New York City Streets

On Tuesday, I finished my training at Adorama (photo store) and headed out in the early evening to shoot some images on the streets of New York City. As I was walking on 5th Ave, someone pointed out this alligator coming out the sewer. No, it was not real, it was a promotion for a TV show. But, it was really fun to stand there and watch all the people, and their reactions (or lack of) to the display. I set up my tripod and shot some images. I wanted to slow the shutter so that I could capture a mixture of people paying attention to the gator and also show the hurried people that paid no attention.

What a great marketing gimmick!

And from that same spot, right by Bryant Park, I turned and saw this cool reflection of some older buildings in the windows of this more modern structure.

As I continued my photo walk, I came across this common scene in Manhattan. Without letting the woman know that I was shooting her photo, I set up the tripod and captured this scene. (Photographer note: On this shot, I slowed the shutter to 1/3 sec to freeze the woman, while showing the blur of the taxi passing her by. In post, I then added two additional layers in Photoshop. One layer was a gaussian blur layer to blur the background a bit, and the second layer was a black and white layer. I then created a layer mask and exposed the color in the woman and the taxis. I liked the original image but felt that the background was too distracting and drew too much attention from the main subject, the woman.)

My next stop was Macy's on 34th Street. But, before I made it to the big department store (across the street from this building) I was captivated by the colors of this clothing store. I waited for a group of taxis to come along, to give me some good color and motion in the foreground, and shot this image.

And then later that night I got adventuresome and, with the help of a nice person from New Jersey whom I had met while watching the alligator, took a bus through the Lincoln Tunnel and shot some images of the city from the New Jersey side.  

Always looking to try something different...