Back in time for the new year

Trump's newness

I know I've pointed this out before but it's really striking to me how this building sits right at the bend in the bottom of 6th ave and as such gets to stand alone in the skyline. I can only imagine what the straight-shot view looks like from inside the place.

Porto Rico window

Pinkberry stretch

I don't know if you can feel this in the photo but the Pinkberry store has all horizontal lines that really picked up the long limo.

Charlie Brown Trees

Radio City Music Hall 75

I work in midtown now so I have to get some of these out of the way. I'm leaving it large because it's actually a stitched panorama and the software did a pretty amazing job.

Blur riding

I took about a billion bull riding photos with everything from cheese point-n-shoot lighting to long exposure available light shots and even some interesting results like this one, which is using someone else's flash. In the end I had to figure what I was trying to show with them so I could decide how to sort through them. The obvious answer is to show exactly what it is, lots of motion on a mechanical bull in a dark bar. The real dividing line was whether the shot had some dynamic sense of motion but still looked like a human on a mechanical bull.

Vera Cruz returns

Vera Cruz, the Mexican place on Bedford near N7th is open again.

The bull master

It's times like this that I lose faith in the principle of "available light." I should have used a flash for all of the pictures I took at this place. No one would have cared and they'd be totally different shots.

I think this shot it this shot: www.flickr.com/photos/lock/2103115833/

The bull:

They should dress it like a rat.

Shadow escape

I initially just liked that there were two different kinds of shadows on the fence. I didn't like the background of the straight shot so I looked to see if there was anything interesting going on in all those fire escapes. Kinda neat that they ended up lining up.

UWS Crocs

Pennies

They're pennies. It's some big charity thing they're doing at Rockefeller Center. 100,000 pennies or something.
gothamist.com/2007/12/11/penny_harvest.php

I kept this photo in the series only because of that girl on the right. She dropped her glove and let go of her mother's hand to go get it. Her mother is just starting to turn to see what's going on.

A tough color challenge with these penny photos. It was overcast and a little dark so the main light is coming from shops - basically yellow. But there's also streetlight light, which is weirdly orange, and there's Christmas light coming from the Plaza and that's kind of red. So do you go with the light you have or do you correct to the light it would be?

Milon/Panna II

When I used to go here it was called Rupali II. I'd be surprised if it's much different.

By the way, those aren't Christmas lights, it looks like that all the time.

Blue pizza

I like the colors and the depth but I should have taken a few more on the chance I'd get a better shot of the folks inside doing something more distinct. In person the scene was more interesting but I missed it.

Big Buck Hunter

Somehow something always got in the way of getting someone actually aiming the gun but this is pretty close to what I was trying for.

Saturday on Long Island

Sleep

The idea here was the guy in the foreground sleeping and the baby in the background sleeping. I thought my depth of focus would reach a little farther than this.

Trash room

Water Street wall

Bah! I ruined this bottom one. I liked that the commercial billboard used the same colors as the street piece down below. It was all too dark and trying to make it look like something I think I flattened it.

1957 Cadillac Sedan Deville

I don't actually know anything about cars but that's way cheaper than I would have guessed.

Night shopping on Canal

Art crossing

The Magi

I wasn't really trying to take this photo, and in fact the sky on the left is all blown out and over exposed. I was looking for reflections in the puddles and saw that those three were about to pass so I shot a few times hoping to get something in the puddle.

J Condo

The building's glass pulls down the remaining bits of natural light while at the street level it's already dark and we've moved on to street lights.

Above and below are the same except for the person. Not sure human scale matters here.

There was a street light utterly ruining this shot before I had the bright idea of standing so the no parking sign is in front of it. The trick mostly worked I think.

DUMBO Christmas

Pedro's

I was trying to figure out how to work that crack in the sky.

DUMBO stroll

After jury duty last week I popped over to DUMBO before catching the train home.

Smith & Mills

A place with no sign and a warm glow has a real magic in the cold dusk.
This is inside:

Zuckers

Smyth

This is just a "before" picture but I liked the shapes and textures.

Crossing the line to obnoxious

I never realized it or thought about it much but what brings a building across the line from just a building to an obnoxious building is a giant banner with a name on it. It's like a guy who names his biceps.

That's my building, the sliver of gray next door. I have a million shots of this one going up and make no mistake it was already pretty obnoxious in its size and the pain the ass the construction has been. But I just thought of it as par-for-the-course construction. But as "90G" I can't help but see it as a gross yuppie magnet.

N5th and Berry

Inside Lokal

The "meatball casserole" is like meatball parm in a skillet. The steak sandwich is probably the highlight of the menu. They've got a cajun mayo that is pretty kick-ass too. I think that came with the calamari.

Inside that deli on Bedford and N8th

At this point they've repoured the floor and laid some tile. Still no sign of what it's going to be. We've seen a couple delis close and re-open as clean delis, so maybe that's all that's going to happen.

Friday's lotto

The one below caught the light of a car's headlights as it turned onto MacDougal street. I shot it as I got out of the way so the focus got a little lost. I prefer the shot above, but the the headlight light on the newspapers keeps me looking at the one below.

Mamoun's

Down the line

I didn't note the name of this place when I took it, thinking I'd find it online easily enough, but that didn't work out how I'd planned. It's on Thompson between Prince and Spring I think. On the east side of the street.

Trump in the night sky

I like that water tower.
You can really see how must noise there is in this camera. Granted I tweaked the levels but still, those stripes aren't right.

Lower Manhattan sunset

Kitchenette

More space in that dining room. They needed it. It's on Chambers now, you know.

Dizzying construction project at Nassau and Maiden Lane

It's a little hard to see but there's a lot on Nassau and a lot on Maiden and they connect but there's a building right on the corner of those two streets so the lots wrap around the corner.

This part of town has really narrow streets and really high buildings so the street level experience is pretty surreal.

Motorgrrl

Yves with glass

There's some new activity in the old Brooklyn Dugout

Waiting for mommy

My token 'Broadway returns' Times Square tourist shot

Rudy's

Radegast Eve

The children were nestled all snug in their beds while visions of Radegast danced in their heads.

I have more pictures of this place than anyone reasonably needs. It's the only new construction in Williamsburg that actually makes the original neighboring buildings look out of place. Then again, I'm ambivalent because it's not an old beer hall, it's not even yet a new beer hall so its character is completely inauthentic. It might as well be in Epcot.

By the way, this is the way it looked before:
www.flickr.com/photos/atestofwill/466128111/

Courtside at Hearth

Here's what you need to do: take 12 bucks to Hearth, take a seat at the bar and order a Jack Tar. It's hot buttered Pusser's Rum with some vanilla in it served in a nice thick coffee mug.

Leaps and bounds

Sometimes the idea of a photo doesn't quite meet the reality. When I took this this worker's silhouette in the window was really speaking to the figure on the billboard. I'm not sure that's happening here in the shot.

Big truck outside

I like the light better inthis one but he's hanging from her a little too much.

This one is a little too dark but the postures are better.

Lost in New York

This was a hip shot so it's a little off kilter. I only cropped it a little though.

I was thinking there was too much extra stuff in the full photo and it should be cropped down to what's most interesting. I don't reckon it worked.

One Bryant Park

Crazy crossing

More Black Friday "crush of humanity" shooting.

Peeler guy performs

The peeler guy has a huge audience in Herald Square. You know this guy, he's the one with the British accent who's usually down in Union Square making piles of shredded carrots.

Old bikers making out

Skating into the sky

Piggy backing

Building in the window