ending up some place just as interesting
More great adventures in New York (yesterday's post is friendslocked, by the way). Didn't go according to plan, but it's like how Gary Shepherd once said in one of my all-time favorite shows, thirtysomething. Susannah was stressing out about how they were lost, and Gary was taking it all in stride, saying that they'd be able to find it, and if they didn't, well they'd probably end up someplace just as interesting (incidentally, Gary was played by Peter Horton, who did an awesome job directing the excellent pilot episode of Grey's Anatomy that we finally saw recently).
That pretty much summed up the day.
Today it was raining hard, with thunder and lightning and everything. It's not really a novel experience for me, since I grew up on the East Coast, but I thought maybe I could try photographing lightning. But when I looked up tips on how to do it, they said to not try doing it during the daytime, since the way to go is to do a long exposure. Ah well, another time.
Alvina had to work, so my plan was to drop by the B & H photo superstore and maybe pick up some equipment that would be useful during the trip, like some circular polarizers (which let you get a nice picture of a blue sky with clouds in the same shot as something not nearly as bright). But I got a late start to the morning, and B & H is like a 45 minute walk away from Alvina's apartment. It's only about 20 minutes away from her work, so I figure I'd go to FAO Schwarz in the morning, meet Alvina for lunch to eat ramen, and then hit B & H in the afternoon. Fortunately, it stopped raining before I left the apartment, but I checked the forecast and saw 40% chance of showers throughout the day, so I brought an umbrella.
FAO Schwarz was fun, of course. I got to dance around on the huge piano keyboard featured in Big, which was totally cool. I was, however, a bit disappointed that most of the toys were in the packaging and not available for you to play with. I recall the Toys R Us in New York was much more play-friendly. Still, I had a lot of fun browsing the different toys and displays all morning.
Ramen was as yummy as I could have hoped. Total comfort food, only better!
After lunch, I walked towards B & H through the crowds. I could have taken a less congested route, but I wanted to be able to shoot candids of strangers (a useful photojournalism and street photography skill, and considerably harder than candids at a party). Yesterday I used the 18-55 kit lens, which is more versatile than the 50mm prime I also brought, but has mediocre optics at best. I tried to grab candids by setting the lens to wide angle (the 18mm end of 18-55) and shooting blind from the hip to catch people off guard. Although I was successfully capturing the subjects within the frame via the wide angle, most of the shots seemed to be coming out awful.
So today I put on the 50mm prime instead and tried something new: keeping the camera up and shooting through the viewfinder while walking through crowds. In New York, it's the perfect place to do it, because there are a ton of tourists and a ton of things to take pictures of, so before and after you snap a picture of somebody, you can point at a landmark or another person and they will generally not think too much about the possibility of them being photographed, especially if they're also in a crowd. So I think I have some neat shots, but we'll see.
It started raining when I was about a third of the way to B & H, so I put away the camera and broke out the umbrella. Wasn't too bad until I was about three blocks away, when it just started raining like the apocalypse was upon us. My pants got soaked from the knee downward. But I made it the rest of the way there without incident...
But B & H was closed. I forgot that they're run by Hacidic Jews, and thus they close early on Friday and all Saturday (I should know this, because their website goes offline as well). Dang.
So I called Alvina and we decide to do the MOMA today instead of Saturday. Their special exhibit was of Dada. I can appreciate that but am not totally into it. As they often seem to poke fun of the art establishment, I wonder whether they would be highly amused that their works are still being exhibited and drawing so much attention. Duchamp's infamous Fountain was there, but I didn't see it (Alvina did). On the one hand, photography is a lot like found art (which is one reason I never really got into it as an art form until it became an obsession of mine last year), but on the other hand, I think that a work that is primarily a statement about "What is art?" is generally not all that interesting to look at in itself, but as more of a historical curiosity. It was a huge Dada exhibit, I'll say. Pretty crowded, as they have a free Friday thing, but I didn't mind as it meant I could take more candids. :)
We had to leave soon, because we were planning on catching the 7PM Mets-Astros game with Sachin. We hadn't seen much beyond just that Dada floor, but it was now raining hard, so Sachin was doubtful about the game's prospects. I totally wanted to check out more of the MOMA (just noticed that they had Wyeth's Christina's World, which is one of my favorites). Plus I'd been to Shea Stadium last time we were in New York, so I said I was fine if we skipped the game.
Oh my god, that was a great decision. Wassily Kandinsky totally rocks my soul. And now, so does Jackson Pollack. Check out some of the close-up shots I took of the Kandinskys. I'm the kind of guy who likes to just wander around and explore stuff in general (which kinda describes this whole trip), and his earlier works (which is what they had) are ideal for doing that with your eyes. I've long wanted to take some close-ups of his artwork to highlight the various little things you can find while exploring (I've tried doing it with my print of Ravine Improvisation, but it's not the same), and they allowed photography on that floor (they didn't for the Dada stuff), so I finally got to do that. Yay!
And then Pollack. Man, I didn't really appreciate Pollack until seeing one of his smaller works at the Bellagio a few years ago. The Whitney and the MOMA had some of his larger works, and they blew me away. Total assault of your visual senses. I wish I knew how to photograph Pollacks that can convey some of this. He's all about movement, so I tried slightly long exposures and panning the camera, but I think I got only mixed results from that. Just go check out his works in person, cuz it's such a mind-blowing experience.
Afterwards, we tried out a new Indian restaurant, which turned out to be just average (oh well), and then went to a party for one of Alvina's co-workers who was moving to France and giving away a bunch of stuff. I scored an external flash unit (something I was planning on buying at B & H). Of course, it was a Nikon SB-26, and I have a Canon camera, so I wasn't sure if it would work, but it seemed to do fine. Grabbed a few neat candids before it seemed to be distracting people too much, so I took it off the camera and relied upon available light with my indispensable 50mm prime lens. I think there were twice as many women as men there, which I, of course, thoroughly enjoyed. :) (no, I didn't make out with anybody, as it was a smallish party and mostly Alvina's coworkers)
And then we took a cab home. I had a nice friendly chat with the roommate I like, I uploaded a few of the Kandinsky photos, and then i wrote this. And it's 2 AM (heh, saw Anna Nalick at San Jose Music in the Park last week -- check out duoli's awesome photos of her there, he's ten times the photographer that I am), and I'm sure I'll have a pretty full day tomorrow as well, so I'm heading to bed.
That pretty much summed up the day.
Today it was raining hard, with thunder and lightning and everything. It's not really a novel experience for me, since I grew up on the East Coast, but I thought maybe I could try photographing lightning. But when I looked up tips on how to do it, they said to not try doing it during the daytime, since the way to go is to do a long exposure. Ah well, another time.
Alvina had to work, so my plan was to drop by the B & H photo superstore and maybe pick up some equipment that would be useful during the trip, like some circular polarizers (which let you get a nice picture of a blue sky with clouds in the same shot as something not nearly as bright). But I got a late start to the morning, and B & H is like a 45 minute walk away from Alvina's apartment. It's only about 20 minutes away from her work, so I figure I'd go to FAO Schwarz in the morning, meet Alvina for lunch to eat ramen, and then hit B & H in the afternoon. Fortunately, it stopped raining before I left the apartment, but I checked the forecast and saw 40% chance of showers throughout the day, so I brought an umbrella.
FAO Schwarz was fun, of course. I got to dance around on the huge piano keyboard featured in Big, which was totally cool. I was, however, a bit disappointed that most of the toys were in the packaging and not available for you to play with. I recall the Toys R Us in New York was much more play-friendly. Still, I had a lot of fun browsing the different toys and displays all morning.
Ramen was as yummy as I could have hoped. Total comfort food, only better!
After lunch, I walked towards B & H through the crowds. I could have taken a less congested route, but I wanted to be able to shoot candids of strangers (a useful photojournalism and street photography skill, and considerably harder than candids at a party). Yesterday I used the 18-55 kit lens, which is more versatile than the 50mm prime I also brought, but has mediocre optics at best. I tried to grab candids by setting the lens to wide angle (the 18mm end of 18-55) and shooting blind from the hip to catch people off guard. Although I was successfully capturing the subjects within the frame via the wide angle, most of the shots seemed to be coming out awful.
So today I put on the 50mm prime instead and tried something new: keeping the camera up and shooting through the viewfinder while walking through crowds. In New York, it's the perfect place to do it, because there are a ton of tourists and a ton of things to take pictures of, so before and after you snap a picture of somebody, you can point at a landmark or another person and they will generally not think too much about the possibility of them being photographed, especially if they're also in a crowd. So I think I have some neat shots, but we'll see.
It started raining when I was about a third of the way to B & H, so I put away the camera and broke out the umbrella. Wasn't too bad until I was about three blocks away, when it just started raining like the apocalypse was upon us. My pants got soaked from the knee downward. But I made it the rest of the way there without incident...
But B & H was closed. I forgot that they're run by Hacidic Jews, and thus they close early on Friday and all Saturday (I should know this, because their website goes offline as well). Dang.
So I called Alvina and we decide to do the MOMA today instead of Saturday. Their special exhibit was of Dada. I can appreciate that but am not totally into it. As they often seem to poke fun of the art establishment, I wonder whether they would be highly amused that their works are still being exhibited and drawing so much attention. Duchamp's infamous Fountain was there, but I didn't see it (Alvina did). On the one hand, photography is a lot like found art (which is one reason I never really got into it as an art form until it became an obsession of mine last year), but on the other hand, I think that a work that is primarily a statement about "What is art?" is generally not all that interesting to look at in itself, but as more of a historical curiosity. It was a huge Dada exhibit, I'll say. Pretty crowded, as they have a free Friday thing, but I didn't mind as it meant I could take more candids. :)
We had to leave soon, because we were planning on catching the 7PM Mets-Astros game with Sachin. We hadn't seen much beyond just that Dada floor, but it was now raining hard, so Sachin was doubtful about the game's prospects. I totally wanted to check out more of the MOMA (just noticed that they had Wyeth's Christina's World, which is one of my favorites). Plus I'd been to Shea Stadium last time we were in New York, so I said I was fine if we skipped the game.
Oh my god, that was a great decision. Wassily Kandinsky totally rocks my soul. And now, so does Jackson Pollack. Check out some of the close-up shots I took of the Kandinskys. I'm the kind of guy who likes to just wander around and explore stuff in general (which kinda describes this whole trip), and his earlier works (which is what they had) are ideal for doing that with your eyes. I've long wanted to take some close-ups of his artwork to highlight the various little things you can find while exploring (I've tried doing it with my print of Ravine Improvisation, but it's not the same), and they allowed photography on that floor (they didn't for the Dada stuff), so I finally got to do that. Yay!
And then Pollack. Man, I didn't really appreciate Pollack until seeing one of his smaller works at the Bellagio a few years ago. The Whitney and the MOMA had some of his larger works, and they blew me away. Total assault of your visual senses. I wish I knew how to photograph Pollacks that can convey some of this. He's all about movement, so I tried slightly long exposures and panning the camera, but I think I got only mixed results from that. Just go check out his works in person, cuz it's such a mind-blowing experience.
Afterwards, we tried out a new Indian restaurant, which turned out to be just average (oh well), and then went to a party for one of Alvina's co-workers who was moving to France and giving away a bunch of stuff. I scored an external flash unit (something I was planning on buying at B & H). Of course, it was a Nikon SB-26, and I have a Canon camera, so I wasn't sure if it would work, but it seemed to do fine. Grabbed a few neat candids before it seemed to be distracting people too much, so I took it off the camera and relied upon available light with my indispensable 50mm prime lens. I think there were twice as many women as men there, which I, of course, thoroughly enjoyed. :) (no, I didn't make out with anybody, as it was a smallish party and mostly Alvina's coworkers)
And then we took a cab home. I had a nice friendly chat with the roommate I like, I uploaded a few of the Kandinsky photos, and then i wrote this. And it's 2 AM (heh, saw Anna Nalick at San Jose Music in the Park last week -- check out duoli's awesome photos of her there, he's ten times the photographer that I am), and I'm sure I'll have a pretty full day tomorrow as well, so I'm heading to bed.