Playing Around

I was in NY a couple of weeks ago. I went with my best friend and we had a blast, not the least of which was just taking pictures. Neither one of us brought cameras, we just used our iphones but the results we pretty darn good. Today I was exchanging emails with Sasha and I sent her one of my favourite pictures, (that I’m currently using as my screen saver).

It was sunny and hot for all 5 days we were in NY, except of the last day (which coincidently, was the day we’d booked a walking tour. Btw, I highly recommend this tour, it was fab and the guides Lance (and Frankie) were your quintessential Brooklynese, broad accent, dry humor and all. They made the experience that much more fun.

I LOVE this picture. It’s at the top of my list for pics to print and frame. My only quibble is, it could be anywhere. There’s a certain anonymity (and mystery) to it. In terms of picture taking for the trip, I was trying to do a bit more than ‘smile for the camera! Snap!snap!snap!’. I aimed for composition, mood, balance, etc. I think I achieve some of that here, but at the same time it feels a little like photo101. Just your basic exercise in straight line diminishing pov.

This one I was playing with angles, just making the lines of the building match up with the edges of the photo. Not sure how interesting it is. Lol.

Another fav. Love the way the tree branches frame that glimpse of the sky scrapers. This was a see little surprise. We were just walking and gawking… er… looking around, and there was the picture. If I hadn’t been looking up in that direction at that specific time, I would have missed the shot.

This pic is the one I shared with Sasha. What I like about it is how the lamp post falls in line with the step down of the buildings from left to right. Further, the decrease in the buildings work naturally with the diminishing prospective. I don’t think the pic would have been as interesting without the lamppost.

Authors do the same things with their stories that I’ve tried to do with these pictures: Take the familiar but show it from an unfamiliar prospective, give a surprise or unveil a mystery. Give context, that pulls you into the whole and the detail. And like authors and stories, the same picture can always have a different spin in different hands.

Sasha decided to play with the image and here are the results.

Cool huh?