Off on another day trip to New York City.

Back to New York! This time on a different secret route.

New York is easy for photos with pretty much any view a prime target for a photo. And with so much to see the opportunity for photoing is enormous.

Here is a building in central park:

The reason for my unexpected trip? The prospect of attending the Letterman show the night that Ellen is on it.

I called the stand-by phone number at 11:15 A.M.. I was surprised to get right through and that I would be put on the list.

However, when the time came . . . there were no tickets. A disappointed group of Canadian women were sent to wonder off into the Manhattan dusk. That’s what I did too.

I wondered over to the Times Square tourist office. I got information on other things to do.

I took a lot of photos of Times Square.

A photo of Times Square:

On the wall of the recruiting office in Times Square:

However I come to New York with Late Show on my mind, and so I wondered back towards the hang out in front of the ‘Hello Deli’ and see what would transpire. And so to experience the show I went to go back and stand outside which is what I did. Yes, I was one of those annoying people hovering around the Ed Sullivan Theater with my camera. . .

Banter and more banter with strangers also hovering around. The building across the street has two antique water towers that look like relics from the 1920’s. The light was wrong to photo them correctly without a tripod. I noted in my mind again that these are worthy of documentation. If I look back in my photos I might find that I got pictures of them a year ago when I was last in New York City.

Tickets, get your tickets. I didn’t have any. If you call and get on the stand-by list there is no guarantee that you will get tickets. No one got them.

As a way to perform a cultural study I stood outside the theater like a groupie waiting . . .

You don’t understand the profundity of this until you do it, and just how weird it must be for the people on the other side of the fan barrier. . .

Two girls there were waiting for the band that was playing the Letterman show. Other’s were waiting for Ellen.

Here is Ellen Degeneres right outside the door of the Ed Sullivan Theatre:

I cropped out all of the other people who were hovering around her, but other than that this is picture of her where the slight bit of overexposure shows her radiance. The flash photos are clearer and closer up, but in a way they seem regrettable violations of her radiance.

An important lesson: flashes and photos often annoy. I prefer natural light for photos. I prefer not have to use a flash.