Portrait

Statues

Like sardines

Somebody, somewhere has written a thesis on how to get cars into and out of these parking lots, I just know it.

Two towers

The donation

In the tropics

From last summer, a shop with some rather unusual floral decoration. It doesn't really look like Soho!

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.

By the sea

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

Manhattan Municipal Building

It's huge, so I wanted to make it look as imposing as possible.

Municipal power

West Village

Walking north from Houston Street.

Circles

Disused flower urns. I stood on the first one and waited for a few minutes for the right combination of people to come walking past. After I got down a security guard wandered out of the building to loiter around in front of the doors, maybe he was checking what I was up to?

By the sea

Outside a bar. This may have come out better if I had taken it from higher up to show more of the people, but at the time I was worried that would distract from the buoys.

Red Hook

Since the expedition to the Gowanus Canal a few months ago I've been on the look out for  similar places to go, and a visit to the Ikea store in Brooklyn awakened my interest in Red Hook. I've always been drawn to the Red Hook (the name helps of course), and on a subway map it always looks vast and remote. It turns out that it's not really that hard to get to, in fact it's right next to the canal! Walking along the deserted waterfront I took a couple of photos of the landscape.

Black swan 

A swan and some unidentified and abandoned industrial structure, so it's pretty much another post-industrial landscape. Looking at this again I should have taken this from lower to get more of the two interesting things in the picture and less intervening water, but you learn some things with practice. And the swan wasn't staying still, either. (Update: this is probably a goose, not a swan.)

Idle cranes

These looked like they haven't been used for quite a while, and since this is right next to the Ikea store, I hardly imagine they see a lot of traffic.

If you look carefully you'll find something hidden in this photo!

Light and shadow

More photos with taken with the N80. I took these all on the same day in Soho without really having a theme in mind, but after looking at them they seem to come together.

Leaves and sunlight

This photo was a bit of an experiment to see how a high-contrast scene would come out with T-Max 400 film, since the leaves in the foreground were in shade and the sunlight striking the white building in the background was very bright. Not too bad, and the texture on the leaves turned out well.

Shadow #1

This is the shadow from some kind of metal sculpture (looks like a rabbit I guess) by the sidewalk. I found the shadow it made on the building behind more interesting than the sculpture itself. 

Shadow #2

Soho portraits

I just picked up prints from a roll of film I took over the past few weeks with the Nikon N80. This time I was using Kodak T-Max 400 rather than the T-Max 100 I was using for the first roll, and with more latitude in exposure I could be more adventurous. As with last time I took my time trying to get the best shot for each frame, and I think a reasonable number turned out at least halfway decent.

Before starting to write this post I had a feeling that I don't post many photos of people, but going back and checking, there are more than I thought, so that's not really true. However, the following two are unusual: since I asked the subjects beforehand, they're actual portraits. Thanks to the courage I'd worked up in the street photography workshop last month I didn't hesitate!

Guys in sunglasses

These two guys were waiting on a street corner. Though they were standing together they just seemed to be watching the crowd. When I asked if I could take a photo of them they said sure, what should we do? Do what you were doing, I said.

Man and his dog

This one was a lucky chance, I was planning to take a photo of this guy enjoying his cigarette from further away but even a zoom lens to 80mm wasn't going to get very close, so there was nothing for it but to ask for permission. That allowed me to get just close enough.

More to come ...