I'm often in the park on one of my many perambulations, and I see some really cool bird, and invariably, I have the wrong lens, or the wrong camera, or no camera (haha - as if), and I miss out on a cool moment. Well, today I decided I'd bring the long lens (well, at 70-200 it's not really that long), and deliberately seek out the birds for a change.
Remembering Paris
For no particular reason, today I got all nostalgic about our trip to Paris back in 2010. I like going back over my photos, with the distance a few years provides, and looking at photos that I might not, at the time, have considered all that interesting. Often, I find that I've changed my mind, or I see something new that I never noticed before.
More photos from the trip are on Flickr.
Chelsea
New Year's Eve Photowalk
According to my Nike+ Fuel Band, I've been pretty inactive for... well, the whole month of December. In a quest to end the month (and the year) on a strong note, I decided to go on what turned into a rather epic photo walk.
I started in Prospect Park, worked my way through Windsor Terrace and Park Slope, then headed towards the infamous Gowanus Canal (I hear it has gonorrhea). I then made my way over to Cobble Hill, and finally finished up in Downtown Brooklyn, where I hopped on the Q train and headed back home.
It took about 3 hours, and got me to within a few points of my daily Fuel Point goal. Here's to an active 2013.
2012 Journal
As we come close to the end of 2012, I thought I'd put together a collection of some of the notable moments in my life over the past year.
The first part of the year was heavily centered around my finally becoming a citizen of the United States. Other than that, babies were the other big thing this year - I went to no less than three baby showers. There was also a wedding, a 60th anniversary, a Grammy-winning artist, a comedian, some hip-hop, some classical, Las Vegas, and a mustache.
This is one of the things I love not just about being a photographer, but about the exploding ubiquity of cameras in our culture: much of my life is fairly well-documented, and looking back over my photos helps to remind me that despite the mundane-ness of my day-to-day existence (sleep, work, home, rinse, repeat), I have a pretty great life.
Farewell, Movember
It was silly and fun, and I'm proud of the the funds my team at Deutsch Inc. raised, but that mo had to go.
if you haven't had a chance to give yet, donations are still being being accepted until December 9th.
"Knowledge is Power, the Mustache is King."
Bike Path
A wind-blown sign at the Parkside Ave. entrance to Prospect Park.
Rugby Road
Google's New Decor
I'm a big fan of the new ransom-note-esque sign our landlords at Google have installed in their NYC headquarters.
Easy Macro
Wow. My pal Scott gave me this Easy Macro doodad for my phone, and I'm blown away by the images I'm getting with it. The Easy Macro is basically a rubber band with a tiny lens attached to it, that you position in front of your phone's camera. It allows you to get close to stuff ? waaay close. The resulting images are really impressively sharp, as long as you're within the proper focusing distance. The cheapness and curvature of the lens also combine to give the resulting image a nice blurred vignette around the edges. I know it's only a matter if time before this rubber band thing comes apart, but in the meantime I'm going to have fun shooting with this thing.
Busta Rhymes & Co.
A few shots from this year's Advertising Week opening night concert. More images on Fiickr.
Hoops
A young boy watches some street ball being played at the courts in the Parade Grounds at Prospect Park.
Fashion's Night Out
I accidentally got myself caught amongst the throngs of fashionistas swarming Broadway during Fashion's Night Out last week. Thankfully, I missed the rioting, but I did feel very pedestrian in my standard Old Navy/Banana Republic that I was probably wearing.
The stylish throngs massing on Broadway
Andrea
Portrait of Andrea, shot during last weekend's festivities.
Moonrise
The moon rising in the clear evening sky over Manhattan.
Downtown Brooklyn
Images from Downtown Brooklyn and Christopher Columbus Park.
Northern Spy Food Co.
My wife and I made a visit to the always awesome Highline Park yesterday, where I made this portrait of the young sandwich artist (artisan?) who hooked up our excellent grilled cheese sandwiches at the Northern Spy Food Co.’s Highline outpost. Like many other photographers, it’s an ongoing goal of mine to shoot more portraits of strangers, so this was a small step in that direction for me. Sadly, I neglected to get my subject’s name — definitely a rookie move on my part.
Incidentally, the sandwiches were slowly crafted and went well with the gazpacho we shared. Gazpacho is one of those things that’s never my first choice, but when I do have it, I enjoy it immensely. We finished our meal off with a tasty treat from L’Arte del Gelato across the way. Delicioso!
One last note: I made my diptych above with Tych Panel, which was recently updated for compatibility with Photoshp CS6. For the unfamiliar, Tych Panel is a fantastic extension for Photoshop that allows you to easily create n-tychs from a group of photographs. I highly recommend it.
34th Street, NYC
Shot on a short walk from 8th to 6th Avenue, and in the subway at Herald Square.
Scenes from the Commute
This week's commute includes a bit of anti-consumerist graffiti, a sleepy Yankees fan and an in-passing shot of the Manhattan bridge.
One World Trade Center
Here’s a vertical pano of the still-under-construction World Trade Center building that I shot a few weeks ago. I had rented a 100-400mm zoom lens from Adorama over the weekend, and wanted to get in a few last shots before returning it, so I could get the most possible bang for my buck out of it. I decided that a good way to do that would be to get up early and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge before work, and get some shots that I normally wouldn’t be able to with my own stable of lenses.
This shot is a vertical panorama stitched together from three shots, and at full size, it’s a whopping 3403 x 9236 pixels. I scaled it down to a more respectable 6000 pixels tall before uploading it to Flickr, but even at that size you can still see some construction workers if you look closely.
The development has had its share of problems (consider that the Burj Khalifa was started after and completed years sooner than One WTC), but I think it’s shaping up to be a gorgeous building. It recently achieved the milestone of surpassing the Empire State Building in height, becoming the tallest building in New York City in the process, and will ultimately top out at a very symbolic 1776 feet when construction is complete.