Thread: My month in New York City

Originally Posted by Crsnydertx

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

Originally Posted by Landshark

love the "snort"

Thanks Bob. That's probably the most casually taken of any of them and its my favorite from the day as well.

-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:




-Ray

Originally Posted by Pelao

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

Ray,

I like the photos. However, I like the original B+W better. I don't care for the greenish cast this one has.

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...























-Ray

Some great 'character' shots in this latest set.

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







Several from the Park:







My flower shot for the year...






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!









-Ray