Ocean Grove Boardwalk. 8/26/22 Paul Goldfinger portrait. © Blogfinger.net. Click to enlarge.

By Paul Goldfinger, MD,  Editor Blogfinger.net

People walk north and south along the OG boardwalk.  They chat as they walk or they look straight ahead. Or they stop and relax on a bench.  Eileen says that there’s not much to see on the boards, but I have always been a people watcher.  That’s why I like “street photography”

On the boards I like to look at faces and actions as they walk towards me,  but I also look side to side, watching those who are on the benches or coming and going off the beach.  And those who are on the benches are watching the parade of people, kids, groups, fashions going  by.  It is fascinating.

Sometimes I sit on a bench with my camera preset trying to capture motion and girls in their summer clothes moving sideways as they pass before me.

Today I met the couple  above who were relaxing on a bench.  They had been on the beach and were now thinking about heading home.  They are from New York City.  We had a brief  conversation.

I know about New Yorkers having lived among them for five years while I studied medicine at Mt. Sinai.  I know how they talk, how they act and how they think.   Some have moved here  over the last 2 years.  They usually get my jokes,  unlike the midwesterners we meet in Florida.

This couple was  recognizable to me and I felt comfortable briefly chatting with them.  Their humor was understandable.  We talked and  laughed together, even when I said that walking on the OG boards gave me a chance for a Pulitzer.  He was interested in my camera.

I asked if I could take a photo of them, and they readily agreed.

What’s their name?  I don’t know; it wasn’t necessary.  I asked them to memorize” Blogfinger.net,” having left my cards, paper and pen home.  I want to send them my portrait above.

IRENE BYATT.   From the 1967 Lincoln Center cast of South Pacific:   “Happy Talk.”