I always set out with the best of intentions to do these things quickly, alas, often life gets in the way and they take a little longer, but hopefully you’ll agree its worth wating for! It feels a long time ago now that I came back from New York, but everytime I look at this collection of photos it takes me right back! Its quite a rambling collection of images that don’t seem to fit into any of the other posts I was planning! Plus i’ve doubled up on some of my favourites! You may already have read in my earlier posts how NY completely grabbed me, the sights and sounds, the people, everything. Well its still true!
Instead of lumping all the photos into one post, I wanted to talk about them in smaller chunks, this series of pictures is basically a blow by blow account of my holiday, well, the best bits at least! There are pictures from the obvious to the obscure and then the really random! I guess its best to go chronologically…
Day 1
The first few photos show my first view of the Rockerfeller building, which somehow I managed to just stumble upon! I rounded a corner, looked at the guidebook then glanced to my left… and there it was… It took my breath away, easily the biggest building I had ever seen! I needed to shoot with my fisheye lens just to get it all in!
Almost straight away I was hit with the problem of how to photograph it. I wanted to capture an image no-one else has done before! No small task as I was jostling with the other tourists for position, plus I got some real camera envy too… I spent a little time walking around the plaza trying to find a good unique(ish) angle, and I was fairly happy with what I came up with! Although the light was fading, so with more time, maybe I would have got something truly amazing! Maybe next time!
We walked through Time Square and then rounded a corner to find something I would imagine is quite common in New York, but to a small town boy like myself just looked completely bizarre… About 250 people all doing yoga in the park! So we duly sat down and watched for half an hour or so…
Finally we headed to Grand Central Station, you’ve all seen it in the classic New York movies, and as soon as I walked in I felt the romance of the place, it was just so beautiful, and so so busy! In my naivety I guess I didn’t even realise it was still a functioning station! What do I know!
Day 2
The majority of the day was spent chilling out in and around Central Park, hoping to capture some timeless images of NY, couples strolling hand in hand etc… What I actually found was one of the most concentrated areas of exercise I’ve ever seen! All sports seemed to be covered by people of all shapes and sizes! I did manage to get some of the images I was after, although some of them are ashamedly touristy! Not least the photos of the John Lennon Memorial at Strawberry Fields where we met an aging hippy who tended to the Imagine sign and constantly replenished the flowers.
I love colour popping. There, I said it. Its not to everyones tastes and I don’t do it too often, but I was always going to colour pop a classic NY taxi cab! Too good an opportunity to miss!
Personally I’m very pleased with the framing of the lake pictures! I’ve seen images like this grazing the pages of photography magazines for years, and now I have my own versions! The seem to me, even when I was there, that they could almost be from any period over the last hundred years! Rowing boats gliding gracefully by under the watchful gaze of the skyscrapers above, I think the processing of the pictures reflects what I was trying to achieve!
The obscure, almost fine art looking images are from Big Bambu, an art installation atop the Met where we spent a good few hours getting our first ariel views of the big apple in all its glory! I also took the opportunity to take some panoramas, which I’ve never usually bothered with, but again, the moment seemed to lead itself to it nicely.
I hope that these images start to give you an idea of what my New York was like! More to come soon…
As always, comment welcomed and appreciated! Thanks for reading,
NS
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Hey Neil,
Your site’s looking great! Love the selection of NY shots you’ve got up, and I agree wholeheartedly that colour popping was necessary for the taxi cab! Brilliant colour in the band pic too, good skills.
Amy Alegria
Tres cool. How do you colour pop? Is it a photoshop job? I’ve seen it used really well in videos etc. but never used it myself.
It can be done in Photoshop, but I use Lightroom 3, its basically a really simple intuitive piece of photo editing software, (I should be on commission!)
The simplest way is to desaturate all the colour from the image and then re-add whichever colour you want! Photoshop can do it much more selectively, but lightroom is a good first step!
Love it mate, beautiful shots that have a lot of character and give people an idea of the feel of the place. I don’t suppose you’re able to fund the travel impulses you’re giving me are you?
Alas the Neil Shearer Photography travel fund is currently running a little low… Glad you liek the shots, I’ll be posting the next part of this very soon, just putting the finishing touches to some more pictures, anyway, i want to see plenty of pics form your road trip which is coming up soon no?