When I walked through the New York Public Library recently, they were installing a collection of sports photos along a hallway. Lots of people were busy hanging pictures and lots of other people were looking over their shoulders to make sure everything was hung correctly. It just struck me as funny that the one above was marked as the "Wrong Photo". I don't know why I thought that was so funny, but there you go.
Did I mention that I found another sculpture by Pomodoro? I don't think I did. This sphere is located out front, and just to the left, of the United Nations complex in NYC. I didn't know it was there, I just stumbled across it as I was walking by, but I knew what it was when I saw it. I spotted my first Pomodoro in Charlotte, NC. This one is not quite as high, but it's a full sphere instead of just a cylinder. You can't get close to it, so I couldn't tell if it moved or not.
Look close and you can see me in there, with an unrecognizable chunk of the New York City skyline rising in the background. I tried to get a shot with the UN building behind me, but that would have been the section of the sphere where the interior was exposed, so it wasn't reflective.
No, not cars that make a lot of noise, but cars that are somewhat ostentatious. As I was walking around downtown Manhattan on 9-11, I found these two cars that people had brought down there in honor of the date. They weren't being used in any official function that I could tell, and they weren't found anywhere really close to each other. I think the one below was affiliated with some police organization, but I'm not really sure. Both of them just served to demonstrate how deeply affected many people were by the tragic events of September 11th, 2001.
Who wouldn't want to visit Coney Island when they're in New York City? Well, someone who's been to a decent beach really shouldn't. I was terribly depressed by just about everything I saw. I wanted to go out there, and go we did, but what can you expect from a beach with a subway stop? Turns out that it's the end of the line in more ways than one. There were actually permanent signs erected stating not to enter the water. Just great.
Pretty much all of the fairground type attractions were closed. I guess the parachute ride above is one of the symbols of the area, but it looked like it had been closed for years. The rides below had only recently closed, but closed they were.
The only real high point of visiting the beach in Brooklyn was the upside-down girls in bikinis. Can't complain about that.
One of my goals while in NYC was to visit all five boroughs. Coming up with stuff to see in some of them was a bit of a challenge. I didn't know anything about the Bronx, so I wound up heading for Yankee Stadium. I arrived right in the middle of a game, so I tried to get back out of there in a hurry before the game let out. The picture above is the old stadium, the one that's been there since the twenties. Right across the street is the new stadium, scheduled to open next year. At least I can say I was there. Later that day, by complete accident, I wound up at Shea Stadium, home of the Mets. More on that later.
As you may or may not know, there are currently two space shuttles on the launch pads waiting to blast off to space. I figured this was too good a photo opportunity to pass up, so I headed over to Cape Kennedy this past Sunday with telephoto lens in tow. Unfortunately, security is tight, and they wouldn't let us out to the usual shuttle vantage point to the East of the launch pads. You'll have to make do with three different viewpoints from something like one to seven miles away. And only one of those spots lets you actually see a shuttle without a gantry in the way. The top photo is from the causeway between Cape Kennedy and Cape Canaveral. Someday soon I hope to get a pass to shoot a launch from this spot, as it's the closest the public can get during a launch. It's $60 or so for admission, but at only 7 miles distant, it's half the distance from where I usually shoot. The detail down at the bottom is shot from this same spot, and I think that's Atlantis you can see quite clearly. It's Endeavor on the other pad, for those of you keeping score at home.
This view is from the observation platform near where the crawler takes the orbiters to the pad. It's four stories up, so this is probably the best picture of the three, and the light was just right when I shot this. However, both machines are hidden by their launch platforms.
This is the view from behind the Apollo/Saturn 5 center. Still quite a ways away, and the shuttles are still hidden from view.
And as I mentioned above, this is Atlantis on the pad and ready to go from about seven miles away. Don't mind that seagull in the picture, he'll be gone pretty quick when they fire up those solid rocket boosters.
One of the things I saw in NYC that surprised me were these temporary waterfalls. They were an art project designed by Olafur Eliasson, and were only in place for a few months this summer. They are all visible from a few spots on the East River, I first shot them from the South Street Seaport. The one above in under the Brooklyn tower of The Brooklyn Bridge. You could hear it when you walked over it, but there were no views of it looking straight down, I'm afraid.
The falls above were the ones the farthest away, out on Governor's Island. I thought about going out there, but I never did.
The shot above is from the Brooklyn Bridge itself, looking underneath the Manhattan Bridge on the Manhattan Island side. Pretty cool view, if you ask me.
And last but not least was this falls just South of the Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side. I took all four of these pictures on my big NYC picture day. I spent 17 hours out and about, shooting 3200 pictures during that time. As you can see, the shots aren't exactly going to get me any contracts with calendar manufacturers, but I enjoyed shooting the shots.
No, this post isn't about the Red Hot Chili Peppers, it's about the view from underneath the Manhattan Bridge in New York. That's the bridge you see above, shot from the Brooklyn side of the East River. Nice little park down there, perfect for shooting pictures like this. I'm sure you've seen similar shots in movies, I know I have. I shot this after walking across the Brooklyn bridge, and right before I walked over the bridge in the picture. It was a long day...
