I’m an amateur photographer, doing the best I can with my iPhone 7 and enjoying every minute of it. I like framing the shot, trying to capture a digital image of what I see and want to preserve.

But sometimes I try to get technical, to shoot the difficult and ephemeral — to photograph the rain, for instance.

I wasn’t sure I could do it, have tried before. But the rain in New York last month was falling so fast and furiously that I was able to snap this shot of it streaming through the skies, down the tenement fronts and into the rooftop pool of the newish hotel across the street.

This shot captures a moment and a downpour I won’t soon forget. Water was streaming into the New York City subway system that evening, flooding major highways and making national news. 

What I didn’t know then is that the rain would also delay the bass player from the band my cousin leads and in which my brother plays drums— the band we had come to New York to hear. And in fact, the drummer would end up missing all but three songs in the set. 

On the other hand, I did get an interesting rain photo out of it.