the latest from Apple News, social media, and Snaps from your friends, about, as Depeche Mode would put it, “the world we live in and life in general.”
I enjoyed reading the papers on the commute to and from work. Of course, the news in the morning wasn’t any different than the news on the ride home. I just read a different paper. So, the only differences could have been the opinions of the writers. Nothing was updated from the morning to the evening. We sometimes had the radio or news channels on at work. So, we followed Wall Street and breaking news with the available technology to the best of our abilities.
On my ferry rides, I often sat with a group of friends on the a.m. commute into the city. We discussed the latest news. Most of us had a paper. Usually, our conversations focused on the Yankees. We did discuss politics and movies. We compared the opinions of the writers in the different papers.
When I was back on Staten Island, my sister got an apartment in the same building complex as mine. On weekends, I would read my copy of the NYT and walk over to her building, throw it at her door, and scream out, “Mr. Flintstone.” During the holiday season, I put a card into the paper and begged for a tip. She gave me a dollar. It was so sweet of her.
As you have realized, I love baseball. I remember sitting at my table reading the NYT, which we know is not known for having a great sports section. I read its feature about the orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews (now retired). You got nervous when you heard your favorite athlete was going to see him. You knew he was down for the count. The article gave an in-depth feature about how he evaluated and treated the athletes. It was a great learning experience. Holding the paper in my hands and reading about baseball feels more real than scrolling through my phone or tablet.
The Arts & Leisure section of the NYT offered similar. When “Wicked” was still starring Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, it did a terrific feature about how the two Tony winners were brought up and how they began their storied acting careers. Jumping ahead to the WSJ’s Off-Duty section, Lettie Teague’s weekly wine column offers great advice on what to sip, buy, and order. The paper’s magazine sectionoften has beautiful watches. I want all of them. Sometimes, I get ‘em.
One more memory of dad and his paper. All the Sunday papers had many circulars featuring coupons of the latest sales at the drug store, supermarket, local clothing stores and restaurants. My dad called them “couponys.” He used to sit and clip them out. He stored them in an index card holder and had a filing system. He was one of those people, who would walk up to the register in Waldbaum’s with more groceries than you can imagine and pay about $10.
I Began Having Newspaper Issues
I moved off the rock and went back to Queens. I transferred my weekend NYT subscription. Eventually, I switched to WSJ’s Weekend Journal. Pre-Covid, the paper used to be delivered to my apartment door. During the height of the lockdown and today, all the papers are in the lobby. We rarely had any problems. There was a pile of newspapers on the radiator. On Saturday morning, I would walk downstairs around 6 a.m. and take mine. The walks up and down the steps prepared me for the day. I would start reading. Sometimes, I would finish the main section and go to morning services or elsewhere— hopefully, Yankee Stadium. They returned to deliver the paper to my front door a few months ago. Then it went back to the lobby.
Most people I know stopped getting newspaper delivery or stopped buying them at newsstands. Many newsstands are only selling junk food. Several have closed. Just walk along NYC’s streets and you will see many locked-up newsstands. Most of the people I know, just get their news online.
Sadly, since the beginning of 2025 my WSJ stopped showing up. I go downstairs and see other papers. I have emailed and spoken to the WSJ’s customer care countless times. They keep promising to get it right. Occasionally the paper comes late Saturday night. It is still the weekend. But by that time, I do not want to read it. I have already seen everything on my phone. I like a Sunday paper. I enjoy being offline as much as possible on the weekend. Like most people, I am on too much. While disappointed to do this, I will likely cancel my Sunday paper.
Mitchell's thoughts, photos, etc. 