BALTAZAR RAY

Baltazar Ray (pen name) is an Architect, Photographer, Digital Artist, and Author. A Filipino man in New York.

He says, "If Elon Musk is crazy about rockets, I am crazy about fire hydrants. And that's just how life

is all about." His goal is to write and produce MORE work about fire hydrants under the banner--FancyCrazyHydrants.

Heroes and inspiration:

The Beatles, Andy Warhol, Eugene Atget, Man Ray, William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander, Jack Kerouac, Jimi Hendrix, J.D. Salinger and many more.

Link: https://linktr.ee/BaltazarRayImagen

Email: BaltazarRayImagen@gmail.com

The FancyCrazyHydrants Timeline - How the dots were connected.

As told by Baltazar Ray on how FancyCrazyHydrants came into being. (dates are estimate):

-Discovered the library and read mostly adventure books (enjoyed it!) - year 1966

-Was introduced to photography including darkroom work (during Architecture days in college) - year 1972

-As an Architect, while travelling, I saw different designs of "farmer's rest house," I thought it was a good photography

project and was mulling about it for a long time - (collection photography) (sigh...someday) - year 1982

-Fast forward--was introduced to early digital cameras - Sony Mavica (love it!--no more darkroom!) - year 1997?

-Started shooting street photography (New York City and vicinity) - year 1997

-Discovered FIRE HYDRANTS! (from street photography) (collection photography--remember?) - year 1997

-Read a newspaper article about Mark Chapman boasting "Everyone should read "The Catcher In The Rye" as it is a

mysterious and magical book." (something like that) - year 1998

-Curious, I searched out the book, then read it. I was "unimpressed" and I said naively to myself, "That's it? I can

write a better book than this." (but had know idea what book to write) - year 1998

-Made a website about my photo collection of fire hydrants, The website's name--"FancyCrazyHydrants." year 1999

-Exhibited my FancyCrazyHydrants artsy photos! - year 1999

-The website site felt meaningless and pointless to me after all, I said, "Maybe I'll write a children's book about fire

hydrants (the book that is supposedly better than "The Catcher In The Rye." (laughs) (who am I kidding?--sorry J.D!)

- year 1999

-I started "dreaming" about the story. No outline. I imagined a taxi speeding down the road and accidentally hit a fire

hydrant...and I just let the story flow...on its own....- year 2000

-The Adventures of the FancyCrazyHydrants - The Mission" was BORN! - (still WORK in progress--a life long odyssey!)

-year 2000 to present.