DAY 5

Finally, the cloud cover and wind were gone. It was sunny and cool—45 degrees. I grabbed an A train headed downtown and transferred to the D line headed to Coney Island. The trains in that part of town are among the last of the elevated lines or Els. You get some interesting views from the elevated perspective, which are not always pretty.

A large cemetery with numerous headstones and grave markers, some with statues and others with engraved plaques, under a clear blue sky.

View from a high window showing a city street with parked cars, a man walking, and a large building with a blue sign that reads "Hardwood Floors & Supplies." Other small businesses and residential buildings are visible in the background.

A parking lot filled with yellow school buses, with a building and trees in the background.

View of subway tracks under construction or repair, with a train on the left, construction materials and equipment on the ground, and a large metal canopy structure overhead on a bright sunny day.

Coney Island faces the Atlantic Ocean, and it was breezy; I was initially worried whether I had dressed warmly enough, but once I started walking along the boardwalk, I was fine. All the parks and rides were closed when I arrived, so it was a ghost town as I walked around.

I ended up walking 4 miles, and my knees were letting me know that they needed a rest, so I grabbed a couple of Nathan’s hotdogs. You have to go to Nathan’s when you visit Coney Island; it is a ritual for non-natives like myself. I suspect that if you are a New Yorker, you do not go to Nathan’s. The hotdogs were okay, not great, but I ate them looking out to the Big Water (the Atlantic).

Sign for Nathan's Famous, a hot dog restaurant in New York, with a cartoon hot dog mascot holding a sign that reads "For Over 100 Years." The sign also states "The Flavor of New York Since 1916." A clear blue sky is in the background.

Another cool aspect of the Els are the neighborhoods that thrive underneath the trains. The Brighton Beach community is known for its large Russian-speaking population, and many, if not most, of the businesses have signs in Cyrillic characters. Most of the conversations I overheard were in Russian. The open-stall stores and the products offered reminded me of the many markets I visited in Southeast Asia.

It was mid-afternoon, my legs were tired, and I was pushing too hard to make images rather than just letting them happen. I set the Hipstamatic app to shuffle, allowing the app to randomly select the lens, film and flash effects. The results were interesting, but I ended up editing most of them. There are so many lens, film and flash options that, on my own, I would never discover half of them. Many options are meant to hide flaws or perk up an otherwise dull image. You can get lost in all the options. It is a funny editing process; rather than attempting to develop a unique, consistent look for your images, you develop a look for each image. At this point, using the Hipstamatic app is still fun, and I am seeing things again — and that is the most crucial benefit of making these “krappy” images.