La Porte de l’Enfer (translated The Gates of Hell) is a monumental sculptural group work by French artist Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from “The Inferno”, the first section of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. It stands at 6 m high, 4 m wide and 1 m deep (19.69’H × 13.12’W × 3.29’D) and contains 180 figures. The figures range from 15 cm high up to more than one metre. Several of the figures were also cast independently by Rodin.
After my recent trip to Philly, I now have this impression that it’s full of homeless people. The whole day, I’ve had around 8 guys who approached me asking for spare change. There was also this guy named “Spoon”, who offered me a “free” tour around City Hall. Not wanting to be rude, I went along. I admit though that he knew what he was talking about. I learned a lot during the 5-10 minute walk.
What we have here is the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. Read more about it here.
Today, I decided to venture out of the confines of NY. Disregarding the predicted dismal weather, I chose a place that’s accessible by public transportation & isn’t too vast that I’d need a vehicle (assuming I could drive one. lol). I went to the city of Philadelphia also known as the “City of Brotherly Love”. Below is the route I took while walking around the city. >=D
Shown here is the Philadelphia City Hall with One Liberty Place at the right side. The City Hall is the world’s tallest masonry building. Read more about it after the jump.
Taken on location at our weekly meetup.
The decision to render it this way was probably because I was watching Headbanger’s Ball reruns. 😀 \m/
‘Nuff said.. It’s time for retroactive postings.. 😀
What do you do when you get out at the office at 6PM & notice that the sun is still high up in the sky. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?! Exactly.. SHOOT some stuff!!
Just got back from the West Coast.. alone. I guess it’s in situations like this where you feel “homesick” the most. Well, it’s just a few weeks. Suck it up, soldier! 🙂
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. 🙂
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:
Shiny, happy, tech news. Mr. Gaijin got a new toy. Best to test it on a trip to the West Coast then. 🙂
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.
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.
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.
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. =)
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?
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.
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.
Off the promenade @ Brooklyn Heights, Manhattan’s downtown.. illuminated.
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.
It’s the weekend, it’s been raining since last night. Depressing ain’t it? I’m going back to bed.
Sniping the FDR from an overpass from the East River Park.
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. 🙂
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
Let’s Dance! That’s what I was trying to say, but what with these tap dancers being Japanese, I thought of this title.
In my previous post, I’ve talked about creepy archaic bedrooms. Now here’s the actual bed. 🙂
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.
We went out for lunch and bypassed the usual route we normally take to “forage” for food. We ended up farther than usual and had a leisurely – albeit freezing – walk back to the office. Overshadowed by Trump World Tower, here’s a unique structure called 100 United Nations Plaza Tower. Info from Emporis
– This black and brown-clad building rises vertically to the upper floors, where its north and south facades taper shaply to form a top wedge.
– To break away even further from the customary, there are balconies protruding as horizontal “ribs”, going around the corners of the building — also on the lower portion of the tapering top — as well as bulging from the mid-facade.
– On the east side of the building, there is a lush plaza with a fountain.
– Entrance to 100 United Nations Plaza is through a garden plaza dramatically landscaped with handsome fountains.
– Very prominent on the East Side skyline in Midtown until overshadowed by Trump World Tower, completed in 2001.
Looks like this hobby of mine is rubbing off on someone. 🙂 Well, not that she has any say in it because I left her for like 30 minutes at the park last Sunday looking for the loo & she killed time mashing the shutter. Good job!
I guess it’s common knowledge for New Yorkers that Manhattan isn’t “bladder-friendly”, that is, you’d be hard pressed finding the loo. So, having been in NY for quite sometime, I should’ve at least have learned this.. Coffee (or other diuretics) + (extremely) Cold weather + NY = bladder nightmare. Still, a caffeine junkie won’t be a caffeine junkie without caffeine now, no? (redundant, no?).
Here’s some kids romping around in the snow.
NY got hit again with another snow storm. A blanket of snow 6″ thick was expected and it was what we got. 🙂 Satiated my curiosity by moseying around in the snow. Here’s a yeti’s pawprint. hehe..
Ate quite a lot this lunch and since it’s such a fine day, decided to walk around the back alleys of Gotham. Here’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral as viewed from the Villard House.
What happens when the moon falls under the earth’s shadow? It’s a lunar eclipse! 🙂 I had no intention of shooting this event unless I acquired a significantly longer lens but then again, do what you can with what you have. We were just peering out of our place from the top floor & admiring the view, another thing lead to another thing, and then I was downstairs in the cold wearing slippers, PJs & a thick jacket shooting the moon.
I found myself agape, admiring a skyscraper — the prow of the Flatiron Building, to be particular, ploughing up through the traffic of Broadway and Fifth Avenue in the late-afternoon light. – H.G. Wells (1906)
My sentiments exactly.
We went on a road trip today that encompassed three states. hehe.. Here’s Jao trying to figure out how to work the binoculars at Barnegat lighthouse. And also, a trackback to his vids @ YouTube. He recently won the foul shot contest at school! Check it out at his site. 🙂
Today we were at our relatives place in Jersey for a li’l birthday party for my cousin’s daughter Nina. Here’s the celebrant herself having a blast! That’s Nina’s brother, Jao at the lower left frame taking her picture. Happy Birthday Nina!! 🙂
We’ve nothing better to do today so we cleaned up our mess at home.. well, it was mostly mine.. After taking a brief breather, I noticed that it was getting dark and got to catch this golden sky from the window (undefiled & un-PP’ed).. And, it was back to work again.. hehe..
Today’s expedition brought me to a lighthouse at Roosevelt Island’s northern tip. Here’s a brief history of the lighthouse I got from lighthousefriends.com:
This 50-foot-tall, gray gneiss, Gothic-style lighthouse was built in 1872. It is not an official Coast Guard lighthouse, but it was commissioned by the city. The lighthouse’s purpose was to “effectually light†the nearby New York City Insane Asylum for boats navigating the treacherous Hell Gate waters. It was designed by architect James Renwick, Jr., whose other works include Smallpox Hospital and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Inmate labor was probably used in the city-run project, but to elaborate much on its construction is to explore legend.
The legendary mysteries are the names of Asylum inmate(s?) John McCarthy and Thomas Maxey and whether these two names refer to one person, two people or even existent people. Supposedly, before the lighthouse was built, McCarthy (or Maxey), fearing a British invasion, was constructing a four-foot-high clay fort on this site. Asylum officials let him finish the fort because, during his adrenaline-rushed work, he reclaimed significant areas of marsh. (They even gave him old Civil War cannons as encouragement.) When the city wanted to build the Lighthouse, officials bribed or persuaded McCarthy either to give up or to demolish the fort.
Whether McCarthy complied or not is the choice of the storyteller, but the fort did come down. Then, supposedly, another Asylum patient was summoned to build the Lighthouse. This inmate styled himself “Thomas Maxey, Esq., architect, mason, carpenter, civil engineer, philosopher, and philanthropist.†The lighthouse was built, though adherence to Renwick’s blueprint is questionable. Despite Thomas Maxey’s supposed labor, John McCarthy’s name was credited on a plaque that remained at the Lighthouse’s base until its mysterious disappearance in the 1960s:
This work
was done by
John McCarty
who built the light
house from the bottom to the
top all ye who do pass by may
pray for his soul when he dies.The Lighthouse was decommissioned in the 1940s, designated a city landmark in 1975, and partially restored the following year. In 1998 an anonymous grant of $120,000 funded complete restoration (including internal lamps).