Millions of tiny dramas are happening every day in New York City. Turn your lens in any direction, focus on even the smallest fragment, and you’re bound to capture them.
Shot with Canon 5D MkII with Hartblei 65mm f3.5 Super-Rotator. You can view it in HD on Youtube.
Music: Life with Lights by Ballerina Black – from www.musicalley.com
As you might have guessed from my recent posts, Laura Hollick and I were in NYC last week. We decided to take advantage of this situation to shoot some photos and video in that most iconic of Manhattan locations, Times Square. As a photographer, the challenge was going to be to be able to capture the energy and bright lights of Times Square, while at the same time featuring Laura in a way that made her stand out.
We brought in hair and makeup artist Tim Wilkins to help prepare Laura for the shoot. He did a great job creating a subtle, shimmering and almost elfish look to integrate her silver wig and silver leaf dress.
Once Tim was done with the hair and makeup, Laura and I hopped in cab and headed midtown and into the madness. Anyone who’s been there knows that it’s a total zoo at all hours of day and night. We quickly scouted the area and staked out some sidewalk for our shoot.
I wanted to show the very famous billboards and neon in the background, but allow a close crop that would put the focus on Laura. Shooting from a low angle allowed this to happen. I chose a low shutter speed (1/30) to slightly blur the action around her, and a wide angle lens (24mm) to create some slightly supernatural drama. The wide aperture of f/2.8 created the shallow-ish depth of field effect to separate her from the background as much as possible, but because the lens is wide, the background is still distinguishable. As you might know, the wider your lens, the harder it is to get really shallow depth of field. That was fine though, since I wanted to keep Times Square recognizable as our setting.
The general lighting of the scene was amply provided by the bright billboards all around, and I set them to be slightly over-exposed. I didn’t want the contents of the signs to be too distracting. Over-exposing them slightly allowed them to appear mostly white, with some minor details in them that weren’t terribly distinguishable. All of this meant that Laura was in silhouette, so I added a fill light to make her pop. I set up my trusty little Vivitar 283 flash up high on a light stand and put a diffusing lens in front of it to soften it a bit. With such bright backlighting and no modeling light to preview the foreground, it was like shooting in the dark. I could only see her dark form against the bright background in the viewfinder. I trusted my camera’s autofocus to keep Laura in focus, and just posed her based on her silhouetted shape.
We shot for about half an hour. I didn’t think that our little photo shoot would create even the tiniest stir amidst all of the madness of Times Square, but I was wrong. We amassed a pretty-good sized audience, who mostly stood behind me. Often, people wanted to pose with photos with Laura and ask us questions.
It was a little distracting, but also fun to think that we added something to the experience of a few New York City visitors. When we finished shooting, I was surprised by a loud round of applause that broke out behind us! It was quite a night. Here’s the final image we selected from the shoot.
Here’s another image I shot after I was sure we’d gotten what we’d intended to shoot. I experimented by putting on a super-wide lens (12mm) and moved the camera during the long exposure. I still used the flash to sort of freeze a portion of the action. I like the vibrant, semi-abstract feel of this one.
We also shot some video to promote Laura’s Soul Art® Certification program.
If you’re interested, read more about the Soul Art® Certification program.
Undoubtedly, one of Brooklyn’s most iconic locations is Coney Island. I had a day to kill earlier this week, so I decided to visit the park and boardwalk to take some pictures. I took the D train from Manhattan and just enjoyed the ride to the end of the line at Brooklyn’s southern tip. It was my intention to capture Coney Island’s very familiar scenes of classic Americana in an unusual way. I mean, almost everyone’s seen pictures of the Cyclone and Wonder Wheel, even if they might not have known exactly what they were looking at, so I brought along a super-wide lens and my bendy tilt-shift 65mm f/3.5 Hartblei Super-Rotator to try to put a slightly different spin on things. The skies were clear and the air was a sweltering 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees F), which made roasting on the pavement waiting for the exact moment to shoot an exercise in sweat tolerance. However, it was a lot of fun finding ways to throw the focus across different planes with the Super-Rotator, and to identify novel abstract angles with the super-wide lens. The direct sunlight created some lovely hard contrasts and bright colors. I think the unique bokeh effects created by the tilt-shift help to communicate the almost comatose state of heat stroke that I was experiencing out there!
On this last trip to NYC, we stayed at the Standard Hotel, located on Washington Street in the Meatpacking District. While there are many things non-standard about the Standard Hotel, what I found most interesting about it was its location straddling the High Line, an abandoned elevated rail line that has been converted into a pedestrian walkway and garden. It’s about 15 blocks long and is not only beautiful, but also practical; it’s a great way to see the stretch of Manhattan between 14th and 32nd Streets. The gardens are made up of a variety of local plants and flowers, decorated by public art pieces. It’s divided into a number of different “neighborhoods” along the way, including a sort of urban beach and an area for public performances. There are plenty of comfortable places to sit and gather with others. It’s inspiring to see urban spaces renewed and reused in this way. Not only is property value increased dramatically along this corridor, it provides a welcome refuge from the sweltering concrete jungle.
Here are some of my photos of the Standard Hotel and the High Line.
For years, one of the things I’ve always said is that I don’t shoot weddings. It was kind of a rule I had for myself. I wanted to shoot things that I was passionate and excited about, and for the most part, wedding photography wasn’t always part of that equation. But rules, as they say, are meant to be broken. I knew the time to break the rule had come when Rachel and Blair, a fun-loving couple from Vancouver, asked if I’d join them in at the spectacular Riu Palace Mexico in Playa del Carmen to photograph their wedding.
Here was a chance for me to combine my love of traveling to hot tropical climates with my love of capturing emotion and beauty. I didn’t want to provide typical wedding photography, so I pledged to myself that I would seek out opportunities to do things that were different and fun and would offer Rachel and Blair a variety of unique photos.
The first opportunity came up early. I had brought a waterproof camera bag, so I could shoot at the beach and in the water without worrying about saltwater and sand wrecking the camera. I saddled up my old Canon 5D with a 24mm lens and headed into the water with Rachel, Blair and a bunch of their friends. Here are a couple of photos from that sunny day in the sea.
The beach really was spectacular, with clean blue skies and azure water. I really wanted to see what it would look like early in the morning, which is why I got up at 5:45am the second day there and made the trek down to the shore. I filmed a little video of the sunrise to share. But, my real reason to be there was to scout out the location for what I imagined would be some beautiful photos of the couple. Sure enough, the first golden hour of the day provided perfect light for shooting romantic portraits. A couple of days later, I persuaded Blair and Rachel to join me at the beach for a casual session.
There were other fun events during the week too. Rachel had a bit of a bachelorette party on the beach, where she had to complete some fun and silly tasks like drawing a portrait of a stranger, and then selling it to him. She also had to retrieve drinks from the bar with a seashell tucked between her knees.
Finally, the day of the big ceremony arrived. I thought it would be fun to do a short photo session with the bride and her bridesmaids on the beach while they were all dressed up. The girls were game for it, of course. As we baked in the sun and midday heat during the short walk to the beach, it was fun to see Rachel get plenty of admiring stares and comments from supportive guests. We took a few photos, and then I hustled back to the lobby, where the guys were sequestered, waiting for the big moment. I took a few photos of them, and then went back to meet up with the girls again. There were some tense moments, broken by occasional shenanigans and imitations of the Queen. Eventually, the wedding planner arrived, and led us through the hallways of the hotel to where the ceremony was to begin. On cue, Rachel and her bridesmaids descended the stairs from the lobby. Understandably, Rachel was nervous. But as her dad escorted out into the sun and to the gazebo where Blair was waiting, her joy in the moment was irrepressible.
The ceremony was all in Spanish, led by a smiling Mexican official, and loosely translated by one of the groomsmen. It was done quite quickly, and everyone celebrated with smiles and high fives, as the newly married couple danced down the steps of the gazebo.
Later that evening, at the resort’s steakhouse, the bride and groom hosted a reception. As the gorgeous Caribbean dusk gave way to night, there were laughs, dancing, and the occasional joyful tear.
Finally, the happy couple indulged me with one final photo shoot in the spectacular lobby of the hotel. I had wanted to do this shot since first seeing the rich decor and the magnificent chandelier lit up at night.
It was incredible fun to work with Rachel and Blair. It’s not hard to see that they’re made for each other, and I was honored to be able to capture this important milestone in their lives together. My week with them and their tight-knit family and friends was enough to convince me that I should break my “no weddings” rule more often. If you’d like to talk to me about shooting your destination wedding, please contact me. I’d love to hear from you.