Here are some pix from the trip I took to New York in October. I consider it a personal travesty that I haven't posted them yet but in my defense I've been feverishly filling Christmas orders and these panoramas have been giving me fits!
These are panos of N.Y.C. shot from Liberty Island. The shorter are 10"X50" and consist of nine images stitched together. The longer is 10"X60". When I first worked on these I measured my horizons from the buildings and they were straight but the waterline wasn't. I didn't think it looked that bad until I saw it on my friend Josh's gigantic monitor, AWFUL!! I spent a couple of days panicking because I knew that in order to make the waterline straight the buildings would be crooked so I was scared to even open the files again. I straightened the waterline and tried to ignore the buildings, tested it on the unsuspecting public (my family) and they didn't notice anything. Still bugged. Worked with the images with the lens distortion tool in Pshop and that helped a bit but it's still off. Conclusion: 1. Panos aren't ever going to be perfect (grrr) and 2. I'm just tired of staring at this picture so this will have to do. =)
If anyone has any opinions on which they like best I'd love to hear. I seriously have lost all ability to judge, lol.
I'm only doing one post for the whole week so I tried really, REALLY, hard to edit to my most favoritest images.
Columbus Circle, one of my favorite places in N.Y.C. and my favorite metro stop. I love coming out under the big silver globe. I did this in sepia to accent the lines of the buildings. I like how they loom and curve.
Love street fairs and bright colors and sparkly things.
Haha, just had to. The Naked Cowboy wasn't there on my first trip. Had to snap a pic (or two or three). Haha!!
Fantastic "street performers". I think they were actually from some sort of church group. Love, love, LOVED listening/watching them. I had a terrible time picking out my favorite image. I'm down on the ground with my huge camera and he totally hammed it up for me. SO fun!
I'm on a billboard on Times Square with my honey!!! =)
There aren't words for how much I love the Metro system.
I was walking down the streets of SoHo in the rain and of course singing Werewolves of London when I saw this shot that I just thought was cool and realized that as the song was Werewolves of LONDON it must be talking about a different SoHo, oh well.
So they have parades in N.Y.C. for Colombus day, who knew? Some people from Denmark were standing next to us and asked us if we celebrate Columbus day like this and we were like "Ummm no, we don't even get out of school".
Anyway, there was a parade AND Bagpipers ( I WILL learn to play the bagpipes someday) AND, wait for it, CONFETTI!!! Oh, was I so bouncing up and down while Todd laughed at me!!
Had to take pictures of this random Cafe under a bridge.
I saw a picture like this in one of my photography magazines and have been wanting to shoot this ever since. This is Grand Central Station and I'm up on the balcony, dead center, with my camera propped up on my hands which are propped on the railing and I'm not breathing at all beacause I wanted a long exposure to blur people. It was a total fluke that I caught that camera flash from the Gentleman on the floor, it's my favorite part. I couldn't decide color or no color, any thoughts??
LOVED Coney Island. Of course I had to get an original Nathan's Hotdog, y'all know my thing for iconic food, and while I was there I tried their frog legs, because I've never had them before so I had to! =)
We had the greatest skies while we were in New York. It was always on the verge of raining, or sprinkling, and one night boy oh boy did it ever pour down, so I had great clouds to work with.
As you can see I'm under the pier, just another of the pictures in my head.
Love Lady Liberty, that's all.
These shots are in the Visitors Center on Ellis Island. It's hard to describe how much that place moved me. I'm very visual so to me the greatest treasures were the pictures of the immigrants in their Native dress that were taken as they came to this country to begin a new life. I felt a connection to them, these people from so long ago. I just sat and stared at their eyes and wondered how their lives turned out, how they felt about being in this strange new land, what incredible courage they must have had. It made me want to be stronger and less afraid of taking risks in my own life.
The room below is The Great Hall where Immigrants waited for their interviews with legal inspectors after finishing their medical exams. If they were lucky the entire process through Ellis Island took three to five hours. I wanted to emphasize the size of the room because I imagined that it had to have been pretty intimidating to be there as an immigrant so I'm once again laying flat on the floor...I spent a lot of time in N.Y.C. doing that.
I just really love the Brooklyn Bridge, probably because Todd loves documentaries so I've learned all kinds of crazy fun stories about its construction. This time I ate that day so I didn't feel like I was dying walking across it and was able to savor it more.
We had the most amazing sunsets while we there. This was one of those stop and stare, oh wait I need a pic, go back to stopping and staring. Definitely a "savor the perfect moment" moment.
Another pano I played with. the exposure is longer so it looks lighter than it really was. I messed a bit with trying to fix the perspective but it just made things weird so I'm going for "artistic" here.
One of my favorite spots in Brooklyn is the Brooklyn Bridge Park. It's this tiny park with the most incredible views of the skyline.
Playing with zooming my lens during my exposure to create something different. I like the ghost skyline in the one above and I think this is my favorite pic of Times Square that I've taken. I have struggled and struggled to get a picture of Times Square that "feels" right and I just can't seem to manage it. This one comes pretty darn close for me.
Four of my favorite buildings in New York, also wanted to try my hand at making my own postcard.
Last but not least, Imagine in Strawberry Fields. Love the song, love the place, love the city. thank you kind reader for making it to the end of this post. Loves!!! xoxox
As I've mentioned before I assign myself a monthly photo project. Actually for 2011 I'm going to be doing something a little different. I'm going to try photographing a different temple every month. I'm not sure exactly how that will work, I imagine that some of the farther away temples may have pictures taken that are less than ideal because I'll have to work with whatever conditions I find, but I'm still excited. This is something that I have been thinking about for several years. My beloved Aunt Carol asked me to think about taking a picture of the Salt Lake Temple because she didn't really like any of the pictures available. This got me looking around and I realized that I too didn't really like any of the pictures I came across. Oh, there are plenty of gorgeous shots but for some reason none "feel" right to me. I hope that doesn't come across as rude, I don't mean it to, I'm just not framing a huge picture for my wall unless it speaks to my heart. Anyway, I decided to start a little early with the Ogden Temple because it will shortly be under construction and I wanted to get a picture of it before it is changed. I'm a little not happy about the whole remodel idea. I understand the reasoning but this is how the Temple has looked my entire life and it's good enough for me.
I figured I should grab a shot of the Tabernacle while I was there. I'm a sucker for berries in snow.
