February 9, 2010
“Mount Vernon Sewers”
Nope, I didn’t venture inside, although it might be quite an exciting adventure… I just shot the cap. Even though I hate driving on them, I have to admit that the roads in New York have a lot of character and are very photogenic. I love the textures and the ruggedness of the subjects here. Now it really makes me wonder what I would find underground…
February 7, 2010
“A Telecommunications Box”
Isn’t it pretty? Those things hang on telephone poles pretty much everywhere.
January 29, 2010
“Good ‘N Cold”
That one cracked me up. It was a really freezing night, and this McDonald’s cup was literally stuck in solid ice. “Good ‘N Cold”, yeah right! It’s worth mentioning that I took it at ISO 3200, which was surprisingly cleaner than I expected it to be. It helped me use a smaller aperture in order to get more details in the scene. There was so little available light… I’m really impressed with the result! By the way, why do people like their drinks freezing cold? Good and cold doesn’t always go together…
January 24, 2010
“The Golden Road”
A couple of houses in our neighborhood have these cobblestone like pavements leading to their driveway. I’ve always wanted to capture them while on my nightly walks but the light never was right. That was until it rained… the stones really shined under the street lights then, giving them this unique golden shimmer.
January 21, 2010
“A Road In New York”
I didn’t quite know what title to give this photograph… then I thought a very generic one would be perfectly suited for this post. I know I will upset some people by writing this, but I think the state of the roads in New York City is a real shame. Or its public infrastructure in general. While not so much in recent years, I’ve traveled a lot. The closest it’s made me think of when I first came and drove here is post-soviet countries.
I have a few theories.
So much traffic they don’t bother shutting it down to work on roads until they get so bad it’s actually dangerous to drive. I’m not kidding. Sometimes the potholes are so big they need to put traffic cones in them so drivers don’t go and ruin their cars.
Lack of budget. I’ve seen the building of a new one lane exit take over a year. I’ve seen workers paint over the rust of the Queensboro bridge. Everything takes money, I understand that. It’s just sad to see that public infrastructure is the last of elected politicians’ problems. They’re just patching things, not fixing anything. No wonder that sometimes things crumble. Remember the steam pipe explosion?
Use of poor – but cheaper – material to fight snow. Not all “salt” and “sand” is created equal. It usually isn’t natural anyway, and some of it can actually slowly destroy roads over time. A short term vision will lead to the use of cheaper materials, resulting in many cracks in the roads as you can see in this photograph.
Whatever the reason, I hope one day it gets fixed. People are a product of their environment… so they say. It tends to be true, and public infrastructure is a part of it.
January 17, 2010
“Artificial Sun”
I put Jasmine to bed and as it often happens when I do, fell asleep with her. The only problem is that I usually have yet to take my daily photo. I woke up five minutes to midnight. I hastily put my shoes and jacket on and headed outside… under the pouring rain. Thankfully, I’ve had this shot in mind for a while, so I didn’t have to think much nor go far to get it. However, there was one thing I didn’t expect to discover: the way the branches grew around the street light. It never was so apparent until that night. Maybe it was the rain, putting the branches into a new spotlight… I came back soaked but thankful. And my project was saved.
January 16, 2010
“Fire Hydrant At Night”
Another take on a fire hydrant. I barely did any post processing on that one. The 5D has a tendency to make the colors look very warm at night but I didn’t feel the need to tweak the white balance here. I like it as is. It gives it an overall rusty look that I think fits the scene well. By the way, I didn’t add any vignette, the lighting really was like that.
January 15, 2010
“Snapped Snapple”
We found this broken Snapple bottle in the theater parking lot, on our way to see Avatar for the second time. Yes, it’s that good. A couple of passersby made a comment as I was taking my shot. I used to care when I first started shooting. The only thing it does is make you pass on opportunities. Fuck that!
January 14, 2010
“A Light In The Night”
Just a simple window in the night. I’m not quite sure about the composition, it could go many ways. I opted not to crop it and just leave it the way I shot it. Thoughts?
January 13, 2010
“A Lost Ball”
I pondered for a while whether I’d convert this photo to black and white or not. The color version is nice, too. I finally decided on the black and white as I thought there were enough contrasts to make it interesting. What I can’t do in post-processing, however, is fix my focus issue… if you look carefully, the ball is slightly out-of-focus.
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