Back at work

Paternity leave's over and I'm back at work. Mixed feelings about that of course. My mom's been with us for a couple of days now and my dad came yesterday. They're taking care of the little one these days.
This shot is taken in South Slope Coffee (19th St. and 6th. Ave.) who make the best coffee that I've found in Brooklyn. For that matter, they're better than any of the places I've tried in Manhattan.

As an Icelander living in the United States, I frequently compare my current home with my homeland. One of the recent things that has interested me is how differently the two countries are responding to the financial crisis. In the US it's all about stimulus packages and using the economic downturn as an opportunity to invest heavily in education, healthcare, infrastructure and energy independence. In Iceland, guided by the IMF, it's all about austerity measures, repaying debt and massive budget cuts in health, education etc. How is it that the IMF (which is pretty much run by the US) always instructs countries to cut government budgets and privatize as much as possible, but when the US is in trouble, the Americans do the opposite?



My sister has recently complained over the paucity of color photos on this blog. The thign is that I´ve been having so much fun developing film recently and I only develop B&W, so I haven´t done much digital shooting recently. From here on, I´ll look for a more balanced approach. This is from last Sunday, when we went to Prospect Park.

It´s april already!

I only have about a week left of my paternity leave and I must say I´ve enjoyed it thoroughly. Just as I expected, time has gone by incredibly fast.

Most of the time has been spent just hanging out with Óðinn, but the last week has been different. My friend Óli is visiting and Óðinn and I are introducing him to different parts of Brooklyn with the odd visit to Manhattan. So far, I think Óli´s been the most impressed with Red Hook, although he´s still quite excited about visiting Brighton Beach and Coney Island, which we´ll be doing this weekend. The other day, we went for walk at night, and I thought it woud be fun to bring along the film camera, loaded with Kodak T-Max 3200 film, which I pushed to 6400. Here are a couple of shots from that evening, one obviously shot by Óli.

A lover of books

Óðinn is developing his academic skills these days and displaying an appreciation of literature. This is from yet another film, which I developed in the kitchen yesterday.