by Pat Arnow

was through with film five years before film was through. Now I love digital, and digital loves me back. It changed my life, or at least my profession. Film and I had a long romance. I ran around with a Nikon F clunking at my hip and a long lens weighing down my purse. I taped layers of black plastic over hapless bathroom windows to make darkrooms where I spent hours inhaling fixer fumes and watching images emerge on wet paper. I loved it, but made my living as a writer and editor, occasionally getting a photo published.

Eventually, I tired of lugging the camera; of the hours in the darkroom cleaning negatives of specks of dust that otherwise would turn into white spots on the enlarged pictures; of going through sheet after sheet of expensive photo paper trying for the balance of grays, for black blacks and white whites (without which a photo is no good, photography teachers insisted).

By the time I moved to New York, in 1999, I had given up on picture taking. One day in 2003, in the editorial page of the New York Times, there was an ad for a Leica digital. All the other digitals at that time were cute and rounded, but this camera looked like the traditional Leica – a rectangular box. A Leica, the camera of my photography dreams, now arrived in a modest digital format that didn’t cost an arm and a leg (as Leicas tended to do), only a mere arm and a few toes.

My husband sensed what was coming. "I almost cut out that ad so you wouldn’t see it," he later told me.

That was the beginning. I loved that you could see the image instantly and readjust for the next picture. You downloaded the pictures to the computer and could play for hours with the images: Lighten, darken, crop, fix the specks instantaneously.

One day I was going to meet a reporter friend at The Chief, a weekly newspaper that covers New York City unions. She asked if I could meet her a bit early at union hall and bring my new camera. Their photographer had fallen through, so could I take some pictures of Roger Toussaint, the president of the Transit Workers Union, at a meeting?

The Chief was happy with my photos. Could I do more? I was freelancing as a researcher and writer then, so the calls to run over to City Hall to shoot a press conference or a demonstration provided a nice outdoor break. And I loved it. I always got right up close in the crush with my little boxy camera, and my shots were fine. It took some time before I picked up more professional equipment, because my little Leica was so good.

Though I worked regularly as a freelance writer and magazine researcher, writing killed me. Too much sitting still at the desk when I longed to be running around. Too much thinking. Photography is the perfect profession for the antsy journalist.

Photography kills me, too, but in a good way. I come home from an assignment achy and tired after running around, kneeling on concrete to get an angle, stepping up on a light post for a shot. One time I stood in a concrete planter and was stabbed by an evergreen, trying to get a picture of Al Sharpton at a particularly raucous demonstration. One time, when I launched myself into a group of people shaking the Mayor’s hand and was about to raise my camera, Bloomberg reached out and took my hand. I started to say, "I’m just a photographer," but caught myself. I shook the mayor’s hand, gave him a stupid grin, and when he turned to the next person, hoisted the camera.

Today, just like in the Nikon days, I lug a chunky 35mm (now a Canon), a flash unit, and an extra lens that weighs as much as a cobblestone. Sometimes I carry a ladder (lightweight aluminum from that great photo supply store, Bed, Bath and Beyond). Most of my work is for city labor unions’ newspapers—and I still take pictures for The Chief.

Being a photographer in New York City got more interesting when I began taking pictures for the Grand Street News. Assignments gave me a chance to meet people whom I'd never had the excuse to talk with before.

For GSN, I've seen kids in a Chinese language school performing traditional songs and dances; snagged a picture of a girl with arms covered in mud for "Dirt Day" in the community garden; met a 103-year-old woman living on her own; visited that strange box outside the Seward building and was welcomed into a Sukkot celebration.

The pictures that come from these events tell a story of a neighborhood that has not lost its gallimaufry of cultures in the mists of history as some Tenement Museum visitors might believe. Nor is it a neighborhood completely overcome with pretty, rich people and their scarily expensive businesses. There are so many people here who often escape notice but, once in awhile, reveal themselves exquisitely in a picture.