Just as I was feeling nostalgic for New York City, the new B&H Catalogue dropped (or crashed or thudded) through my letter box this morning. For those of you that don't know B&H they are my favorite shop in the whole world, selling all kinds of wonderful photographic stuff at competitive prices. When the pound/dollar exchange rate was up at £1=$2.00 I had quite a lot of stuff shipped over from them. For American products (in my case, Norman portable flash units) they worked out at about half the price of buying from the official importer - even with the extra shipping costs. If ever you are in New York, the shop itself is worth a visit as a tourist attraction in it's own right as a vision of high volume, maximum efficiency selling (ok, it helps if you like camera stuff...) The website is efficient too though, and definitely worth a visit. (www.bhphotovideo.com)

How I wish I was in New York City... I hear on the BBC that there is currently an experiment going on in Times Square to close Broadway to traffic in that area - turning the area into a much more pedestrian friendly area... Big changes in major tourist areas like that are rare, and golden opportunities to take the sort of pictures that will make the old pictures look very out of date, and yours very contemporary. I've made good money in these sort of situations in the past - taking pictures in New York (when they cleaned up the Statue of Liberty for the bi-centennial celebrations a long time ago!) and in Paris when they started to mess around with the lighting on the Eiffel Tower are two that spring to mind.

I understand this experiment will go on until the end of the year. Even if it doesn't last it might be a chance to get some pictures that you couldn't get normally without being mown down by a yellow cab - so if you are in the area, grab your camera and get down there! I'd be interested to see the results...