Thursday April 24, 2014

NEW YORK NEW YORK – I have discussed in the past the “golden hour” as it occurs in Manhattan. It’s not the period immediately after sunrise or immediately before sunset (as it is our in the real landscape) – at those times its too dark on the street for effective “cityscape” images. The best times of day at this time of year are actually around 10:00 in the morning and 4:00 in the afternoon when you have a rich interplay of shadows and reflections.

Out in the real landscape I’ve learned that when a golden hour occurs just stop and photograph whatever is at hand. It doesn’t matter what it is. It will look great. You’re photographing the light, not objects around you. The same applies in urban settings. When a golden hour happens just start shooting. I usually look up. Here I’ve done it again. Let me know if you are getting tired of these.

Day 1,652 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.

Citicorp
Citicorp

On this day last year (day 1,287): GM Building.

Used to be the GM building

Wednesday April 23, 2014

NEW YORK – You’ve seen a lot of my work around the plaza in front of the Seagram Building and the Racquet and Tennis Club: Mies meets Stanford White. Of course cater-corner from the Seagram Building is DOM’s Lever House. Here it is backlit.

Day 1,651 of one picture a day for the rest of my life.

Lever House
Lever House

On this day two years ago (day 921): Rock Center via iPhone.

Rock Center
Rock Center

Monday April 21, 2014

NEW YORK NEW YORK – Spring has arrived with a clamor so I took a walk in Central Park. I have a new old lens: a Leica R 16mm fisheye which I can use on my Leica M camera (generally converting its color images to black and white). This is not a true fisheye: it doesn’t produce a circular image with a 180 degree field of view: it’s more like 150 degrees. It does preserve size relationships near the edge of the frame which means that straight lines are curved. This is very noticeable when shooting architectural subjects which have straight lines, but actually looks natural shooting rocks and trees as in the first image below. Anyway, it was a nice day so I had trouble making selections.

Day 1,649 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.

Central Park
Central Park
Bride
Bride
Reservoire
Reservoire
Bandshell
Bandshell

On this day three years ago (553): The Forbidden City

South gate of the Forbidden City
South gate of the Forbidden City

Tuesday April 15, 2014

NEW YORK NEW YORK – Tax day. This is ordinarily a pretty grim day. “The ides of April?” But today was actually visually interesting. A trip to our daughter’s office provided a new angle on the local cityscape; a new lens provided a fairly energetic rainy cityscape out my window, and I got some decent images of our granddaughter.

Day 1,643 of one photo every day for the rest of my life.

Baby V
Baby V
Francesca's conference room
Francesca’s conference room
Out my window
Out my window

On this day one year ago (day 1,278): Building. Obscured by a tree.

Obscure
Obscure