Glad you found the photo useful for your blog; as you may have noticed, it was published by another blog on the same date. In any case, you are now indeed part of the "history" of this image … though it seems that the subject was never aware that she had been photographed (it was just a quick, impromptu "candid" photo in Bryant Park).

Cheers,
Ed

P.S. Glad to see you’re on a Mac. I think we are no longer the tiny, oppressed minority that we once were …

P.S. I’m on a Mac.

The comment was intended merely as a light-hearted joke. Nikon fans sometimes poke fun at Canon fans, and vice versa; Mac fans sometimes poke fun at Windows fans, and vice versa.

Don’t you think that’s a little bit of a silly statement?

Everyone makes a choice for a reason.

Hey… I like BMW’s, you like Audi. Canon, Nikon… etc.

Thanks for the kind words.

If the photo does indeed have all of those good characteristics, I think it’s more attributable to luck than skill. This one, like most of my photos, was an extemporaneous "street photograph." Because she wasn’t actually looking at me, I had a few seconds to frame and compose the shot, it obviously wasn’t "posed." And while I tried to get the benefit of the late-afternoon light in the park, I certainly didn’t do anything fancy…

As for it being the nicest comment section on the Internet … well, it’s close — but take a look at the comments and feedback on another extemporaneous street photograph, taken last year while I was watching people walk past me on Central Park West; I’ve called it The kindness of strangers.

The reason your picture is popular I think is its honest, perfect timing (look at the fingers a centimeter from the keyboard) GOOD exposure, she’s anonymous unless you know her, she has style and the Ankh around her neck is probably the least polarising religious symbol ever (Ankh = The key of life, symbol for eternal life.)

I kinda resent that she has to be the evil twin because she uses a PC, but greggerca’s wife is smiling.

(Me: Nikon, PC Windows and Linux.)

Thanks for letting me know — glad to see that the photo was useful for your blog posting.

Thanks for letting me know; I’m delighted that the picture served your purposes (though, just for fun, you might try going to my Flickr "home page" at http://www.flickr.com/yourdon and searching for photos with the keywords "Bryant Park" and "laptop" to see how many other choices you had!).

It never occurred to me that this photo would be so popular when I snapped it; yours is the 11th blog to publish it. At the time, I just thought her hat was interesting, and I was intrigued by the anonymity that it provided for her…

Ed

Thanks for the great photo!
Carmel Papworth-Barnum