Times Square night

Looking up town on a Sunday night towards Times Square.

Broadway SundayTimes Square

Neon Park Sign

I had a long walk back from an evening social event on a rainy evening.  Looking to the right as I walked down Fifth Avenue I spotted the neon "Park" sign.  I parked myself and gathered a few shots.  

Park Run

This one shows the motion of the car, and the group of girls are highlighted against the garage entrance.  

Enter Here

Red Coat Night

Whenever I see someone in red, I try to grab a shot.  (That happens to be mostly women).  The color is a great focal point photographically.  In this case, I saw red and reflexively clicked... missing her face.  

My instinct is generally to keep everything within the frame.  But, in retrospect, the picture is much stronger without the face, it creates a sense of mystery.  This time from a miss, I learned the lesson that less can sometimes be more.  

Lucky Brand

Another Soho night shot.  I've been interested in the architectural geometry of the scaffolding around the city (seems like more than ever).  You can see this is my last post also "Coffee on the Run".  It adds a bit to the composition, I think.  Most cameras let you superimpose a grid to help you with the "Rule of Thirds" which is supposed to help you in composing photos.  The scaffold seems to do much the same but in the real world.  

Lucky Brand

Soho Night Lights

One night, on a long walk from the World Trade Center to Washington Square Park, I passed through Soho.  

Soho Night Lights

Men Amongst Giants

A bit of a Where's Waldo in today's (or should I say "tonight's") pictures.  This construction wall is decorated with large photos of people.  I don't think its an advertisement, more like art.  The setting alone was worth a picture, but grabbing a snippet of real people doesn't hurt.  

Man Amongst the Giants

A Figure Besides Figures

Walker Street Night

Continuing on with my experimentation with night photography.  I spotted the light and doorway and thought that was enough of a picture, but then thought to wait while several people passed.  I was short on a title for the shot, so thought to look up the name of the street (as this is an unfamiliar area to where I usually shoot).  Looking it up on Google Streetview, I found the exact spot.   

The name of the street is Walker Street.  But, when I took a look again at the title of this shot when uploading it, it read to me as "Street Walker Night".  Guess it was a Freudian slip of sorts.  

Also, whenever they took the Streetview, there was no graffiti. I'm thinking no graffitti and this would be no picture.  

Walker Street Night

Taking Shots in the Dark

Since the sun is down again when I leave the office, my subjects during the evening rush hour are pretty much in the dark.  But, my new NEX-7 camera is a bit better in low light compared to the larger Canon DSLR I had been using, and I've been experimenting with the high ISO settings.  Boosting the level allows more sensitivity in the darkness but also generates a lot more noise (speckles) to the photo. This can, however, be cleaned up in post-production.  I use Lightroom 4 (another recent upgrade) and it does a suitable job enhancing the photos.  So, the ultimate quality can be quite good.  

Another advantage of shooting in the dark, is that nobody notices you... since its dark.  This helps to capture that candid street photography sense.  Instead of grabbing a quick snap, it's possible to linger a bit longer to wait for that great moment.   

Below, I framed out this newsstand bordering City Hall Park.  The neon and the roof lights attracted my attention.  I selected my composition and waited for people to enter the shot.  Here are some Halloweeners doing the Flintstones thing.  

City Halloween

I boosted the ISO a bit more from 3200 to 6400 and got the shot below, which I like so much that I think it is a candidate my 2012 Top 10 list, which will be coming out in a few weeks.  The post-production work tends to add just a touch of surrealism to it, and I like the arty after effect.  

City Hall Newsstand

The Panning Technique in the Night

I was out shooting in the evening and it got a little darker than I was ready for.  I prefer not to use flash when doing street photography so to get enough light, I was shooting with a slow shutter speed.  The long exposure leads to blurred action but when combined with panning in synch with the subject it can provide a nice focal point with a streaky background.   I like the impressionistic sense of the subject this creates. 

Here's the first shot.

Here's another.

Then there is this series of a bicyclist quickly going uptown moving faster than the taxis around him.  The third one is my favorite.  

And then this was the final one which is the best one.