My month in New York City

Enjoying the Greenwich Village shots; I lived there briefly in a long-ago phase of my life. Went to a little below-street level restaurant on Bleecker Street, and at the table behind me sat a young up-and-coming singer/poet named Bob Dylan...

There's so much history in this city, the '60s being just one small chapter. I believe Dylan and Joni Mitchell and a few other notables lived in the Chelsea Hotel, which is still up on 23rd St, just a few blocks up from where I'm staying. She wrote Chelsea Morning about the place. And they all played down in the Village at the various folk clubs, which is really only about 10-15 blocks south of the Hotel. The West Village is probably about the prettiest part of the City at least from what I've seen - the Upper West Side is also very nice but in a much more formal and stately sort of way. The Village is just casually elegant as hell. And then Soho and Noho are really funky but very trendy and also very expensive. Those are the areas that really stand out to me so far. I can't imagine how much it would take to buy a place in the West Village (or really ANYwhere in the Village) - its all VERY high end with exclusive boutiques that just won't quit.

-Ray
 
Maybe it's Mario's brother Luigi (not the Leicatime guy). Either Mario or Luigi is skinny. And the other is pudgier.

As for the walking mannequin, at least he got a happy face! He looks better than Nancy Pelosi and Jerry Jones!
 
Ray,
Just about to start a brainstorm meeting for a new campaign, and while waiting for everyone to load up on caffeine I have been cruising your photographs again. I feel they really capture the nature of the city. Really, really good. Thanks for sharing.
 
Aaaarrrggghhhh!!!!

Here I am with only about a week left in my stay, and Nik updates snapseed with MUCH better B&W controls and much better vignette tools as well. I could have really used these earlier in the month - I've always found snapseed awfully limited for B&W. Now it's much better. I'm not going to go back and reprocess at this point - I'll wait until I get home and redo them with Silver Efex Pro. But it would have been nice to have.

I also found out about Photogene which has EXACTLY the organizational tool I was looking for before this trip. Would have made culling through all of these shots while processing soooo much easier. Oh well - I have 'em now and I'll get a week out of them anyway.

Here's a preprocessed shot and a new one, both from yesterday, using the new tools.

Much grittier and starker, which I wanted for this shot:
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-Ray
 
Ray,
Just about to start a brainstorm meeting for a new campaign, and while waiting for everyone to load up on caffeine I have been cruising your photographs again. I feel they really capture the nature of the city. Really, really good. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks so much! I'm really enjoying this process immensely. I'm happy with some of what I'm getting and much less so with some, but if I can create an overall picture of the place, they don't have to all be good individually. I'm glad you're enjoying it as well.

-Ray
 
If I were to design a photo tour of the city, one of the days would no doubt be what I did today and have done 2-3 times already in my various trips to New York. Basically start off in the morning as far south on Broadway as you can handle (it runs the full length of the island so if you were a real serious hiker, I guess you could do the whole thing) and walk up to somewhere in the middle portion of Central Park, maybe in the 80's somewhere. You have the sun at your back and if there's any better street shooting ANYwhere, I want to go there. Then, once you're exhausted from the street shooting dance, grab a lunch or something up on the West Side and then cut over to the Park. The whole park is beautiful, but there's nothing prettier than the middle portion, around the lake, the theater, the turtle pond, the boathouse, the great lawn, the mall etc. Just wander around for a while and then you can catch a subway on either side of the park to get back down as far south as you need to go.

That's what I did today. The street shots were with the Olympus and the 12mm. The Park shots were mostly the Fuji but I pulled out the Oly when I needed a zoom. Here are some street shots - the Park shot maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow...

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-Ray
 
A few more from Friday

A couple on 82nd Street, heading over to the Park. Nearly every little residential street is loaded with interesting architectural details.

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Several from the Park:

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My flower shot for the year...
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And a few from last night, in Chelsea and the Village - I love shooting at night, but the cameras are just getting really good at it as I approach the age of not wanting to stay out much. Another of life's cruel ironies, like the sports cars wasted on the old guys who can afford them!

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-Ray
 
Ray, the b&w of the archways and reflections is magical. I think if I found a place like that I'd be there forever shooting it from every angle.

Thanks Nic. I took a few, but that was the best. Its a pretty iconic spot in New York, shows up in a lot of movies and stuff. And a LOT of much better photographers than I have taken tripods in there and given it a pretty good working over. That's so removed from the way I generally shoot that its hard for me to slow down that thoroughly, so its probably never going to be the type of photography I'm best at.

You can credit the X-Pro 1 to a pretty large extent too. I've taken a few cameras in there on various visits to the park and the X-Pro 1 (and X100 to only a slightly lesser extent) are the only cameras I've been able to get the interior of that place well and still see ANYthing other than a bright shining blob at the end where the stairs are. I'm sure it can be done with lesser gear if you really take the time to work it out, or do bracketed HDR or something, but that's just using the X-Pro set to auto DR and making sure I keep the ISO up high enough for the DR to work. Walked in, point, and shot. And it came out OK.

-Ray
 
Ray......the arches shot is my pick. Spectacular! Love the reflection shot too with that vivid green. It's like a swift punch in the face......but in a good way if you follow my drift. I loved the architecture of the upper east side when I w as there and wish I had taken more time to shoot it. The wealthy wrinkled old prunes that inhabit the area are just as interesting a subject as the "underclass" that frequents the less salubrious neighbourhoods.

I am back from wet, grey and miserable France. I couldnt do an e-book of my NYC street stuff as paypal USA will not accept paypal uk email addresses. Typical snafu!.

Love your NYC sojourn. Paul Theroux? Eat your heart out!
 
Today is a Noreaster and looks and feels like a washout, so I'm staying in. Also have just about filled my 64gb iPad with images, so its time to CULL. There's more than enough total garbage that even being extremely generous I should be able to free up about half of it, which will be more than enough for the last week. But I'm glad I got the 64 gig version. I didn't need the 3G but I thought I might need the memory and I was right.

Anyway, just got finished working through yesterday's shooting. I basically just walked over to Union Square Park and shot a bunch there, then walked down to Washington Square Park and shot very little, and then back home. Lots of shooting on the walks to and from and between the parks. Pretty good day for just being out a few hours. Here are samples:

First, a huge pretend string of pearls outside a gallery near my place:

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-Ray
 
Ray......the arches shot is my pick. Spectacular! Love the reflection shot too with that vivid green. It's like a swift punch in the face......but in a good way if you follow my drift. I loved the architecture of the upper east side when I w as there and wish I had taken more time to shoot it. The wealthy wrinkled old prunes that inhabit the area are just as interesting a subject as the "underclass" that frequents the less salubrious neighbourhoods.

I am back from wet, grey and miserable France. I couldnt do an e-book of my NYC street stuff as paypal USA will not accept paypal uk email addresses. Typical snafu!.

Love your NYC sojourn. Paul Theroux? Eat your heart out!

Thanks much Pete. Sorry you couldn't do an e-book - I'll still check out the preview on a more viewable monitor when I get home. I have to admit I've spent less time on the upper east side than the upper west side. The parts I've been in feel somewhat similar but without the jolt of Broadway running through the middle and the reachable beauty of riverside park just below. And once you get down to 2nd and 3rd, it starts getting a bit funkier than Park and Lex. Also not sure where Spanish Harlem starts - sort of felt like the transition was well underway by the mid-to high 80s where the fancy boutiques and trattorias turn into Best Buy's and pizza joints. I'm heading up there tomorrow to meet up with a friend who lives in the area and hopefully he can give me a bit more educated understanding of the area...

-Ray
 
No shooting yesterday - total rainout. Today I headed up to the upper east side to meet up with a friend from DPR (we tried to do a podcast with him a while back, but never managed to connect). He's a super for a 30+ story condo building up there and we went up on the roof. VERY cool views. Sort of neat seeing THAT part of the city from on-high - not the typical view from Rock Center or the Empire State Bldg. Here's one wide angle and three short telephoto shots from up there. Then we had a really nice walk around the neighborhood and through the park and I'll include a couple of park shots and a couple of street shots. A pretty light day of shooting - but a nice day of hanging out...

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And finally, a diner from "my" neighborhood, temporary though it may be...

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-Ray
 
Mostly architecture and city-scapes today

Wasn't in the mood for street shooting today (I'm kind of amazed at how much of this month I HAVE been in that mood considering how exhausting it can sometimes be). I'm trying to go see the little pockets of Manhatten that I've missed this week and it turns out I haven't missed all that much - I've missed loads of details but I'm getting familiar with most of the island, at least in broad strokes. Today I headed for the western portion of Soho and down to Tribeca, which it turns out is just sort of the northwest part of Downtown. Lots of interesting architecture, mostly new stuff. And some older details too.

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The fountains at City Hall Park:
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And again, finishing up back in my neighborhood with a mix of old and less old...
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-Ray
 
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