One of the rare non-Apple laptops seen in an otherwise cool park full of cool people
Image by Ed Yourdon
This woman was typing away on a laptop computer … alas, it was not an Apple Powerbook. But maybe she doesn’t know any better. Just think: if she had been typing on a Mac, her photo probably would have been published a thousand times by now!
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Late in the afternoon on the last day in March 2009, I walked into Bryant Park, which is located behind the New York Public Library, between 41st and 42nd Street, facing Avenue of the Americas. There were several people reading and basking in the sun, a couple people typing on their laptop computers, and one chess game underway. I spent about half an hour wandering around to see what looked photo-worthy, and then wandered off to get some dinner…
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Note: this photo was published in an Apr 22, 2009 blog entitled "Greenify Your PC!." And it was published in a May 1, 2009 blog titled "Our New Toolbar Helps You Go Green." Then it was published in a Jul 8, 2009 blog titled "Five ways to maximize freelance writing income." And it was published in a Jul 16, 2009 blog titled "Facebook Your Way to Universal Healthcare in The Atlantic. More recently, it was published in an Aug 6, 2009 blog titled "Loudoun County Puts Development Applications Online, Earns National Accolades." And it was published in an Aug 17, 2009 Lifehacker blog titled "What Email Service Do You Use?" It was also published in a Sep 4, 2009 blog titled "Want to Blog for Change.org?"
More recently, it was published in an undated (Oct 2009) blog titled "How to Fix Common Laptop Problems." And it was published in an Oct 21, 2009 Brazilian blog title " Custo é o diferencial na hora de escolher uma plataforma de blog." It was also published in a Nov 3, 2009 blog titled "What Do You Want Students To Do?" And it was published in an undated (Nov 2009) blog titled "Sedentary Runners." It was also published in a Nov 9, 2009 blog titled "Keep Your Health Club Members Coming Back By Allowing Them to Book Appointments Online." And it was published in a Nov 27, 2009 blog titled "Degrees of Presence IV: My experience." It was also published in a Dec 2, 2009 blog titled "Internet Linked to Intellect."
Continuing on, it was published again in a Dec 13, 2009 blog titled "Las ciudades del mundo más conectadas con Internet." It was also published in a Dec 14, 2009 German blog titled "Modisch immer Online auf MySpace Fashion." And it was published in a Dec 18, 2009 blog titled La primera red 4G del mundo se estrena en Suecia, whose URL Flickr is not allowing me to embed — but it’s www dot tuexperto dot com slash 2009/12/18/la-primera-red-4g-del-mundo-se-estrena-en-suecia/
Moving into 2010, the photo has been published in a Jan 5, 2010 Fast Company blog titled "What Women Want: Facebook Ads!" And it was published in a Jan 11, 2010 blog titled "Caen las disqueras, sube la música." It was also published in a Jan 15, 2010 blog titled "School Lunches and ‘Home’ Work: Friday Finds." And it was published in a Jan 20, 2010 blog titled "Welcome to Mobility Hacks." It was also published in a Feb 2, 2010 blog titled "Thanks for Visiting." A week later, it was published in a Feb 9, 2010 blog titled "Większość polskich internautów korzysta z internetowych multimediów."
And the beat goes on: the photo was published in a Feb 17, 2010 blog titled "What does Matador mean to you?," as well as a Feb 17, 2010 Polish blog titled "Informacja stanie się walutą." On Feb 18, 2010 it was published in a blog titled "School uses laptop webcams to spy on students." And I discovered that it was published in an undated (Mar 2010) German blog titled "Einführung," which seems to provide an online service for Germans who want to learn to speak Italian. It was also published in a Mar 24, 2010 Mexican blog titled "Uso de software ilegal en el mundo." And it was published in an Apr 14, 2010 Italian blog titled "Le donne sfruttano il lato oscuro di Facebook," as well as an Apr 14, 2010 blog titled "10 Ways To Make The Most Of Your Laptop." About a week later, I found it on an undated (Apr 22, 2010?) blog titled "Ask the Readers: Your Favorite Online Resources." It was also published in an Apr 22, 2010 blog titled "The Evolution of a Blog." And it was published in an undated (Apr 2010) Mahalo-dot-com blog titled "Ask any question,
any time." It was also published as an illustration in a May 12, 2010 Romanian(?) Gadgets blog, with the same title as the caption that I put on this Flickr page; and it was also published on May 12, 2010 in a blog titled "Definition of a Truly Mobile Job."
On May 17, 2010 the photo was published without any title or description on a Technologeek site. And on May 26, 2010, the photo was published in a Spanish blog titled "Buscar Pareja," and also a Norwegian blog titled "Her handler du best på nett." On May 30, 2010, it was published in a blog titled "What is the best laptop?." And on Jun 2, 2010 it was published in what appears to be a Polish blog, titled "Yahoo! grozi lokalnym mediom. Będzie walka o reklamodawców." It was also published in a Jun 10, 2010 Rent Laptop Computer blog, with a title that was a slightly bizarre variation on the caption that I used for this Flickr page: "ONE OF A SINGULAR NON-APPLE LAPTOPS SEEN IN AN DIFFERENTLY COLD PLAY GROUND FULL OF COLD PEOPLE."
On Jun 12, 2010, the photo was published in an Italian blog titled "Libri di donne: scarichiamoli gratis dalla rete." And on Jun 16, 2010 a cropped version of the photo was published in a Spanish blog titled "Encuentros en Sevilla: los mejores sitios para ligar." It was also published in a Jun 21,2010 FixALaptop blog titled "Where can I download a new free camera software for toshiba vista laptop?" And it was published in a Jun 23, 2010 blog titled " per unit community college fee gets some support." It was also published in two Jun 28, 2010 blogs" "Where to Write Out of the House," and "Why It’s So Easy to Spend Too Much Online." And it was published in a Jun 29, 2010 blog titled "What Women Want … Online."
Moving into the second half of 2010, the photo was published in an undated (Jul 2010) blog titled "Study: Pro-Eating Disorder Sites Use Graphic Material to Encourage Anorexia, Bulimia." And it was published in a Jul 2, 2010 blog titled, "Do We Even Need Proper Food Critics?" It was also published in a Jul 7, 2010 Laptop PC Computers blog, with the same title as the caption that I used for this Flickr page.
Wow… this woman is a dead ringer for my wife. Iced tea, NY, clothes etc. If it was a Mac, it would have been scary!
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/greggerca/3146102283/in/set-72157614993800068/]
Maybe your wife has an evil twin sister that she has never told you about. Maybe the differentiating factor between your wife and her evil twin sister is the choice of Mac versus non-Mac laptop. You just never know…
Once again, thanks for uploading your photos under the Creative Commons License. I used this one for an article that you can find here:
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-15489-Internet-Examiner~y2009...
Kindall,
Thanks for letting me know about your article — which I found very interesting! I’m glad that my photo proved useful for your work.
Cheers,
Ed
Hehe! I see you are a Mac person, and a Nikon user! That’s two strikes against you! (kidding)
Uh oh … does that mean you’re a Windows user and a Canon fanatic? You’ve succumbed to the Dark Side!
Actually, I have nothing against Canon cameras; I’ve got a very nice Canon G10, and a smaller Canon Powershot SD950. But I got my first Nikon F in 1969, and have stuck with them ever since for "serious" cameras…
Well, I really am not adamant about it. I use Windows because once I got back into computers (this is only my second computer since my Commodore 64), I learned on Windows and that’s what my best friend/business tech guy has. As far as SLRs having all kinds of money and equipment tied into Canon, unless they do something REALLY out there, I am locked in
Now, if you want to talk about cars, I’m a firm believer in Hondas! But again, it’s a matter of personal preference. No commandments are broken by buying a Ford, a Nikon or even Linux!
Just wanted to let you know that I’ve added this photo to my Women’s Running website.
Thanks for the great photo!
Carmel Papworth-Barnum
Carmel,
Thanks for letting me know; I’m delighted that the picture served your purposes (though, just for fun, you might try going to my Flickr "home page" at http://www.flickr.com/yourdon and searching for photos with the keywords "Bryant Park" and "laptop" to see how many other choices you had!).
It never occurred to me that this photo would be so popular when I snapped it; yours is the 11th blog to publish it. At the time, I just thought her hat was interesting, and I was intrigued by the anonymity that it provided for her…
Ed
Thank you Ed for sharing this photo under the Creative Commons license. We’ve added this photo at onlinescheduling.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/keep-your-healt…
thumbbook,
Thanks for letting me know — glad to see that the photo was useful for your blog posting.
This must be the nicest comment section I have seen on the Internet
(no one doing evil.)
The reason your picture is popular I think is its honest, perfect timing (look at the fingers a centimeter from the keyboard) GOOD exposure, she’s anonymous unless you know her, she has style and the Ankh around her neck is probably the least polarising religious symbol ever (Ankh = The key of life, symbol for eternal life.)
I kinda resent that she has to be the evil twin because she uses a PC, but greggerca’s wife is smiling.
(Me: Nikon, PC Windows and Linux.)
Jim,
Thanks for the kind words.
If the photo does indeed have all of those good characteristics, I think it’s more attributable to luck than skill. This one, like most of my photos, was an extemporaneous "street photograph." Because she wasn’t actually looking at me, I had a few seconds to frame and compose the shot, it obviously wasn’t "posed." And while I tried to get the benefit of the late-afternoon light in the park, I certainly didn’t do anything fancy…
As for it being the nicest comment section on the Internet … well, it’s close — but take a look at the comments and feedback on another extemporaneous street photograph, taken last year while I was watching people walk past me on Central Park West; I’ve called it The kindness of strangers.
"But maybe she doesn’t know any better?"
Don’t you think that’s a little bit of a silly statement?
Everyone makes a choice for a reason.
Hey… I like BMW’s, you like Audi. Canon, Nikon… etc.
Benn G.,
The comment was intended merely as a light-hearted joke. Nikon fans sometimes poke fun at Canon fans, and vice versa; Mac fans sometimes poke fun at Windows fans, and vice versa.
Thank you for letting me use your photo! http://www.laurenwayne.com/2010/06/where-to-write-out-of-house.html I was intrigued not just by the lovely picture itself but by the comment section. I quite enjoy becoming part of the history of this image.
P.S. I’m on a Mac.
aslans_child,
Glad you found the photo useful for your blog; as you may have noticed, it was published by another blog on the same date. In any case, you are now indeed part of the "history" of this image … though it seems that the subject was never aware that she had been photographed (it was just a quick, impromptu "candid" photo in Bryant Park).
Cheers,
Ed
P.S. Glad to see you’re on a Mac. I think we are no longer the tiny, oppressed minority that we once were …
Great photo. We used it on our blog: ikeepsafe.blogspot.com/2010/07/study-pro-eating-disorder-…
ikeepsafenews,
Thanks, yes, I noticed the publication a day or two ago, and have added the URL link to your blog in the list of (many!) publications for this photo.
Cheers,
Ed