Fast Motion

Here is my final picture from New York City. I wanted to capture the movement of people walking and cars on the street. To capture this, I set my camera on a tripod and decreased the shutter speed. The shutter speed allowed me to capture the movement. One of the downsides is anything highlights in the picture will be magnified since the shutter is being opened longer. This is why the background/sky is so bright.

Evening Rush Hour

This is a picture that I took on my last night as we walked out of Central Park and back into the craziness of New York City. We were crossing a street, so I didn't have time to position myself correctly, but I still like this picture. I like how it is crooked, there is a taxi in front, and the road, and buildings and trees lead to the back of the picture where there is a slight sunset.

Reflections

This picture is made entirely of reflections of the sunset off of different objects. The most obvious is the reflection of the sun off the rock below. Some others include the two buildings to the left of the sun and the ring it creates on the people standing. I wanted to include the boulder for this picture for some more depth of field. I wanted to create a pathway to the sun and a focus point besides the people or the sunset.

Central Park

As we wrap up the New York City adventure, here are a few final pictures. This first picture is of my sister, and she is standing on a boulder in Central Park in front of some New York City buildings. I wanted to turn this picture black and white mostly because there wasn't already many colors in the picture. Also, I wanted to show the similarity in color between my sister and the buildings.

Constant Motion

This is a long exposure picture from inside Grand Central Station. I wanted to capture the movement of people going around the station. I set my camera at the highest aperture and lowest ISO to maximize the length of the picture. The shutter speed was only 1.6 seconds, which is not the fastest, but also not the slowest. The perfect speed for this type of picture.

Grand Central Station

Welcome to Grand Central Station! This was one of my most favorite places to take pictures because of the opportunities. You could take a long exposure, a picture from a high vantage point or a low one, with a fast shutter speed, you name a variation of a photo, and you could take it here. For this first picture, I kept a low vantage point and took it with a fast shutter speed.

Watching

This is similar to a picture before, except the subject is different. This is a picture of my brother looking out at the New York City skyline while the sunset. For pictures like these, when there are a subject and the sun, you want to place a subject or object to block the sun. This will reduce highlights and pull the viewer's eyes back to your subject and not the sun.

Setting Sun

Before I continue with pictures of downtown New York City, I wanted to showcase the sun. It set on facing south and west, which is normal for the winter as the sun sets more south in the winter, then more north in the summer because of the way the Earth revolves around the sun. I liked the way the sun created some streaks in the hazing air and the shadows it created from the buildings.

Outlook

This is me taking a picture of someone else taking a picture. I wanted to showcase the protective bars, but also didn't just want to have the bars in the sunset. I put it into black and white because I liked the old-timey feel when looking at the picture. The sun streaks looked better as they are streaking across downtown and onto the city below.

Downtown

Next, I ventured to the 86th floor of the Empire State Building. I dragged my brother and dad up at 3:30 for a 5:00 sunset, but it was worth it! It was incredible to see the sunset across the Hudson River and into New Jersey and towards the southwest. This picture is of an observer looking from behind the protective bars looking at downtown New York City during sunset.

Sunset Row

After exiting Central Park, we started walking back to our hotel. While walking past many streets, I noticed the south-facing ones had a little sunset at the end. I ended up taking multiple pictures from multiple streets, but this one was my favorite. There is the car lights, lights from the store and lights from the night, the people walking, the smoke from the subway, and the sunset.

Nightfall

For this picture, I moved my brother out of the frame and kept my sister looking at the skyline. I wanted to make the buildings seem large and overpowering compared to her. I set her in the middle to have a good contrast of buildings on either side but made sure to capture more of the buildings then her head.

Skyline

This picture is of my brother and sister overlooking the New York City skyline from inside Central Park. There was a bridge that crossed over a small stream and they were looking at the skyline. I wanted to capture both their faces looking away and the buildings, but also the sunset. I positioned them on the bottom left side of the picture to allow for all of these actions to occur simultaneously.

New York Public Library

I took this picture right outside the New York Public Library. In front were two rows of trees with a pathway in the middle. Many people were walking on the pathway, so I raised my camera above most of their heads and took this picture. I wanted to capture the sunset, trees, people, and the buildings surrounding the pathway, including the New York Public Library on the right.

Guggenheim

This is the Guggenheim museum made by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is seven levels of mostly 2D art with some 3D art pieces between floors. Each floor has a unique exhibit about a theme or era. I am not much of a 2D art fan or a painting/drawing fan, but there were some interesting pieces. For instance, who knew white stripes on a white background were art, but also some of the paintings, especially by Pablo Picasso, were very thought-provoking.

Bartholomews Church

This is Bartholomew's Church on Park Avenue in New York City. Inside the church were many displays with candles on them for people to light. The ceilings were incredibly high, and some had drawings on them. It was built in 1903 and is the third location for the congregation, which began in January of 1835. 

New Years!

Happy New Year and 2020! I took this picture a few days after the previous pictures but felt it should be posted today. This is Times Square, and in the middle on top of the buildings with many advertisements is the ball. Times Square is full of bright lights, sounds, and colors, unlike any other New York City neighborhood.

Hope

This homeless person was sitting outside near a busy sidewalk and street. Her sign said she had just beat stage 3 cancer and was now homeless. Like me, there were probably hundreds if not thousands of people that walked by her in just one day. She just battled for her life then has to face another battle of finding where to live.

Homelessness

While walking throughout the city, I saw many people sitting or laying on the streets. I assume that most of these people are homeless. It felt as if every block or so someone would be asking for food or money. Some people wanted money or food for good reasons, others wanted money for drugs or other nonessential items.

Rockefeller Center

As the sunset faded into night, I visited Rockefeller Center. The area was full of thousands of tourists looking at the Sach's light display on the east side and the Christmas tree on the west side. I did not take pictures of the light display, but the Christmas tree was incredible. It was by far the biggest Christmas tree that I have seen.

Evening Shopping

As night began to fall on the city, more lights from stores and cars started to shine. I wanted to capture the light and the shadows it created on the people walking. With this picture, I stayed behind a group of people, and I took it when they walked in front of a store. This way, there would be long shadows along with the lights of the city.

Sunset Walk

Here is my first official picture of New York City. I took this as I was walking down the streets and facing the sunset. I wanted to capture the people on the streets, the tall buildings that surrounded the people and streets, and the sunset. The buildings and the read lead to the sunset, which helps showcase the fact that there is a sunset during a busy evening rush hour.

Skyline Sunset

I took this picture the night before the previous one, but still think it can be a quality picture. I wanted to capture people looking up at the skyline with the sunset also hinted at. It is dark, you can't see the subjects, and the sunset isn't all that visible. Even though this picture might not seem like much now, I think with some edits it could be great.

New York City

Welcome to New York City! This picture and tomorrow's picture are going to be unedited and as I took them. These first two are to introduce you to what New York City is. This picture is from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building. I went up to observe pre, during, and post, sunset. I wanted to capture the sunset, downtown, and the bars that held us back.

Spray

I was outside cleaning my bike one day and I that about how interesting it would be to capture a long exposure of the water going around the wheel. It was challenging to capture this because a camera and water do not mix. I positioned my camera just slightly out of the spray zone and captured the motion. 

Waiting

Out of the Photoshoping to redo picture and into long exposures at a pond. I decided I wanted to show the fall environment, but also the objects around the park. Using a park bench, I set up leaves on top of it for the fall feel, then started taking pictures. I wanted to showcase the bright colors of the leaves and trees.

Looking Off

This picture was one of the most fun to take for this photoshoot. I set up the settings (shutter speed, aperture, ISO), started a two-second timer, ran to this bench, then took the picture. I wanted to capture the fall colors and bench. I liked the last picture but felt it was lacking something. I wanted to add something more to the picture, something that would give the viewer something else to look at.

Split

Even taking this picture 4 months ago, I still remember how much fun it was to take it. I had the earlier pictures (which I posted), but they were from the shore and on the sand. For this picture, I wanted to have the sunset go all the way to the camera. I wanted to be standing in water and have the reflection of the sunset go all the way to the camera. I walked out 100 yards into the water and was able to capture the ripples of the water and the reflection of the sunset.

Oranges

While there are many variations of the color red, primarily the only two colors are orange and black. Looking at the original picture, there is not much color, you can barely see the seagull, and the sun resembles a dot in the sky. Like many of the other pictures, I brightened this one up and increased the contrast. I then darkened just the sky to showcase the rich colors.

Rainbow of Colors

Originally, this picture was incredibly dark with little colors. First, I brightened up the whole image. I wanted to make sure the sunset colors were visible and you could see the oyster farm in the bottom right. After the picture was bright, I wanted to brighten the sunset even more. By increasing the brightness and contrast all of the colors started to show. What used to be a dull pink now turned into a bright pink.

 

Watching

This sunset picture is one of my favorites. The bright colors in the sky and reflecting on the water, and the people standing on the sand watching it. I wanted to brighten up the original pictures and make the sunset colors and people stand out. I had a slight problem brightening the entire picture, because of the highlights in the sunset. It wasn't a hard fix, and now the picture looks colorful and bright.  

Miles Upon Miles

Welcome back to Boston! If you remember, I was posting these pictures just a few months ago. These sunset pictures were some of my favorites, this was before the editing. After finishing the Chama pictures, I wondered which I should do next. I decided on the Boston sunsets. This picture is one that wasn't too hard to fix. I just increased the contrast, saturation, and vibrance, among other small edits.

Rising

The spot where this house was, was perfect for sunrises and sunsets. There were mountains to the east, more to the west, and low hills to the south (the front porch faced south). For this picture, I wanted to eliminate the distractions like the bush in the bottom left and outline of a second mountain in the middle right. Once again, I increased the colors to make them brighter and more visible. I wanted to keep the mountains in silhouette, because I like the outline and feel that the mountain would distract from the sunset.

Morning Drink

When I first opened this picture, I didn't know what definition I had of the sunrise. After dramatically increasing the contrast, vibrance, and saturation, I was able to showcase the colors in the background. I had another picture of a hummingbird flapping its wings on the feeder, but the sunset wasn't as strong. It would have been a better picture, but I couldn't make the colors seem as incredible.

Looking Off

This picture comes from the 2019 Summer and Chama, New Mexico. I took this when we were driving back to the place we were staying after fly fishing in New Mexico. After retouching this, I think it might be one of my best pictures. I love the vibrant colors in the trees and sky, the shadow of the first mountain casing onto the others, and the valley with the stream and everything else in it. This definitely is a top 5 of my greatest pictures. 

Vibrant Colors

This is the first picture of this new series. I am taking pictures I took a while ago, and editing them in Photoshop, then reposting them. I think it will be interesting to see the things I can do with editing both the pictures and how much better Photoshop can make a picture.

Optimism

This homeowner decided to have a little sign outside their damaged house. It reads, "House Sale to blow you away! New ventilation. Open sky views. May need landscaping." First, when I biked by I just stopped and stared. I thought it funny how this homeowner, whose house was just destroyed, made this sign. I thought it showed that she was both optimistic and humored at what happened. And that even though there was a tornado, she still could have some fun.

Dirt Road

For this picture, I wanted the focus to be on the dirt road. I wanted to show how many vehicles have been on this road trying to clean up and rebuild. This was a paved road, but now it looks more like a dirt road. Also, many of the roofs have been covered by white or blue tarps. From these four houses in the picture, three are completely covered, and one had only sections covered.

Clear Skies

From this picture, it is much easier to see the loss of trees. I wanted to showcase the 'Road Closed' sign and show what this neighborhood has been through. For about a week after the tornado, police were stationed at every entrance to the areas where the tornado hit. They were there to ward off looters and people trying to take advantage of those the tornado hit.

Ripped Apart

The winds from the tornado just ripped everything. The main problem was because there were a lot of trees in the area, once those trees broke their branches were just flying around damaging houses. While this house wasn't damaged that much, I believe it's yard was the most destroyed. There were multiple trees either already cut down or laying down from being broken. For these pictures, I don't want to edit or change anything about them. Unfortunately, this also means that any bad shot that I take I can't change. So, the dark spot in the bottom left, I can't change.

Trees

The first thing I noticed when biking through the neighborhood was the lack of trees. All of the trees either had their leaves ripped off, or the whole tree itself had been removed. You can clearly see from this picture that there is a tree leaning down and trees in the background have no leaves on them. I continued to have a higher aperture to make sure the objects in the back were in focus. This is why you can see the trees in the back and they are not out of focus.