Hudson Valley and Manhattan Fall Season
So it’s my favorite time of the year again here in the east coast. Hot and humid season are far gone and welcome cold season. I just love the fall season here in the east coast specially Hudson Valley. The fall colors are just amazing and I hope the following photographs gave it justice. The first two photos were taken in Woodstock, NY, the next several photos are of Cold Spring, NY and the last series are of Manhattan’s Central Park. I’m also including two photograph of my dog Oliver who’s always with me in my photographic adventures. Enjoy and let me know if you guys have any questions about the photographs.
New York Botanical Garden Train Show
Last weekend I ventured out to the Bronx and visited New York Botanical Garden. It was my first time at this place and it was so nice that I’m planning to go back in the spring when the flowers are in bloom. There was a Holiday Train Show at the conservatory and was planning on photographing trains but as you can see I ended up photographing miniature NYC landmarks and buildings. The fascinating part of this show was all of the miniature buildings and bridges were made out of plants and plant products. I would suggest for you guys to go check it out but last weekend was the last weekend of the Holiday show. But you should check it out next year. Enjoy the photos!
Fall in Central Park
Hello there!! I know that It’s been a while since the last time I posted something. I have been trying to update the website and make some improvements. I just been very busy at work and I kind of been slacking on my photography. I am trying to change that and re-evaluate updating my blog weekly, I think that was too ambitious in my part. I will do my best to post every few weeks, I think that is more realistic than a weekly posting.
For this posting I went back to one of my favorite places to photograph in NYC at my favorite time of the year, fall. I was able to leave work early one afternoon and I work near the south east entrance (59th Street and 5th Ave) of Central Park so I just started walking from there. I headed up north through Central Park Zoo and then headed north west. The top picture was taken from Oak Bridge, a narrow arm of Central Park Lake at its northernmost tip connecting the path along the West Drive and the Ramble. I love this picture because I like how the buildings just kind of pop out behind the lush trees and this beautiful lake.
The bottom two pictures are of Bethesda Fountain. I have photographed this fountain many times but I just love coming back here. Under the Bethesda Terrace is the lower passage, it’s a must see in my opinion. I just love photographing this passage. The colors and the fine detail on the walls and ceiling are just amazing and as an added plus there’s always some type of musical performance.
I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed making them and I’ll see you guys on the next update. As usual please leave questions, comments and/or suggestions.
DetailsThe Great Lawn and Queensbro Bridge
This was another beautiful day in NYC. I decided to venture in the east side of NYC since I hang out mostly on the west side. I have to admit that I had a hard time getting inspired to photograph. It was a nice day so I started walking south east starting from 57th street. I walked east towards 1st avenue and then headed south. I walked up to 14th street zig zagging between 1st and 3rd avenue. It was a first time that I didn’t take one photo of anything. I needed to be inspired so I though about heading north and I had an idea of taking the RI Tram from NYC to Roosevelt Island, I heard that it had a great view of the city so I decided to head back north.
I got to the tram station and it turned out that it was still under renovation. I was really bummed out, I decided to keep heading east. Running along side the tram cables was Queensboro bridge (top photo). This was taken over a metal and concrete fence and right below it was FDR drive. It was kind of scary cause I had to climb up and take the photo over the metal fence, the fence was uninteresting so I didn’t want to include it in the photo. I think the photo turned out well, since it was a wide shot I had to fix a slight “keystoning†of the building in the background.
I was kind of exhausted at this point so I started to head home and went through Central Park. The park was full of people enjoying the beautiful day playing baseball, sun bathing, picnicking and just hanging out. I walked across between Belvedere Castle and the Great Lawn. I was actually trying to photograph Belvedere Castle but it was kind blah, so I turned around took the bottom photo of the Great Lawn. I like this photo better than the photos of the castle since this had more dramatic colors, the sky, the green lawn, trees in the background and the people enjoying the day. This was late afternoon and the castle was side lit, it was not very interesting to me and the sky over the castle was just not there for me. The lesson for me this week was not to give up easily, have a plan B and C if plan A doesn’t work out and if a shot was not working remember to turn around and see what’s behind you. I hope you enjoy the photos and see you next week. Please leave comments, questions, and suggestions.
DetailsLocal Neighborhood Scene
I went for a walk this past Thursday to take photograph of some local scenes. I live in Harlem, NY and I ended up walking south on the Hudson River Park/Greenway Park. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to photograph so I just decided to walk south and as I was walking I turned around and I saw this view of George Washington Bridge. I wasn’t sure if the photo was going to work out since it was the middle of the day, very sunny and very bright. To get the color of the sky I used circular polarizer and I underexposed by 1 to 2 stops. I got some dramatic sky and you can see some traffic on the bridge.
It was getting too hot walking by the river since there was no shade, so I decided to walk across and head to Central Park. I entered the park on 93rd street and headed north. I was not familiar with north west area of the park so I just went to different paths and see if there was anything interesting to photograph. I fallowed group of kids and I found this little water falls. It was not the greatest light and the water was a little murky. I usually have my tripod with me but on this instance I didn’t have it. So both photos were handheld. For the water falls it was a little difficult because I had a longer exposure, even though I had VR lens I still had to hold the camera very still to avoid any shake.
I took several shots and I was still getting some shake and blur. With the water falls photo I decided to use the live view feature to lessen the shake from the mirror movement. From the group of pictures I took this was the best one I think. I decided to convert it to black and white since the color wasn’t really interesting and to also cover some of the blur and shake still on the photo. Thanks for visiting. Please leave comments and questions.
DetailsAngel
Here’s another photo from the B&H Lensbaby Urban Photo Safari workshop. The instructor gave us a list to photograph in Central Park and this is one of them. We have seen many photographs of Bethesda fountain and I wanted to create a different view or perspective. I have seen similar photograph of the fountain but not with the same effect as with the Lensbaby. I knew I wanted to photograph the fountain but I wanted a different view or angle. I was happily surprised to see the cellist playing and I knew I wanted to incorporate him in the picture. I took several shot of him but I wanted the angel and the fountain to be part of photograph. So I came up with this photograph of the fountain and a silhouette of the cellist. I was hoping to just photograph the fountain and the cellist but it was summer and in the middle of the afternoon in NYC, but I think the picture still worked out. Let me know if you have any comment and/or questions.
DetailsLensbaby Urban Photo Safari
I went to a great workshop/Photo Safari at my favorite store B&H this past week. The topic was Lensbaby. I have heard of this lens before but never had a chance to photograph with it. This particular workshop was special cause we got to borrow a Lensbaby and take it for a Photo Safari in Central Park for a couple of hours. Lensbaby was practically a 50mm lens. There were three kinds of Lensbaby and I got to try the Composer which had a ball and socket configuration that delivers selective focus. The lens can be moved around and select a focus area within the frame. Available in manual focus only so it took me awhile to get used to the lens and on top of that I have a older nikon model so it only worked in Manual mode. But it’s a good creative and artistic lens to have specially if you want to reinvigorate your photography. It inspired me to photograph more after the workshop. So this photograph I chose to post process it in black and white cause I thought it gave it more impact than the original colored picture. The focused area on this picture was right in the middle, just above the man. I like the effect that it has, it felt like everything around the focused area were being drawn towards it. I have not decided if I want to purchase this lens and how useful it will be with my photography but I had a lot of fun photographing with it and walking around Central Park. Please leave comments and questions.
Details