This picture was taken inside an apartment in Astoria. I brought with me my new Pelican case. Its first use since I got it not too long ago. One caveat about Astoria is you can really grow old looking for parking. You have been forewarned!

If your wallet allows, it’s so much easier to catch a ride when faced with crappy weather conditions - and it's billable. Just tossing it out there as something to not (not) think about.

After forty something minutes and a very distant spot, I grabbed my gear and headed down towards the place. I met up with a guy who had the key and who then left me to my photography habits.

FUN FACT: Did you know that the roots of the word "photography" come from Greek and mean: painting with light? I didn't and thought it was so cool since that's exactly what I was doing. It was a bit of a let down though, I have to admit, as I thought I had coined it...Oh well. Onto the next big word.

Now let's go inside this two bedroom apartment which was completely renovated. All the appliances brand new and it was just super clean. The only thing that was kind of a bummer was the lack of furniture. There’s so much more mood and atmosphere when a place is well decorated.

But still! A great place.

I couldn’t remove the faux blinds because they were made up of a very thin paper and I didn’t want to break the setup which already looked frail enough as it were. Instead, I tried to get all my shots while there was still daylight. I put on some music on my phone — and seriously considered a Spotify membership as I wanted to skip all those annoying advertisements — and took pictures using my iPad/Camranger hook up.

Once I got to the kitchen area, things got real tight. The sun had gone down almost completely and I’d been there for a good two hours already playing a solo game of twister with my camera and tripod when I heard footsteps. They sounded louder than the rest of the steps I'd heard before, but I figured it was the construction workers outside the apartment who had been running up and down all day long. And, as I was jammed up against the wall genuflecting and zoomed to infinity to focus my lens, I heard a voice. And the voice was beginning to get too close for comfort. At that point, I could only see some very vague shapes with a minimal amount of detail. Not exactly ideal when alone in an empty apartment with three thousand dollars worth of gear. In a survival of the un-fittest attempt, I peeked my head from behind the giant fridge where I was carefully crammed for reasons of self-preservation, to see who was responsible for the ominous invasion. And, if there was actually one.

But nothing. Only a faint voice dimming in and out, then more and more in, until I heard the words, "what the hell!" said into a phone by a guy dressed in all black. And this guy who was dressed in all black who wasn't a ninja hired to kill me, telling whomever that there’s some random guy in the apartment video recording or something — me! Shockingly enough, and judging by his body language, he was not all that alarmed to find me there. I suppose after looking at me for a rapid three seconds, and quickly calculating his odds against some obvious vegetarian, his odds would be quite good.

Anyway, I just continued to bracket while he was going over some paperwork details. By the time I finished getting my shots he was done with his phone call and we finally made acquaintance.

Turns out he was really nice and had a good sense of humor and laughed about the whole thing.

And look at the time. I should really get going now — it's late.

Until next time.