To many this might feel like a nightmare, traversing the city on a cold, blustery winter day. Just warm enough for a nagging light rain, but a fierce enough wind that it finally destroyed my nice photography umbrella.

But these are my favorite days. Staring down at the soggy train floor, this is when the city is at its best. On one of the busiest tourist days of the year, a Friday the week before Christmas, the city was empty. The air was fresh. And the train was empty, I got to sit back and stare out the window. And nod off occasionally.

There’s actually no place I feel calmer and more disconnected.

Since high school, I’ve always slept like a baby on the subway. One time, I suddenly woke up passed out on an old lady’s shoulder. ‘You looked comfortable, so I let you sleep.’ It was a great sleep.

Another time, I dreamt I was smacked in the face. Really, I had fallen fast asleep standing on the way to school in rush hour traffic, and smacked my face into the subway pole. Everyone was looking, so I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.

(All photos from today, taken with the Ricoh GRIIIx / 40mm version.)

The goal of the day was to take some dreamlike photos. I was hoping for a sunny day to help me focus more on the content of a dreamlike photo, instead of everything inherently looking dreamlike. But I shouldn’t complain, it was a perfect day, and particularly because it scared the tourists away. And hopefully, there will be a sunny day next week.

But it was emptiness that I was looking for.

I made last minute plans to meet Vin to see the Eggleston exhibit before it closed over the weekend. Of course I didn’t take any photos at the actual exhibit.

I delivered some Cactus Jelly to share with Vin, a delicious holiday gift from John Gearon and the desert of Arizona. At lunch, I tried to photograph it like Eggleston might.

It was pretty astounding to see the Eggleston prints, my first time. The quality of those pictures, that large, the color. They’re perfect prints.

There are many photographers who are doing more interesting work these days, especially with decades of progression. But it’s hard to deny that Eggleston is a damn amazing photographer. And he found a way to show an area that he felt was quiet and boring in such interesting ways. There is feeling in those photos.

Since the exhibit was near the High Line, I wanted to wander over there to photograph after. I’ve always hated and been fascinated with the High Line and Hudson Yards.

The neighborhood is the epitome of a bad dream coming true. A dystopian city nightmare, a neighborhood for people who don’t actually want to live in the city.

Honestly, it’s shocking how much of the design is reminiscent of prisons, only with nicer materials. And nicer clothes.

Each building has a gym. Chelsea Market and Little Spain act as the commissaries. It often feels like looking into little prison cells of luxury.

There’s no interaction with the city. The neighborhood is so far removed, but just close enough to Times Square to be filled with hoards of tourists gawking through the windows at the rich lions.

You walk outside surrounded by people consuming, shopping, gawking. There’s no place to escape, except on the rainy days. There’s no quiet corner to interact with regulars.

Anyway, that was a long introduction to the dreamlike challenge. But frankly, there’s not much to really say about it. I’m in the weeds of this challenge with you.

Photos will be due at the end of February, so we have time to focus on this after the holidays. We’re going to get a dreamlike photo book talk and general hangout around it, and I’ll have the recap post for the series of six challenge up over the holidays.

But push yourselves, and I want to see new photos.

You can create dreamlike photos through feeling, emptiness, loneliness, intimacy, warmth, color, blur, quietness, loudness, anger. Blur and trees are the most common thing I’m seeing right now, and that’s great. Keep that going. But that’s also going to get old, fast.

Most importantly, don’t forget that you have to photograph something. There has to be something present in the photos, as slight as that something may be. Something intriguing in some way. A blurred photo of nothing is still a photo of nothing. There has to be something, anything. Unless nothing is the subject, ha!

Share a few dreamlike photos together in a story, or for an idea. Combine the last challenge with this one.

In this case, this post is the dream of a dystopian neighborhood for the rich, glass prisons in the sky.