Categories
Indoor Photos Urban

Say Cheese!

Categories
Landscape People Photos

Good Times

California’s beaches & rocky coasts are the best I’ve seen so far. Today we drove along Newport & went to the beach for a walk.  I don’t remember shooting this elderly couple, I guess it was Eileen. Nonetheless, I liked it so this’ll be today’s post. 🙂

Categories
Architecture Landscape People Photos Urban

Going to Church

This is the LA Cathedral. I’m off to attend my cousin’s wedding. From the I-20 & surrounding streets, this structure doesn’t look impressive at all, but once inside, you get to see & feel the vastness of the complex. Here are some facts & numbers:

  • Designed by Spanish Pritzker Prize architect Rafael Moneo.
  • Features a series of acute and obtuse angles. There is an absence of right angles.
  • Designed with protections from future earthquake structural damage. Every detail of construction was specified to last approximately five hundred years.
  • The site of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels is 5.6 acres (23,000 m²) bound by Temple Street, Grand Avenue, Hill Street and the Hollywood Freeway.
  • The 12-story high building can accommodate 3,000+ worshippers.
  • The site includes the cathedral proper, a 2.5 acre (10,000 m²) plaza, several gardens and waterfalls, the Cathedral Center (with the gift shop, the Galero Grill, conference center, and cathedral parish offices), and the cathedral rectory, the residence of Roger Mahony. The entire complex is 58,000 square feet (5,000 m²).
  • The main sanctuary is 333 feet (100 m) long (purposely one foot longer than St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York).
  • This is where Lea Salonga got married. 😉
Categories
Indoor People Photos Urban

Gearzmondo

Shiny, happy, tech news. Mr. Gaijin got a new toy. Best to test it on a trip to the West Coast then. 🙂

Categories
Architecture Photos Urban

Nice View

Toting a camera most of the time makes you more aware of your surroundings. Like this one, taken while waiting on the lobby of a midtown building.

Categories
Automobile Photos Urban

1936

Beneath all the glitz & glamour of those technologically advance automobiles at Javits Center, there was this less populous exhibit. It was a display of cars from the LeMay Museum, America’s car museum. And here was one of it’s stars, the 1936 Hudson Custom Eight Convertible Coupe.

Categories
Automobile Indoor Photos Urban

Furai

Early this morning, on my way to see the Easter parade at 5th Avenue, there was a lot of things running on my mind. Especially since the trains were running local, I had a lot of time to cerebrate. One of them was deciding whether to forgo the Easter parade for the Auto Show. Needless to say, I opted for the Auto Show, and it was great!

Here’s a quick clip of what this car is all about. Lifted from Wikipedia.

The Mazda Furai is a concept car revealed on 27 December, 2007 and manufactured by Mazda. A teaser image of the vehicle was released on 11 December, 2007. The Furai officially debuts at the 2008 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

The Furai, meaning Sound of the wind, is based on the Courage Compétition C65 Le Mans Prototype that Mazda last used to compete in the American Le Mans Series, two seasons previously[3] and is designed to use E100 ethanol fuel. The car bears the #55 number that of its 1991 24 Hours of Le Mans winning ancestor, the 787B.

Categories
Event People Photos Urban

2008 Pillow Fight NYC

Feathers fly and teddies soar as we gather for a massive urban pillow fight! Swing and whack as you evade pillow-wielding assailants. Bring a pillow to Union Square and wait for the signal. Pillow fight!

– freenyc.net

Newsletters save you the trouble of sifting through the digital debris amidst the bits & bytes of the internet. All things said, this event was a blast! At first I cowered at a top level of a local department store, but my flimsy zoom didn’t just cut it, so I braved the crowds and went around. As it turned out, it wasn’t that bad. =)

Categories
Indoor Nature Photos

Herald Square a la Foliage

Categories
Automobile Photos Urban

Fiery

Wow, the first day of spring! It didn’t actually feel like it though, it’s still freezing cold. I’ll give it a few more weeks and see what happens. Maybe it’s global warming that’s causing all this. I wonder how hot summer will be. Hmm.. Fiery?

Categories
Indoor People Photos

Ni Hao

I’ve been focusing on shooting events, street, urban, landscape, sports & random “what-nots” while avoiding studio photography, the reason being that it’s readily available. Today, though, I was able to join a group of locals in a photo shoot. That group being the Brooklyn Camera Club. They’re a laid back, happy group of people and I didn’t have a hard time warming up to them. They claim to be the oldest photography club in America, they go back to 1864 & have newspaper clips to back up their claim. I’m inclined to believe them, because I’ll be joining them soon enough. 🙂

There were two set-ups, one in the kitchen & one with a backdrop. The setup was daunting at first because there was too much information to take in. It’s a good thing I wasn’t the only noob at photo shoots so I was able to get off a few good shots. I also didn’t realize that we had to direct what the models pose would be. Jeez, what do I know about poses?? Oh well, there’s a first for everything.

Now, on to the models. The girl on the left is Kayi & the one on the right is Marlie.

Categories
Indoor Nature Photos

Paint the Flowers Red

Categories
Architecture Photos Urban

Eiffel?

Thanks to the equinox, I got to visit Manhattan Bridge again.  I didn’t even reach the halfway point, it was a bit breezy the time I got there so I settled for this “Eiffel-like” shot.

Categories
Architecture Nightscape Photos Urban

Empire

Categories
Nightscape Photos Urban

Downtown

Off the promenade @ Brooklyn Heights, Manhattan’s downtown.. illuminated.

Categories
Architecture Photos Urban

Exit Strategy

Categories
Architecture Landscape Photos Urban

Twin Bridges

Categories
Landscape Photos Urban

Train to Empire

Categories
People Photos Urban

G.I.R.

The Giant Inflatable Rat (G.I.R.). My first encounter with this character made me think that there was some sort of event happening, only to find out that this was a favorite tool of the pro-union protesters around the city. Meaning that the guys around the rat are “in strike” / protest. The G.I.R pales in comparison to the PI where you see a mob of people brandishing banners, picket signs & megaphones.

Categories
Landscape Photos Urban

Tilting China

Categories
Architecture Landscape Photos Urban

Manhattan Bridge

Categories
Landscape Photos Urban

Precipitation

It’s the weekend, it’s been raining since last night. Depressing ain’t it? I’m going back to bed.

Categories
Nightscape Photos Urban

Zoom Zoom

Sniping the FDR from an overpass from the East River Park.

Categories
Indoor Photos Urban

Blooey Yorkie

For every yin, there’s a yang. Somehow I got lost yesterday but I got to see this station at F’s York Street. The stark blue steel foundations against the drab station literally screamed at me to take it’s picture. Though I was a bit tentative setting up the tripod because of the heightened paranoia caused by the bombing at Times Square, I was lucky to get off a few shots. 🙂

Categories
Architecture Photos Urban

Raoul Wallenberg Monument

detective 1988-1993
new york police department
rookie of the year
awarded by staten island
community board #1, 1987
medal of honor
awarded for extraordinary
bravery by nypd, 1995
killed in the line of duty
in the war against narcotics
on march 10, 1993

Categories
Indoor People Photos Urban

みましょうダンス

Let’s Dance! That’s what I was trying to say, but what with these tap dancers being Japanese, I thought of this title.

Categories
Indoor Photos

Zzzzz..

In my previous post, I’ve talked about creepy archaic bedrooms. Now here’s the actual bed. 🙂

Categories
Architecture Photos Urban

Roadkill

Categories
Indoor Photos Urban

Cherubs

If you’ve ever been to The Met, you’ve probably have been into one of those European rooms that have been reconstructed & restored in one of the gallery rooms. The reconstructed room may originally be a part of a house or a hotel and is made to look exactly like the original. This photo is just a part of what the bedroom ceiling looks like. Creepy, no? I couldn’t imagine sleeping in one of those big four poster beds, in a room with a bunch of sculptures or carvings of cherubs / babies (however cute they may be). It’s just plain creepy.