MoMA

I haven't been to MoMA since a date slip-up back in 2008. This time I was going solo, taking advantage of "Target" Free Friday Night after the O'Reilly Strata conference. It was great. The staff had the free tickets laying out on the counter just waiting to be plucked. The longest line I had to wait in was at the bag check.





The Sum of Days exhibit has to be one of the largest works of art I've ever seen. It's not as big as the Statue of Liberty, but it helps to think of it on that scale. Oh yeah, and it's indoors. If you do go check it out, be sure to go all the way up to the sixth floor to look down on it from above. The railings aren't very high though, so vertigo is not recommended.



Along the way, I stopped to check out van Gogh's Starry Night. As you can see in the picture, he knows how to draw a crowd. When I stopped in the gift shop to pick up a postcard print, I realized that most prints can't possibly do it justice. In addition to being the wrong aspect ratio (too rectangular) the vivid colts and textures just don't come through.

There were too many other amazing exhibits to list out here, so all in can say is, "Go!"

And be sure to stop at The Cart on the opposite corner afterward. When you think you've put on enough white sauce, put on a bit lot more. Somehow I'd forgotten that rule in the past couple years since I'd been there. Even in the rain, there were still plenty of places to sit on the sidewalk and admire The City rising above in every direction. It's a little bit like being on top of a mountain, or looking up at the stars, feeling big and small at the same time.

Return to Delaware Water Gap

Last weekend was a great chance to capture some fall color. This season seems to be the most gradual transition to fall that I've seen in a while, so there may not be one big explosion of color this year. This is fine by me, as I never really look forward to the grays of winter.

This year we decided to head up to Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area and stay in Matamoras, PA. This gave us great access to Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, though we didn't actually make it into latter of the three. Also, hotel rooms are pretty cheap in this area, so don't do like I did last time and sleep in the car.

I also simplified my gear for this trip, only taking the 5D, 24-105/4 IS, 17-40/4, and 50/1.8 (why not). I also had a small tripod with me, but it stayed in the car the whole time. The 24-105's IS was good enough that I could get shots of the waterfalls at 1/4 sec. hand-held.



We also lucked out with an amazing sunrise over Port Jervis on our first morning. We drove a few miles up both sides of the Delaware River. For future reference, you can skip driving up the Pennsylvania side of the river north of Matamoras; it's all private residences. The New York side was amazing along highway 97. There were some great overlooks and we caught some rising fog along the hilltops.





A useful strategy we've developed is to get up early, explore, take a mid-day nap, then explore some more in the afternoon and evening. The light is better at the extremes anyway, plus the crowds are nonexistent early in the morning. After our nap, we hit up some more trails at Dingmans Falls and Raymondskill Falls. I felt like I captured Dingmans Falls reasonably well last time, so I tried to focus more on close-up details and other elements that usually get missed.







This last picture was one I particularly wanted to get since these very same leaves saved me from a downpour last time I was on this trail a couple years ago. Thankfully we had great weather this time around.

Make sure to take advantage of the fall color this year. It seems like every fall is a little different. Some are better than others, and sometimes the weather is against you, but there are almost always opportunities to be had. Happy shooting!

Cloudy Sunday Blah

And I mean that in a good way. We all need that solitary downtime. A good low-contrast day to let our minds explore and relax. Listen to some Chopin or Gershwin while you're at it. Make a photo book, perhaps. Here's a photo book I recently made from my Alaska trip last year:



As an update to those interested, here are a few photos from our summer trip to Rochester, Niagara Falls, and Toronto (plus the image up top):

Positively Cinematic

So I got my Hasselblad Xpan film back from the lab today, much sooner than I had expected. The results? Positively cinematic!

Here are three pictures taken on or near Rockefeller Center. I popped over there on the Monday morning of Fashion Week when they first opened at 8am. Surprisingly, it seemed a little warmer at the top than on the ground (out of the wind, of course). My guess is that the tops of buildings in New York get dramatically more Sun than the streets and therefore warm up earlier in the day.





It does indeed force you to see the world in something resembling Panavision.

I'd say the main disappointment of this film experience was that the six-year-old Provia 400F I was using had developed a bit of a magenta cast. This was easy enough to remove by selecting the white point in Photoshop with a curves adjustment layer. I also need to practice with correct exposure; chimping since 2004 has really spoiled me in this regard.

Here's one final, less cinematic shot. It's actually Provia 400F that's been converted to B&W in Photoshop.

Meanwhile, in New York...

Last weekend I was in New York City for Fall Fashion Week. Surprisingly, it was even crazier than Spring Fashion Week last September. I didn't even get in to the Diane Von Furstenberg, Jill Stuart, or Tracy Reese shows. Eventually I realized that enough was enough (especially for fashion) and decided that I needed to take advantage of being in one of the greatest cities in the world.

After grabbing a slice at Pronto Pizza, I hoofed it over to Penn Station to drop off my backpack with my clothes in it. All I wanted was a locker for a few hours until my train left. The Amtrak baggage check agent informed me that all the lockers in New York had been removed after 9/11... Thanks terrorists. He did say that he could hold it until my train left though, but that it would cost $4.50. This seemed odd to me since I could check one bag for free. In any case, I certainly didn't want to lug my clothes around the city for the rest of the day, and I didn't want to check it since my train would be arriving in Baltimore late that night, so I coughed up the $4.50. All I had on me was a $20, but another Amtrak employee (who apparently dealt with a lot of small denominations) was kind enough to make change. Perhaps I should have pretended to check the bag, then picked it up before the train arrived.

Since Penn Station was so close to B&H Photo, I decided to drop in there for about an hour. They've got pretty much everything, and it's fascinating to watch their system of queues and baskets in action. The folks at IMG who handle Fashion Week may be able to take a few hints from these guys. Anyway, after a brief stop in the used department to check out a Fuji 690 III (surprisingly cheap feel) and Leica M7 (utterly solid), I picked up an orange Hoya multi-coated filter and two rolls of Ilford ISO 400 B&W film for my Hasselblad Xpan. The 45mm lens on my Xpan takes a 49mm filter, which is not as common as I'd like.

Xpan in hand, I hopped on the A train, and headed up to Columbus circle to explore Central Park a bit. I quickly polished off the roll of Fuji Provia 400F that I'd started at the top of Rockefeller Center, and switched to the Ilford XP2 400 (C-41) B&W film and my new filter.

And this is where the story ends somewhat abruptly. I'm still finishing off that roll of B&W film. I mailed my two spent rolls of Provia to the lab earlier this week for processing. I guess I won't really know how good the Xpan is until I get those back. Based on it's solid feel, and the praise it's gotten from other photographers, I'm optimistic.

Also worth mentioning is a very entertaining show called Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, which my friends and I saw that Saturday night. Buy tickets in advance so you can get in early enough to pick a seat away from the isle (unless you enjoy getting plucked from the audience). Also try to forget what a fire-hazard the theater looks like on the inside, and enjoy the show.

Baltimore to New York... by train

The plan for this trip was to have a little solo adventure up to New York City by train, then stay in a hostel for the night. I'd never taken a train or stayed in a hostel in the US before, nor had I ever spent the night in Manhattan. The ideas was that I'd be able to explore the city on my own and take whatever pictures I wanted. Here's how the experiment went...

Itinerary
April 22, 2008
Depart: Penn Station, Baltimore, Maryland, train 94, 14:47
Arrive: Penn Station, New York, New York, 17:21
Cost: $87

Accommodations: Gershwin Hotel near 27th and 6th, $41

April 23, 2008
Depart: Penn Station, New York, New York, train 187, 21:05
Arrive: Penn Station, Baltimore, Maryland, 23:33
Cost: $61

Gear
Canon 5D
Canon SD800
Canon 24-70/2.8
Canon 400/5.6
Canon TC-80N3 remote
Mountainsmith Tour bag

What Worked
Took the Baltimore light rail up to Penn Station from University Center for $1.60. Make sure to get on the train marked "Penn Station." And yes, I got on the right one.

The train had two standard electrical outlets for every pair of seats. I didn't have anything to plug in, but if I had, that would have been a huge plus.

I was able to easily walk from Penn Station to the Gershwin Hotel, though the 23rd Street Subway station seemed to to be closest.

Took the subway up to 96th on the west side of Central Park to get to the reservoir, so I could get some sunset shots of the city across the water. There were a ton of runners on the path around the lake, so I had to watch out for them. Luckily, I accidentally walked across the park to the north side of the lake, which meant I could work my way around clockwise, which was the same direction the runners were going.

After the sun set, I switched the camera into Monochrome (black and white) Picture Style with a Red Filter option, and bumped up the ISO 1600. This gave some pretty cool hand-help pictures of the city at night. The contrasty red filter and the high-ISO graininess reminded me of good old Tri-X 400 from my days at Technique.

Chicken dinner for $6 at a street-side vendor at 53rd and 6th, near the Hilton. Known as The Platter. Get the rice and pita bread. I hear the sauce is good too, but you have to ask for it, which I didn't realize.

There are many drug stores in the city, mainly Duane Reade and CVS. These are enormously useful if you need a cold drink, snack, or if you forget your shampoo or allergy medication. Incidentally, the grocery stores in the city don't seem to carry many over-the-counter drugs or cold drinks, probably due to the number of drug stores.

The hostel dorm rooms at the Gershwin Hotel are co-ed. The two girls in the next bunk were in the city shopping for a week. One was an acting major from Newfoundland, Canada named Annie. The other was on a five-week tour of the Americas from Amsterdam. Apparently, the big thing right now is for Europeans to come to America to go shopping. The girl from Amsterdam kept going on about how cheap everything was since she was spending dollars instead of euros. Annie, on the other hand, was just happy to find more clothing variety since there aren't a lot of options in Newfoundland. In particular, she complained about how her underwear was the same as her boyfriend's ex's, so she couldn't surprise him. I think she will after this trip though.

I'm glad I went by Roosevelt Island, just to see a different aspect of the city that most people don't both with. I took the Subway, but the tram/cable-car looked like it would have been fun.

Sitting down and looking at a guide book makes you looks less like a tourist than standing up and looking at a guide book. If you really want to avoid sticking out, duck into a coffee shop. There are Starbucks everywhere. I used the Not For Tourists 2008 Guide to New York City with some black tape over the shiny title. Overall a good little book for finding the closest whatever. The Central Park map could have used much more detail though, and going from one part of the city to another required looking at multiple pages.

Swinging by the Guggenheim Museum was a good idea, even though I decided not to buy a ticket. The lobby/atrium is free though, and often has some pretty interesting temporary exhibits. They also have some cool stuff in the gift shop.

The Post Office at the intersection of 91st and 3rd allowed me to buy individual postcard stamps. I was able to write my postcards in the shade of the buildings outside.

There seems to be random open wifi all over the city. This worked really well with my iPod Touch, and was especially useful since I hadn't bothered to bring my laptop.

The map store at on 43rd between 6th and 7th had many interesting maps and guide books, but nothing from Liberia.

I made a stop in Bryant Park to rest on the grass and try to take some time-lapse photos. There was a surprisingly large number of people there. There was also free, open wifi which I used to browse the web on my iPod Touch while the camera snapped pictures of the crowd automatically. In the end, the time-lapse experiment didn't go too well. However, as I was leaving, I walked by the New York Public Library and noticed a great view of the Chrysler Building in the setting sun. I busted out the 400/5.6 and mini-tripod and was able to get this shot.

I happened to get onto my return train in the "Quiet Car." I thought this was a pretty nice feature, since it meant no loud conversations or cell phones were allowed. The ironic part was that the intercom seemed to be even louder in the Quiet Car than the regular car. This may have been to wake people up so they wouldn't miss their stop.

I was impressed with the consideration of the attendants on the train. When they took my ticket, they gave me a card with my stop marked on it. I then placed it above my seat so they could see that they had taken my ticket. They also used this to notify me that my stop was coming up. If I had fallen asleep on the return trip, this would have been greatly appreciated.

What Didn't Work
I got to Baltimore's Penn Station way too early. I didn't know what to expect, so I figured I'd give myself a wide margin of error.

The Baltimore light rail only seems to run until 11pm during the week, so I had to take a taxi home for $9 (includes tip). I wanted to make this trip entirely without using a car, but it didn't happen.

The Gershwin Hotel did not have full-size lockers, just small laptop-sized ones. I was able to put by bag in storage though, which worked out just as well.

I did not need to bring my own pillow, towel, or blanket to the Gershwin. This would have significantly lightened my load.

Going to Roosevelt Island in the morning to get some sunrise pictures of the city didn't work as well as I'd hoped. In particular, I wasn't able to get to the southern tip of the island which was closed for construction. From the southern tip, I would have had a much better angle of the UN and possibly the Chrysler Building.

The touristy parts of New York were even more crowded during the week than on the weekend, which was unexpected. I'm guessing this is because the number of tourists is fairly constant, but when you add all the business people that are there during the week, it gets even worse.

The Apple Store on 59th and 5th was insane. I'd been to that one before, but it seemed like there were twice as many people in there this time. Of course, it seems like Apple's market share has about doubled since I was there last, so maybe that was it.

Planning to spend the entire day exploring and taking pictures was a bad idea. I was on my feet at 7am to get some morning pictures of the city. However, my train didn't leave until 9pm. By the late afternoon, my feet were in such pain, that I couldn't even walk around for more sunset pictures. I think this had more to do with the length of time on my feet than the distance traveled.

I took the 400mm lens so I could get some "different" pictures of the city. This only partially worked. It seemed to be too long for most things in such a packed city. I think I will stick to the 70-200/2.8 in the future.

On the whole, my pictures didn't focus on the details enough, which is where NYC really is. I actually did a better job of this last time I went to the city with friends.

I got to New York's Penn Station too early as well. It wasn't as bad as in Baltimore though, since this station was much larger, took more time to figure out, and had many more food options.

Miscellaneous
I thought I was going to be a bit of a trend-setter by taking the train. I thought the train would be mostly empty. I thought I'd have my choice of window seats. I was wrong. There were many (normal) people taking the train up from DC to Philly and NYC.

The Gershwin Hotel was right next door to the Museum of Sex. Yep.

Conclusions
The Gershwin was fine as a hostel if you'd just looking for a place to sleep. Bring earplugs.

Amtrak was a great way to go to and from NYC, especially solo. Very punctual as well.

New York is in the details. Focus on them.

A medium telephoto zoom is more useful in a city than a long telephoto lens.

Pack light.

Don't overdo it on foot.