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Articles Tagged with: NYC

Replacements Weekend in Brooklyn

Last weekend I took a trip with my daughter to see one of my favorite reunited bands, The Replacements, play at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. It was their first show in NY in 23 years, and it was the 3rd Replacements show I’ve been lucky enough to see since they reunited in Toronto last year. It was also the best one yet, but that might be influenced by all of the friends that were there to witness it with us.

Traveling with my daughter, I didn’t want to impose ourselves on my friends’ couches and spare rooms, so we used airbnb to get a sweet apartment in Brooklyn. Just a block away from McCarrren Park & Pool, we were in a great location for wandering around and checking out the Brooklyn scene.

We took full advantage of the great weather and spent a lot of time walking/shopping/eating in lower Manhattan as well.

We also caught a nice Sunset over NJ from the High Line:

It’s hard not to miss my old stomping grounds when you’re sharing a bottle of wine with friends on a rooftop in Brooklyn while looking at the Manhattan skyline. Good food, good music, and good people. That’s a good life right there…

You can check out the rest of my photos from our weekend trip on this Flickr set.

One last thing – I’ve joined Ello (thanks for the invite Patch Whisky), which is branding itself as the Anti-Facebook – an effort to cure all of the evils of the biggest social network. Check me out here.

Happy Halloween 2012

It’s with a somber tone that we celebrate this Halloween, knowing how many kids and families have had their lives thwarted into all kinds of uncertainty due to Hurricane Sandy’s late-season wrath. I’m grateful that our country’s leadership has learned from it’s all-too-recent past mistakes in dealing with homeland disasters. The local and federal governments worked together swiftly and are handling this like we all hope they should. No politics from those involved, just action.

Speaking of action, that ridiculous (albeit awesome) composite at the top of this post was something I put together for my personal Facebook page. These are my family’s costumes this year. I’m Heisenberg – or Walter White from Breaking Bad. My daughter is a unicorn person, and my son is Steve from the popular video game Minecraft. My wife is doing a perfect representation of one of my all-time favorite characters – Dana Scully from the X-Files. I even made her her very own FBI badge using a recent headshot I did for her:

This evening we let the kids carve their pumpkins – they both did theirs with virtually no help from my wife and I. This is a first! I think they did a fantastic job.

And the big reveal of the final lighted pumpkins:

I know Halloween is just a silly holiday with a twisted history, but the day we like to celebrate is one that is full of community spirit, generosity, and most importantly fun. With all that has happened yesterday to the area I grew up in, where my children were born, and where my family and friends still call home, I think a little generosity and fun is just what we all need to remember what’s important to us.

It’s hard to believe that just a little over a week ago, My wife and I were there having a blast with our NY crew, and now they’re all dealing with this mess. Life changes swiftly, and it feels good to have the pictures that tell the stories of the good times. Here we are last Sunday with a bunch of our friends on Long Island at the diner in my home town. I’m glad that they are all safe, but sad for their struggles in the days to come.

Keep safe and save me a Baby Ruth!

A Day In NYC With A Nikon P7000

Last weekend I was in New York to catch the Archers of Loaf reunion shows, and on that Saturday, I had a few hours to kill before meeting up with my friends to go to the show. I had just received a new camera, the Nikon P7000, and really wanted to familiarize myself with the camera during this trip. Instead of doing a typical review of how the camera works (you can read those here and here), I figured I would just show you what I made with them and let you decide if you like the camera by what it’s possible of. If you’ve been reading my blog here, you know the kind of photography I make and you can see how well these photos stand up to my other work.

I started out in Astoria (which is a neighborhood in Queens for those of you who aren’t familiar) and walked a couple of blocks over to the train station.

I love public transportation in New York. During the day you don’t need to wait long for a train – who needs schedules?

After about 10 minutes, I arrived at the Fifth Ave./ 59th St. station.

I emerged from the subway to the sights and sounds I lived in for so many years in a past life.

My first stop was the cube Apple Store, which was completely covered with boards because it is under renovations – Not a problem, it makes for a more interesting atypical photo! Because it’s such a busy scene, the lines in the crosswalk come in handy as an element to draw your attention to the construction site in the center of this shot:

Just outside of the Apple cube was a brass band which was drawing quite a crowd. I snuck in from the street side and got in close – you can see my bald-headed reflection in the horn!

I was getting hungry and thirsty and I knew exactly what I wanted: A dirty-water dog. I didn’t have to walk far into Central Park to find a cart and a bench to sit on.

As I sat and enjoyed my mystery meat on a bun, I started to compose the scenes around me. Right across the way was a guitarist and girl eating her lunch. While the guitarist was interesting, I couldn’t get a good shot of the girl that was flattering because she was munching on her food the whole time. I figured I’d drag the shutter a little to get a pedestrian walking by and capture the motion. This was the result:

To the right was a pretty lady getting her portrait made:

I ventured further into the park, past the zoo, and through this tunnel to see what moments I could capture.

Isolating a person in a scene is a lot harder than you can imagine on a perfect Saturday afternoon in the park. I found this girl hanging out on the rocks – she wasn’t alone though. There were 8 other people on the same rock, but I found this angle to single her out:

As I walked further into the park, I started to hear live amplified music. I followed my ears until I came upon the Summer Stage. I walked in just in time to catch a set from Fitz & The Tantrums!

Fitz & The Tantrums at Central Park 2011

Boy, did that put me in a good mood! By the end of their set, there was nothing but smiles in the crowd. I had food in my belly, a song in my head, and a new camera to break in. You couldn’t ask for a better place in the world to be at that moment. I ventured back out into the park and stumbled upon some people doing the Tango in the middle of the path. I knew it was the Tango, because someone was kind enough to spell it out for me on the ground.

I decided to climb some rocks and came across this fantastic view – I fell to my stomach and quickly shot this as there was a clear people-less view!

I looked around and there were so many couples – it was quite romantic. I like this scene because there is a couple on the left, as well as a single guy looking over at a single woman. When coupled with the photo that follows it, there is a story of longing going on.

I really started to focus on couples for a while. This couple seems pretty focused on something off camera:

Here’s another couple checking out some photos on the girl’s camera:

It was sunny out for most of the day, and I was very happy to have an optical viewfinder on this compact camera – it’s a lot easier to see in bright conditions than the LCD screen. Speaking of the screen – It’s the same size as my D90’s screen! It’s bright and defined, and Nikon was kind enough to let you clear all of the visible data so you can shoot and view your photos without any clutter.

This couple eventually asked me to take a photo of them with their camera as well:

As I said earlier, I try to isolate my subjects, but in this photo you can see just how close people really are to each other:

It was time to head downtown to meet up with my friends. I put on my tourist hat and started taking shots of the buildings.

I absolutely love this action of this shot of a couple exiting F.A.O. Schwartz:

All of the shots I took in this series were made using the camera’s finest jpeg setting. I could shoot in RAW, but for purpose of this camera, which for me is primarily street and casual photography, the jpegs look downright amazing right out of the camera. I like to know that if I find myself in a situation where I know I will decide to do some extreme photo editing when I get back to my computer, I can switch to RAW. I did do some light editing in Lightroom on these, such as black & white conversions, cropping, & straightening, and tweaking of brightness & contrast.

I want to briefly touch on the features of the camera that stick out for me so far. If you’re a Nikon shooter, you should be pretty comfortable with the menu structure. However, I do find it strange how you can conveniently get to important settings using the camera’s quick menu dial, but you can’t get to all of those same settings using the menu button! The separation is a bit confusing. I also wish I could change the direction of the physical dials to mimic the way I have my D90 set up. I haven’t taken advantage of the User mode presets yet, but I think they’re a great idea. I really wish the exposure compensation dial was a dedicated ISO setting dial like the Canon G12 sports – it is a setting I find I’m constantly getting into. In fact, I had my quick menu set to the ISO function 90% of the time. I know it sounds silly, but I love that it has standard strap connectors so that I can use my favorite camera strap, the Domke Gripper. A good strap is something you shouldn’t overlook for your camera – if you you’re not comfortable carrying it, you’re less likely to do so!

This shot of a man on his phone is one of my favorite shots of the day – I walked up and was immediately drawn to the geometry of it all. I love the lines of the steps leading to the man and the pots and the trees at the top that balance it all.

I also love this simple street corner by the world famous Carnegie Deli. It’s not too busy and the tone made for a great black & white photo.

In conclusion, I friggin’ love this camera. It’s capable of taking very high quality shots in a small package. During this trip, I didn’t miss lugging around my DSLR and a bag full of glass. I was able to get great shots and look inconspicuous while doing it, which for street photography is a huge plus.

I took a lot of photos that day – you can see the full set on Flickr.

It’s Not The Camera

It’s who you know. But that’s not just what I’m talking about. Good pictures don’t care about hardware, they care about the intention and execution of the person conceiving and/or capturing them. Sure a camera’s lack of abilities can hinder you from getting a shot you envision, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a good shot with a poor camera! Once you realize this, it’s a matter of exploiting what the camera can do, and not wasting your time griping about what it can’t do.

The photo above was made at the Archers of Loaf concert in Brooklyn, NY this past Saturday. I made it on my iPhone using the app Camera+. I shot it, converted it to B&W, and immediately shared it on Facebook. The next day, a writer for L Magazine (who is an old friend) saw it and asked to use it for his review of the concert. So yes, it is mostly a case of who you know. I did offer up some technically better shots taken with a better camera, but he liked the iPhone one enough and it works in spite of the fact that it was made on a cell phone.

I’ll be sure to share more shots of the shows I attended this weekend that I made on my newest camera when I review it. I also have all of my vacation shots sorted out – just need to title and tag them, so that will be up this week also.

I Love NY

I spent this past weekend catching up with my best friends and former schoolmates in New York. While Times Square and Grand Central Station are not my favorite places in NYC, they are the places I spent a lot of time in while working at MTV and going to school in the MetLife building before that.

My buddy has this amazing idea for a reality show based around a very unique guy’s life and the people around him. The backdrop is Manhattan and while I was visiting he had to capture some b-roll of some of NY’s more well known sights. I decided to tag along and shoot some stills in these locations.

It’s hard to find a different or new way to shoot a place that literally tens of millions of people have photographed before. My attitude is to just be myself. I looked at the scene and thought of how I would like to arrange the elements from the vantage points I could reach. I also looked for moments such as this cab driver grabbing a snapshot:

Taxi cabs are to NYC as gnats are to Charleston, and I shot this scene of a taxi stand next to Grand Central Station to capture the movement of them.

I moved behind the stand a few feet after I noticed the homeless man in the shot to the left of the stand. I wanted to get a shot of him while people walked past him. The idea was inspired this shot by David duChemin. I like the idea of the forgotten soul who’s like a fixed installment of a given NY scene.

I had to catch a train back to meet up with another friend and I know that the transit authority is not keen on people taking photos in the subways, but I managed to grab this shot with my iPhone while waiting for the train back to Astoria: