hey all, today, instead of commuting to nyc in a business suit, i
put on my photographer's clothes and jammed down the hudson river
to catch the sunrise at hastings-on-hudson:
these are the palisades, lovely sheer cliffs that line the western
shore of the hudson river from about 25 miles north of nyc. the
colors remind me of the canyons in the western us! i shot here for
about an hour or so, standing on the rocks that line the eastern
shore. then, i took the train to nyc and found this in one of the
buildings adjacent to grand central terminal:
btw - these lights are pale blue. i failed to switch wb when i
went inside, need to remember that! this is "the daily news"
building, a lovely old art deco gem and in the lobby they have that
giant globe. i was stopped by the first of two cops and one
national guardsman here, because i "looked suspicous" (carrying
that black thing on top of that black pole!) heheh the cops
actually stopped me and wondered what the 828 combo with the
manfrotto black tripod was all about. i guess my black jeans,
black shirt, jacket and black backpack made me look like i was
going to do something nefarious

i didn't know we went to code
orange on the security alert scale when i left the house!
following, i went looking for more "reflections" (shameless plug
for challenge 58!). i found this one, a reflection of my favorite
building in nyc, the chrysler building:
and here is the chrysler building for real
after that i headed north, and went to the charles frick
collection, one of the finest art collections on the planet. it's
housed in a lovely old mansion at 70th and 5th avenue, just off
central park. the museum was closed today on monday but i
reflected on many memories of past visits:
after that, it was a "walk in the park," central park, that is.
here's belvedere castle:
and the view from the castle, this is looking north & east:
and here's the "bow bridge"
in the background you see those famous towers on central park west
- "who ya gonna call?" ghostbusters!
i walked a long way, so i took a rest here:
you may have seen this angel in the opening scenes of hbo's "angels
in america" and about 50 other movies, as well:
then it was about-face, walking south i came upon the wollman rink,
and climbed the cliff that overlooks it - i wanted to capture this:
i ended my day as i started it, overlooking the hudson river. i
tried to race to a spot and catch the sunset, but sunsets happen
really
fast and you've just got to be in position. alas, i
missed it, but managed this as i was driving away for home:
i've often remarked that the lighting in nyc is
very challenging.
today was no exception. it was bright early in the morning but for
most of the day it was just
grey and gloomy-ish. i set the
camera on cloudy wb and hoped for the best. one or two shots are a
tad under exposed, i may try to fix them in post. i'm going to
practice more in these types of lighting situations - i seem to
encounter them all the time lately

all shots taken with the
camera on a tripod, and all shots taken in full manual mode. today
was the first day i actually left the camera on the 'pod the
entire day. btw - it balances over the shoulder very nicely this
way, makes walking around a
breeze.
i'm still learning this new camera but i have to say, after 800
images in two days or so, i'm real pleased with the ease of use,
the performance, the color representation, the image quality, and,
the prints (!!!) are fantastic.
you can see these images and more at my galleries if you'd like
slightly larger sizes:
http://williams.smugmug.com/gallery/48562
-- andy
http://williams.smugmug.com - galleries