..a nice place to practice panning shots.. not this kind of panning though.. maybe i’ll post some later.. 🙂
Category: Nightscape
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neon
..you can see that i just like to point the cam at random stuff and shoot them..
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cemetery bound
..a train heading for the cemetery at night.. and we were headed for the casino that time, talk about “signs”, eh? good thing we didn’t lose.. 🙂
..view this in mono..
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st. louis cathedral
..after dinner, en route to cafe du monde, we passed by the st. louis cathedral and since most of the people were celebrating Southern Decadence on bourbon street, there wasn’t that much people around.. so we stopped by and tried taking a shot of this at night.. i propped the cam at an angle on my slippers and bracketed the shot, thinking that the last and longest exposure was done, i took the camera and boom, i spoiled the shot.. or maybe not.. 😀
..view this in mono..
..notice the light blur on the left side of the tallest spire..
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tribute in light
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nypl
..took this way back when the NYPL wasn’t draped in all those stuff for restoration (or was it?).. there was some event going on that’s why it was bathed in red light..
..view this in mono..
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swirly tourists
..a group of kids boarding their bus on times square..
..positioned the cam overhead, twisted it a bit to get the blur, converted to b&w and allowed some color to bleed through..
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york street
..taken a few blocks away from here..
..that church over there is the St. Peter’s Church, which is believed to be the oldest Anglican church that is still in use in the Western hemisphere..
..several people looked up to see what i was shooting at, little did they know that i was shooting “it all”.. 🙂
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waiting for light trails
..i remember waiting for some trains to pass by for me to catch some light trails from this perspective, but my patience was running thin, so here’s the dark underbelly of the manhattan bridge..
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verrazano
..same time, same place (give or take a few feet) where i got this..
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promenade
..i’m almost done tagging, i wish i could’ve done this earlier on.. argh..
..here’s the brooklyn heights promenade.. best viewed supersized (click the thumbnail below)
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fdr
..taken near the east river park, dropping loogies on cars passing by.. i’m just kidding.. 🙂
..a long exposure shot in front of the st. george’s police station.. try doing this in front of an NYPD station, let’s see what happens to you.. 😀
..what better way for a seasonal easter sunday post than this shot of the saint patrick’s cathedral a la moleman..
..amazing what a few steps and a different angle could do to change how an image looks.. the reason why i had this one tilted so high up is because of the scaffolding surrounding the cathedral, it just doesn’t look right..so for this one, i tried covering it up with light trails which seemed to do the trick.. (i guess)
..here’s the bling-bling district.. shot wide open, hand held with ultra high iso, in the middle of the street.. colors are kind of blah so opted for the black and white..
The Diamond District is an area of New York City located on West 47th Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) in midtown Manhattan, within walking distance of many New York attractions. It is located one block south of Rockefeller Center, three blocks south of Radio City Music Hall (along the Avenue of the Americas), three blocks south of St Patrick’s Cathedral (along Fifth Avenue), and one block east of the Broadway Theater District. The Plaza Arcade, lined with shops, connects the street to Rockefeller Center.
The district was created when dealers moved north from an earlier district near Canal Street and the Bowery that was created in the 1920s, and from a second district located in the Financial District, near the intersection of Fulton and Nassau Streets, which started in 1931. The move uptown started in 1941. The district grew in importance when the German Nazis invaded the Netherlands and Belgium, forcing thousands of Orthodox Jews in the diamond business to flee Antwerp and Amsterdam and settle in New York City. Most of them remained after World War II, and remain a dominant influence in the Diamond District… (wiki)
**for those of you curious as to how it’ll look in color, here ya go..
..for those of you who are familiar with this place then no explanation necessary.. for those who aren’t (including me.. lol), here’s a wiki excerpt:
Wollman Skating Rink is a public ice rink in the southern part of Central Park, Manhattan, New York City. The rink was opened in 1949 with funds donated by Kate Wollman. Historically, the rink has been open for ice skating from October to April and in the summer seasons is transformed into a venue for other purposes.
The Rink has been used as the venue for several summer concerts. The first annual summer music festival at there was sponsored by Rheingold beer company and opened on July 1, 1966. The Rheingold Central Park Music Festival also took place during the summer of 1967. The first annual Schaefer Music Festival opened on June 27, 1968 and ran each summer through 1976. The first annual Dr. Pepper Music Festival opened on July 6, 1977 and ran annually through the summer of 1980 (the 15th, and last annual music festival held at the Wollman Rink).
SummertimeThe venue no longer hosts concerts, but it is still used for public ice skating in the winter and in the summer it houses the Victorian Gardens Amusement Park.
Wollman Rink has also been featured in several movies, including Love Story.
Wollman Rink is currently operated by the Trump organization, and is today known as the Trump Wollman Skating Rink. Donald Trump leased the rink from 1987 to 1991. From 1991 to 2001 George Makkos from The Makkos Organization of M&T Preztle, operated Wollman Rink. Since 2001, Wollman Rink has been operated by a joint venture between Trump Organization and Rink Management Services of Mechanicsville VA. Trump completely rebuilt the Rink.
..btw, i’ve recently heard of Enfuse and tried it out with this image.. it’s like HDR but just not quite HDR.. have a go at it if you’ve got time.. it’s pretty cool.. (it stripped my exif data though)
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empire-zilla
..same place where i got this..
..i was just looking at this photo and instead of the empire state building, i was thinking of godzilla.. how weird.. oh well, time to hit the sack..
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oohs and aahs
..a pair of ladies looking up at the flatiron building..
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hooligans
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the B of A
..taken from bryant park, the brand-spankin’ new bank of america building..
..and..um..
(**copy, pasted, edited from Ivar’s page.. hehe..) I got an award yesterday from a talented blogger/photographer, Ivar . So now its my turn to send this award on its way to someone else. The rules are simple, link to the one you got the award from, send it on to up to 7 others and let them know you gave them an award… At least that’s the rules as I know them 😉
..as what Ivar did, i just choosed randomly.. and to make things easy and fair, i just ran this bit of code below, and came up with these.. 😀
SELECT comment_author_url, count( * ) AS ctr FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_author_url <> '%blu%' GROUP BY comment_author_url HAVING ctr >50 ORDER BY rand( ) LIMIT 7
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blurry skates
..winter scenes..before winter ends..
..skating @ bryant park..
..tgif..
..have a great weekend..
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bloomingdale’s
..window displays on Bloomingdale’s on Third and 59th..
..i’m pretty much indecisive as to which one should i put to the left.. santa or the tree..? i opted for this one instead.. (no reason whatsoever) either way , it still doesn’t matter.. but somehow in the back of my head something’s nagging me to think about how this one should be arranged.. crap, it’s a monday.. i need a beer..
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unicef snowflake
..hmm.. what if snowflakes were that big..
The lighting of the UNICEF Snowflake—which is suspended at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in New York—marks the beginning of the holiday giving season and exists as a beacon of hope, peace and compassion for children around the world. The New York Snowflake, donated by the Stonbely family, was engineered and entirely handcrafted by designer Ingo Maurer and his team in Germany, and is 23 feet in diameter, over 28 feet in height, weighs more than 3,300 pounds and uses 16,000 Baccarat crystal prisms.
**lesson learned: having your carry-on luggage checked-in at the last minute with a 30-minute timeframe on a connecting flight is a bad idea.. bad Delta.. bad.. 😛
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trump tower lights
..i guess if you want to experience “the city that never sleeps“, swing by during the holidays and walk down fifth avenue or anywhere for that matter..
..today i fly back to mobile.. join me in reminiscing christmas in the next few days here.. lol..
..wow, my first post for 2009.. i’m pretty bleary-eyed and sleepy from last night.. so in the meantime, here’s the place where some blokes freezed their asses of watching jonas brothers.. lol..
..the times square ball will be dropped down the same time tomorrow as i post this image now.. referencing a clock face, it’ll be at the building located at six o’ clock.. the One Times Square Building.. and the stage where the performers would be is where i stood while taking this shot.. dunno if we’ll be standing there freezing our asses off / watching fireworks somewhere / boozing at a bar / wolfing foodies / sleeping soundly.. i just wish everyone out there a HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 😀
..well, i took a friend out for a stroll around manhattan’s tourist traps so i wasn’t able to get some good shots today.. also, i can’t keep my hands out of my pocket for long periods of time because of the cold.. and so.. (har har) the moleman’s back from the grave..
..this here’s the helmsley building at park avenue.. i passed by this place a while ago and saw that one side of it was under renovation so i thought about posting it here now.. 😀
..some factoids from wikipedia:
Located at 230 Park Avenue the Helmsley Building is a 35-story building straddling Park Avenue. Before the erection of the Pan Am Building, now the MetLife Building, this building was the city’s dowager queen, lording over the city’s second most prestigious avenue and marking the elegant heart of the city as it was the tallest structure in the great “Terminal City” complex around Grand Central Terminal designed by Warren & Wetmore. The building was designated a New York City Landmark in 1987.
**btw, those aren’t dust spots – or dust bunnies, as i’d like to call them.. they’re just flares from the street lights etc..
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touchdown
..merry christmas y’all! 🙂
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big moon
..well, here i am gazing up at the dark skies again.. 😀 wifey *mwah* told me about this (read below) around 10PM last night so i hunkered out in the cold to get some shots.. ’twas pretty fun.. 🙂
..from yahoo
The full moon Friday night will be the biggest one of the year as Earth’s natural satellite reaches its closest point to our planet.
Earth, the moon and the sun are all bound together by gravity, which keeps us going around the sun and keeps the moon going around us as it goes through phases. The moon makes a trip around Earth every 29.5 days. But the orbit is not a perfect circle.
The moon’s average distance from us is about 238,855 miles (384,400 km). Friday night it will be just 221,560 miles (356,567 km) away. It will be 14 percent bigger in our sky and 30 percent brighter than some other full moons during the year, according to NASA.
..i think oversleeping causes headaches..
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gone streaking
..it’s a loong weekend! i’m gonna sleep the whoole day.. 🙂
..taken while taking a break beside flatiron building..
..after shooting some moleman series shots at The Rock, while i was waiting for wifey.. i decided to set up the tripod, focus on something and just mashed that shutter button.. call it an offshoot of the moleman series or what not, so here’s another series of shots that came out from a few minutes of boredom..
..Passing Strange is a broadway show.. i haven’t seen it yet, i just pulled that title out of nowhere, maybe because i’ve been seeing the ad everyday on my daily commute..
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twilight
..i’m a big fan of anne rice’s vampire chronicles and have even read bram stoker’s dracula (who hasn’t?).. so, i’ve read a bunch of stuff in a gossip blog (gawker.com) about this new vampire book series (twilight) that has been generating a lot of buzz and selling like hotcakes.. the film adaptation of the first book was even a blockbuster this weekend, so despite the bad reviews, i decided to read the books first.. one gawker’s take on the movie was a bit close to what i thought it was (some excerpts below) but i’m already halfway through the series, so i might as well finish it..
Let’s get the obvious, probably-the-cold-bare-truth one out of the way. There’s nothing new about young people, young women especially, going apeshit bananas over something that brings a fierce yet chaste smolder to their loins—be it the cherubic young matinee idols like Romeo + Juliet-era Leonardo DiCaprio, the crotch-twirling “baby come back” antics of a boy band (from Beatles to Backstreet), or, you know, the dark brooding eternal prick tease of sexless vampire love (Buffy! And now, sigh, Twilight!). While most boys just hairy palm their way past longings for love and post-in/out/in/out intimacy, many girls get snared and tangled in that brambly bush of idol worship, and any conduit through which they can explore and advance these tinglings is.. read more here
..okay, shooting startrails.. google would be a good start, that’s what i did.. here‘s a nice one.. compared to my last post, this was 38 (4 minute exposures) with a 2 second interval, totaling 2 hrs & 32 mins in 28 degrees temperature.. probably getting a dc adapter / extra batteries would have me shooting more and posting some later but for now, this is as far as my battery would go..
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polaris
..here’s the story about the botched job that i was talking about yesterday.. just got bored and tried shooting stars last night, after seeing the first long exposure (5 mins), polaris was right smack in the middle of the frame! whee!! so i tried tweaking the settings and did a 50 minute exposure.. that didn’t turn out too well, in fact, it sucked (because of light pollution) so i decided to try plan B tonight.. after two tries, here’s what 184 exposures looks like in 82 minutes.. overkill? i think not, i was gunning for 400 shots, but my battery gave out.. i know the foreground’s not interesting but, heck, it’s 47 degrees outside, i didn’t wanna risk having my already inflamed sinuses out in that kind of climate.. but i admit, shooting star trails is fun!! 😀
..very much like Grover saying.. “this is near, this is far.. this is near, this is far”.. now, listen to the Moleman say to you “this is night, this is day.. this is night, this is day”
..as the title says, this is the night shot of the day shot i posted awhile back.. makes sense? good..
..*spoiler alert* i wouldn’t click those last links if i were you.. they’re just the same links as the ones before them.. 😀
..flip off a switch and voila, no lights! magick!
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weed?
..i’m in the mood for simple stuff..
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take a hike
..a few weeks back i worked late and decided to walk from the office going home and take some shots while i’m at it.. it was just 2.6mi so i thought it wasn’t that far.. i didn’t notice that the sun went down faster than it normally should so all i got was this shot.. and a dark, silent walk along the grassy “sidewalks” of alabama..
..also, i recently googled “venomous snakes alabama” and this is what i got.. haha..
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classy
..hmm, what? expecting something else? sorry to disappoint you.. hehe..
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couple
..just a couple at the boardwalk..
..still from the night before, but now from a different place.. from brooklyn heights.. the cityscape was obstructed by the structures down below.. if i had the time and patience to do so, i’d probably have some more from staten island and new jersey as well..
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tribute in light
..the twin beams of ‘tribute in light’ returned yesterday for a one night tribute to all those lost on 9/11 as well as those who worked in its aftermath.. the lights were located at West & Morris streets in Lower Manhattan, was on since sunset up until dawn this morning.. a plethora of people came out in droves to witness it yet again, including a BUNCH of photographers shown here..
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Park@Night
..one thing i like to do in nyc is to just chill out on a bench and watch people go by..
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The City
..a leisurely stroll towards Brooklyn, turn to the right and voila..
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Prairie Moon
Why so big a moon?!
Is this photoshop fakery?! No it isn’t.
I was out in the wild with the wolves and rabbits.. Not true either.
Take a guess.. 😀
07/31/2008 Update:
Hmm.. 2 out of 9, not bad.. This was shot inside one of those Western-themed casinos in Atlantic City, NJ where John Maz has been recently shooting. 😀 And no, I don’t gamble.. LOL.
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Where’s the train?!
First day in Alabama.. I’m missing the trains.. buses.. people..
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Fourth of July Fireworks
Okay, so here goes..
With so many vantage points to view the fireworks, we positioned ourselves where I shot this.. right smack in the East River Park. The weather was a bit dreary and it drizzled a bit, but all that helped to thin out the crowd. It was 30 minutes of pure pyrotechnic joy.. except of course, I was peering through the viewfinder while holding an umbrella. 😉
Oh, and if you squint and see what’s underneath the Brooklyn Bridge, you’ll see something that looks like a blue waterfall. Well that’s actually one of the four, $15M “Waterfall” art installment by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. New Yorkers had a mixed reaction to it, some in favor and some who aren’t. It actually looks beautiful at night but during the day, you could see the scaffolds and the pipes that feeds the waterfall. And for $15M?! Come on..
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Happy 125th
Yesterday was the kickoff celebration for the 125th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge. The highlight of the night was a Grucci fireworks extravaganza. There also was a concert by the Brooklyn Philharmonic so I expected a lot of people to show up at DUMBO. This was taken at Brooklyn Heights.