Our 2-week-iversary in the Apple was celebrated last Friday with a revered newbie tradition, e.g. taking the free water taxi to IKEA in Brooklyn to buy a bunch of bargain Nordic home accessories. And over the weekend I banished the last of the boxes and finished organizing my office and the super sized closet (clothes, photo/lighting gear, tools, laundry hamper, luggage). So I guess officially we are settled, though it still feels pretty dam new to be living in NYC.

Sitting in my office (in my new sick chair) it’s easy to lose track of being here. But then I turn around and find the city vibrating just outside the living room window… the ability to walk out the door into a whole world within easy reach is so incredibly satisfying and just right. And I guess maybe that is what life-long New Yorkers just can’t shake when they move on and produces that attitude or almost total amazement that everywhere else doesn’t want to feel the same.

JLP’s first flirtation with working in NYC (or more precisely out of it… 2 shoots last week in Florida) have been fine if a bit tense. I had this idea from afar that I just need to learn all of the tricks and then I would see that its not such a big deal. I thought I’d get handed that golden manual that would make hauling gear, organizing logistics, and moving swiftly and efficiently around the city a piece of cake… but now I’m starting to understand that the manual only has one page in it, and all it says in really big, bold letters is: “GET IT DONE.” Get as much help as possible, don’t stress about the process being stressful (because it will be), and just start pushing.

Emotionally in the first 2 weeks there have been a lot of great things and a few really annoying bits, but so much has happened that it almost feels like life is a huge line of dominoes tumbling one into the next. If you laid them out correctly good things create more good things, leading into infinite until the last tile drops. Here’s to hoping.

And speaking of dominoes… these images are from a recent feature on Miami’s Little Havana and Calle Ocho districts for United Airline’s Hemispheres magazine, which has just been relaunched and redesigned. Photographing the old school Cuban exiles playing dominoes everyday in Maximo Gomez (Domino) Park on SW 8th St is sort of a rite of passage… everyone has done it (my friends Ben Lowy, Carolyn Drake, and just about anyone else who has ever worked professionally in south Florida). These guys are so used to cameras that they don’t give a fuck what you do, or even if you stand on top of the table while they play.

Despite a ridiculously tight budget for the feature I made an appointment to head back on my own time and do a proper portrait of Padron Cigars founder and one of the original godfathers of Little Havana Jose Orlando Padron (below). An alternate frame was used as the opener, but I really liked this one because the smoke sort of shows Padron to be lost in time between coming to America 5 decades earlier and being given a hammer which he used to create the savings which allowed him to open a cigar brand which today has won numerous cigar of the year titles. Thanks to the Padron family for giving me access and to Ink Publishing photo editor Erin Giunta for making me a part of the first revamped issue.