Happy 4th of July 2011

I was able to get some really nice shots of the fireworks this year. My brother in law works at pier 83 so I was able to get right to the end of the pier. Here are 5 shots. Hope you enjoy.

Joe

Tulips

Hi Folks,
How are y’all doin?

Yesterday I bought my lovely wife some tulips.
Today I took some photos of one of them. Hope you enjoy.
(Click on the photos to view them larger)

Take care folks.
See you soon.
Joe

Snow Daze

Hi all,

As you may have heard New York City has had one of the worst winters in a loooong time.
I’ve been able to take a few photos. One that I thought was kinda funny is the Ice Skating rink at Rockeffeler Ctr. It was closed because there was too much snow.

This is a very colorful shot looking down Fifth Ave. I love reflections. You see them through out my photo pages and here in the blog.

Enjoy my photos.
See y’all soon
Joe

9/11 Tiles

There’s a place on 7th Ave. in NYC where people started placing hand painted tiles for the victims of 9/11. Most of the tiles have been damaged my the weather and some vandalism. I’ve always wanted to capture these tiles for my own records but always seem to be busy with other things. I finally got my ass down there a few weeks ago and took some nice shots.
If you’re ever in NYC you should try to find this area on 7th Ave.
(As always, click on the first image to enlarge it and use your arrow keys or mouse to advance to the next one).

9/11 lights.

Hello again,

Just wanted to share some photos of the 9/11 lights. These shots were taken from the roof of my home. I live in Brooklyn so I had a really nice view of the towers up until 9/10/2001. Or a few hours after that. I was able to watch the towers fall the morning of 9/11/2001.

That day for me started like any other day. I was off from work so I had breakfast with a friend and set out to do some errands. On my walk I noticed that Police, Fire Truck, & Ambulance sirens were sounding rather loud and all over the place. I usually don’t take notice of all the noise because growing up in NYC you learn to deal with sirens blasting at all hours of the day. It wasn’t until I saw the plume of smoke that I realized what the commotion was all about. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw both of the Twin Towers on fire. I quickly made it home and turned on the TV to see what was happening. I watched the news for a few minuted then I went up to the roof to watch it live. A few of my neighbors were up there as well. We pretty much watched in silence till the Towers collapsed. It was truly unbelievable. Most of you have seen the footage on TV but seeing it live was bone chilling. It almost seemed unreal. What made it real was the smoke and the smell that was coming over to Brooklyn. It was a horrible burning smell, like that of burning hair. Also, like burning plastic. Very pungent and very disturbing. Fighter jets were making their rounds above NYC. Every 10 minutes or so I could see a pair of fighter jets over my head. After a while I just went inside my home. It seemed like a more peaceful place to be in.

It’s been 9 years since the attack and I’m happy to say that there’s lots of work going on at Ground Zero. Finally the Freedom Tower is being built. The new tower is going to be 1776 feet tall. As with the original World Trade Center there are going to be at least 7 buildings in all with the Freedom Tower being the main one.

Hope you enjoy these two photos. Don’t forget to click on them to enlarge them.
God bless y’all & God bless America

Reflections

Hi All,

Sometimes you come across a reflection on some water, store window, or even a passing car or bus, and for a split second it’ll play a game with your mind. Was that really a moving building? Is that building lying on the ground?
I’ve been to the Top of The Rock a bunch of times in the past couple of years. There are some amazing views from up there. One of my favorites is the Empire State Building’s reflection on the wall of safety glass that’s up there. It’s usually so crowded up there so I never bother taking the shot. Last week I was up there and I was able to fire off about 5 shots before it became too crowded. Eventually I’ll be able to get that shot at sunset. Though that’ll happen when I’m rich and famous. I’ll be able to rent out the observation deck for a photo shoot at sunset with no one around to disturb me. (If you care to donate to my Rich & Famous fund, please send all donations to….. )
In the mean time, enjoy the Empire State Building, twice.!!!
Click on it to see it bigger. And, as usual, I’ve made it in Black & White. I just feel such an iconic old building just looks better in B&W.

A new reflection shot I took recently.

Here now are some of my favorite reflection shots that I have.

Hope you enjoyed my reflection shots. Maybe I’ve inspired you to go out and shoot some of your own.

Until next time
Joe

Grand Canyon Trip

Hello again,

I wanted to share some shots I got while I was Mt. biking out on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I’ll admit I didn’t stop to take too many pictures because I was having too much fun riding. I did manage to get a shot that I was thinking about before I left for the trip. I wanted to capture my tent lit up from the inside while it was dark out. Every night we had a camp fire going so that lit up the surrounding trees plus there was still some light in the sky from the setting sun. I set my camera up on my tripod and took a few shots. One of the shots here is at 15 seconds and the other one is at 25 seconds long.

Other shots that I have here are some wild flowers that we came across. I’m putting the flowers in my Flowers page. Some views of the Canyon itself. A cool look at the moon. A small section of single track. The sign there says 5.5 miles to finish. It took us around 2 hours to do those 5.5 miles. The riding that day was very technical, but totally worth it.
You’ll see in one of the photos what happens to you if you don’t survive the trails. LOL
I’m also posting two Black & Whites. I like the way the Canyon looks in B&W but color is also very impressive.

Hope you enjoy these photos. The trip was amazing. The views were great. The riding was tons of fun. The food was very good. And even the camping was fun. It was very cold out there at night. Some of the trails still had snow on them.
Not sure when my next Mt. bike trip will be, but I’ll keep you guys posted.

It’s always tough trying to combine a vacation and photo shoot. I could have spent more time taking photos but then I wouldn’t have enjoyed my biking. I’m happy with my two tent shots and my black and whites. The others are fun shots.

See ya soon
Joe

Vignettes

Hi Folks,

I’ve been wanting to write a small blurb about vignettes for a while now. I just didn’t think I had some good examples of an old fashion vignette. I didn’t want to copy and paste someone else’s work here but then I remembered I did have and old looking vignette photo of my sisters dog Maxine.

About six years ago I had to dog sit Maxine for about a week while my sister and brother in law went away on vacation. Maxine is a cute pooch but a real pain in the ass. She was/is so spoiled that she just moped around the house all day and peed everywhere. I took some pics of her because I knew no one would believe me if I told them the dog was sad. I made an old fashion vignette around her just to emphasize the attention on her. The background wasn’t really important. The technique here is sort of what you would see when you see old portrait photographs from the late 1800′s & early 1900′s. It has that oval vignette around the main subject. Not very subtle.

Now in modern photography the vignettes are extremely subtle. In fact I would say that 85%-90% of my photos have a vignette on them. You wouldn’t know it if I didn’t tell you. It’s just a way for me to have you focus in on what I feel is important in the shot. You can judge for yourself if this works or not.

There’s no reason why the wall on the right side of this photo needs to be the same brightness as the person standing there, so it isn’t. Thanks to a vignette.

When I was in England in 2007 I wanted a photo of one of the guards with them funny looking hats and bright red jackets. The thing is, everyone has that snapshot. I wanted something a little different so I photographed the back of the guard. The vignette in this case is having the guard sharp and the tourists blurry.

I know, this was more than a small blurb. Just got carried away.
See how many vignettes you can spot in my photographs. The winner gets a pat on the back.

Until next time.

Still Life

Hello again folks,

Still Life in the art world conjures up images of bowls of fruit, maybe wine and cheese. I’ve even seen Still Life paintings with the fruit and wine and even a mouse or two, or some other animals/insects. There are other artists that’ll do Still Life paintings with flowers or plants. Most of the time the subject is indoors but some artists will paint their Still Life paintings in outdoor settings. Probably a picnic or a campsite.

Still Life photography can be indoors or outdoors and pretty much any subject can be photographed as a Still Life. As most of you know, I’m a cyclist, so I came up with my own Still Life photo.
Ladies & Gentlemen, I present to you my STILL LIFE: Yep, it’s a bike saddle. Selle Italia is one of the top bike seat manufacturers so I figured it would make a nice photo. Hope you agree.

Maybe I’ll see you on the road.

Black & White vs Color

Hi Folks,

I would like to share 3 photos with you. The first is a sign that Spring is in the air. I shot this a couple of days ago in Central Park. Mosquitos are gonna be flying around and bugging us pretty soon. Lets just hope that the West Nile Virus doesn’t come back with them.

The next 2 photos are NYC landscapes. (don’t forget to click on the photos to see larger versions).

They’re actually the same photo. The first one is the original color version and the second is the new and improved black & white version. Lots of people always ask me if I use Photoshop. I always tell them I do. Then they say “well isn’t that cheating?” I know lots of people feel that way. I’ll ask y’all right now, if you shot a roll of film and took it to the developing lab, (Walmart, or Duane Reade) that’s considered processing the film. Well, think of using Photoshop as processing the film, or in this case, the digital film. Either way the “film” has to be processed. I have full control of the photo if I want it to be black & white, sepia, color, or something in between. I can add grain to black & white photos to make them appear a bit older. I remember as a kid looking at black & white photos, they always seemed to have some grain to them.  If you want to see some nice old B&W’s by Phil Stern, one of my favorite photographers, check out this site: http://www.philsternarchives.com/ A great book to check out is: Phil Stern: A Life’s Work.

Think of the great Ansel Adams. He was a master at controlling his photos in the darkroom where he developed his film. He would print the same image darker or lighter. Crop it a different way. Then come back to it years later and try different techniques with the same image. As the years passed by in Ansel Adams time photo paper got better and the chemicals he used to develop his film got better so he would pull out his old negatives and reprint them.

The same is true today. Photo paper and software is always getting better. Photoshop has a new version coming out soon. The version I have now is way better than what I had 4 years ago.  So it’s not cheating if I choose to “develop” my “film” in color or black & white.  I just want my photos to look their very best so that y’all can enjoy them.

Until next time.