Off Union Square

I've been meaning to post this for a while and since I was back at this restaurant for lunch today it's a good opportunity. I like the row of lights and the contrast between the warm interior and the cool blue outside.

Bright lights big city

Look up!

Market Street

Market Street seen from Twin Peaks, from a recent trip to San Francisco. It was a long walk to the top but worth it in the end!

Looking out from the inside

Lion on Fifth Avenue

Herald Square

December has been pretty slow so far, but this post brings me to 100 for the year, so to mark the occasion I searched for a photo from earlier in the year that I had overlooked. I took this one for a photography course back in March, outside a certain famous department store in Midtown.

Flushing

Last weekend I took a trip out to Flushing and snapped this photo of a woman distributing fliers outside a convenience store. Originally I just wanted to get a photo of someone in front of the yellow sign but it turned out more interesting than I had anticipated.

Zigzag

Where to from here?

Blue iguana

A blue iguana at Queen Elizabeth Botanic Park on Grand Cayman. It didn't seem to worried about me getting close, but I didn't feel comfortable about those claws, so this is still a telephoto shot.

The San Remo

The San Remo building on Central Park West from by the lake in the park. Apparently it's only 27 stories, not that big by New York standards!

Autumn waterfall

Downtown sunset

I have a feeling that I post a lot of sunset photos, but I think this is a particularly striking one. The silhouetted buildings are downtown Manhattan and Jersey City mixed together.

Lake view

More of a pond than a lake, but "pond view" doesn't sound quite the same. I like this one better than the digital version I took in the same spot.

Summer waterfall

This week had the film photos I took during the weekend in Central Park developed. These are the first colour film photos I've taken since getting a film SLR, and I wanted to try out a roll of Fuji Velvia 50 and see how it came out. The results were mixed. On the one hand, exposing slide film correctly and getting the colours right is tricky! On the other hand, comparing film and digital photos side-by-side, the film photos seem sharper, even though I took both with a tripod and the same depth of field.

I took the photo above back in July when the leaves were still green. The subdued colours work quite nicely here I think.

Bike in the park

Rising tensions between cyclists and pedestrians in Central Park seem to be in the news lately (or maybe they're always in the news), but here's a calm shot of a cyclist in the park.

Stairs to the sky

A striking storefront reflection in the Meatpacking District, back at the end of April.

Walking the dog

The corridor

When I got closer to the woman sitting on the chair I realised she was a security guard. She asked if I had taken a picture of her and I said "You're in the photo, but you're only this big", making a little box with my fingers.

Saxophonist

More from the photos I took in the park last weekend. I went back to the same spot today and all the leaves had gone!

Not Al Pacino

From the date, it looks like I took this on my birthday earlier this year. Looking at makes me wonder who these two guys are and what they're up to (apart from shopping, obviously). 

Duck in autumn

I don't really find ducks to be very interesting to photograph, but with the reflections and ripples in the water this didn't turn out too badly.

Sunset in the park

Now that winter is approaching it gets dark early, on 4:30pm on Saturday I realised the sun was going down and raced to the top of the nearest hill to try and get a sunset shot. It's a cluttered composition but I like the colour and silhouettes. 

Shamisen player

A few weeks ago I came across somebody unexpectedly playing a shamisen in Madison Square Park. I haven't seen anything like that before!

Roof with leaves

By the sea

Spotted through an open door while walking along a pier at Red Hook. Not something you see everyday in New York!

Modelling in Central Park

Central Park is a popular place to do an amateur photo shoot! I was on my way to the waterfalls at the north end of the park, but I figured I might as well take a few shots myself.

Autumn afternoon

I spent a large part of Saturday and Sunday in Central Park photographing the autumn leaves -- looks like it's getting close to the peak. I took a lot of photos, so it will take me a while to get through them all, but here's the first.

Seven Mile Beach

Sunset at Seven Mile Beach on Grand Cayman back in March. I was hoping for a nicer sunset, but clouds can be impressive as well.

Autumn in Madison Square Park

Weather permitting, this weekend I will be photographing autumn leaves. Here's a photo I took around this time last year when the trees in Madison Square Park were at their best.

Coffee shop

I spotted this guy sitting outside a coffee shop. People talking on cell phones are easy to take photos of! I like his relaxed attitude, but unfortunately I didn't meter properly for him, so sunlight on light clothing on a dark background made his trousers too white.

Through the snow

Unexpectedly early snow at the end of October, though it certainly felt cold enough for it.

Manhattan skyline

Taken from Gantry Plaza State Park on the Long Island City side of the East River across from the United Nations building. When taking photos at sunset, you have to stick around for the best moment: this was quite a bit after the sun had "gone down", but this sky colour was more impressive than the rather disappointing sunset.

Autumn

Today I went up to Central Park to see how the leaves are doing, but they've still hardly started changing colour yet, so there's not a lot to photograph. After looking high and low, this is the best I could come up with!

Looking over photos I took last year, things should start happening in a week or two.

Grant's Tomb

Whenever I'm on Riverside Drive I'm always surprised to discover Grant's Tomb. Since I don't know the neighbourhood that well, somehow I'm never expecting it to be there.

The Cloisters

Last weekend I made a trip up to the Cloisters at the north end of Manhattan for the first time in a while. I'm always looking for chances to add a frame to a photo, here I was lucky to get two in one.

Horseshoe Falls at night

At night the falls at Niagara Falls are illuminated by coloured lights, but I this one better in black and white. The circles are caused by spotlights shining across from the other side of the gorge.

Bagpipe player

You don't see bagpipe players very often in New York anywhere except in a parade, but this one was dressed for the part.

Chess players

I'm fascinated by the chess players (or "chess hustlers") who hang out Union Square and some other major New York parks. I've never been particularly good at chess, so I've kept my distance, but there's something intriguing about the idea that chess is serious business for some people. This photo captures some of the feeling: the park is bustling with people but some of them are deep in concentration. I'm sure I've seen the guy in the leather jacket playing before.

Unearthly landscape

There's something about this sculpture that I find a little disturbing, like a procession of visitors from a distant planet.

Sunset, Chelsea Piers

A big detour on the way home from work on a day when there turned out to be an impressively unusual sunset. All the black stuff in the water is the remains of old piers, things were presumably much busier around here before the container traffic moved to New Jersey.

Unusual gathering

Coming across this large group of girls outside a store, I had trouble figuring out what was going on. Something a little out of the ordinary was definitely going on -- though maybe in New York it's not that out of the ordinary.

Piano player

This summer pianos have been set up in a couple of parks around the city for people to come by and play on. While I was Washington Square Park this guy sat down and played for while, apparently he's a regular (he was rather good). The fountain provides the backdrop. This is one of those photos that require patience, it was quite crowded so I had to wait a while for an unobstructed shot.

Birds in flight

The takeoff

Some very photogenic pigeons off Bleecker Street. Someone had scattered bird feed around, so they were drawn back to the same spot, every time a pedestrian came too close they would all fly off, and then come back and land again. Thanks to that, I was able to get a good shot or two.

Horseshoe Falls

Watching the Horseshoe Falls from the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. This telephoto shot is fairly aggressive, but I wanted compress the foreground and background together as much as I could.

Bleecker Street bar

While walking along Bleecker Street with my N80 loaded with a roll of Ilford Delta 400, I stopped for a beer at a bar. As well as a lot of cans in the window, this particular bar has an unusually long beer list.

Morning, Buffalo

Waiting to take off at Buffalo Airport on the way back from Niagara Falls on Sunday morning. Pictures from Niagara Falls to follow.

Yakitori

This isn't a recent photo, but it's one of my favourites from the photos that I took on our visit to Japan last year. After a busy day out we had dinner at a very small yakitori (grilled chicken) place that had just a counter and two tables. As well as yakitori they had an extensive selection of shochu (strong liquor that is always described as "like vodka", but it has more flavour and less alcohol aftertaste), which they demonstrated by decorating the walls with labels from shochu bottles. The blackboard lists the drink prices.

Gramercy Park

The entrance to an apartment building near Gramercy Park provided the subject for this unusual shot. I can't really imagine anyone decorating their building with something like this nowadays.

Sinister figures