Well made it to New York City from my home town of Lansing Michigan and lets just say a little larger city. Just to give you a time frame when this photo was taken it was about two months before New York City was literally completely shut down and thousands were dying from the Covid pandemic. So of course another example of the Good Lord looking after me again. Also lucky because our accommodations couldn’t have been much better. We were staying with one of my best friends daughter and fiancé;s penthouse in manhattan across from the historic park “Gramercy Park” It is one of only two private parks in all of New York that requires a key to get into. Google, its history very interesting. It has been a locked park since 1844 and many celebrities and wealthy live in area today, Jimmy Fallon, Julia Roberts, Rufus Wainwright, Uma Thurman, Jim Parsons and those are just the celebrities many other just plain rich folk. The building we were staying at has a couple of Metal Soldier statues as you enter and then of course a Front Desk Agent to greet you. Who by the way was the nicest gentlemen studying to be an actor and I actually took some pictures of him for his portfolio, big fun, first photo at top !!
Now it’s the morning me and my buddy Rick are planning on heading out to the big city to take some pictures and one of the pictures planned for was the photo at night shooting across the river looking at the New York City scape. Now this picture needed to be taken from Astoria which is across the river in the borough of Queens. This is where my brother and his wife Susan live and my brother does his “Oil Old Master Style” style painting. So plan was to tour around Manhattan taking some pictures and then take the subways over to Astoria and visit my brother and go out to dinner and then later when it starts to get dark head towards the river to take city scape shot.
So now I’m standing in the lobby waiting for Rick and have my large camera backpack and camera with huge lens attached around my neck. I look over by the elevator and notice Jim Parsons, actor in the show “Big Bang Theory” standing with his little pouch on a leach talking to most likely wealthy, fellow condo member. I’m standing there thinking crap he sees me with this enormous camera probably thinking I’m some kind of Paparazzi idiot. By the way as an old time film days photographer I do personally believe the Paparazzi basically ruined photography but that’s another story in itself. Anyway I knew I would be staying there for a few days so I walked over to Jim and tried to politely explain how I was visiting and staying with his neighbors Lauren and Dan and that I was not a Paparazzi but just enjoy taking photo’s, so no worries. Well, Jim shortly acknowledged he understood and then quickly returned talking with his lady friend. I remember thinking crap what a jerk pretty unfriendly but then much later when I thought about it and put myself in his shoes he must get idiots like me constantly coming up to him with this or that so decided he’s cool and actually really enjoy his acting and work he does. But of course the dreamer in me wishes he would have been kind and we talked and then went up to his place and drank fancy coffee and talked for hours about art and life and religion and movies and agreed sometime we needed to work together on a movie or some art project, opps ok I’m back awake.
So we hit some of the main tourist photo area’s around town and then hopped on the subways and made our way to Queens and stopped into my brothers place. While we were there my brother did a portrait painting of my buddy Rick(my brother painting Rick, second photo at top” which was awesome and always a super cool experience watching a true craftsman and artist at work and I actually did a video which is on web site and some of the photo’s we took in Manhattan that day are posted. After finishing the painting we walked up the street and had a most awesome dinner at a Greek restaurant that is rated as the top Greek restaurant in all of the New York Burroughs, “Taverna Kyclades.
After dinner my brother and his wife went back home and we continued walking towards the river where we were planning on setting up tripod and camera to take night shot of city scape across the river. As we got closer to the river we could hear very loud music and many cars and people parked on the street along the river side. Many had the trunks popped and playing loud music and drinking and smoking. Did not take long to realize that this crowd was not happy by our obvious outsider presence. One car kept circling the block and checking us out. Now with my large backpack and thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment I told Rick what we do is just act like we own the place and they should think were a couple gringo crazies and will leave us alone, at least hopefully long enough for us to get photo were after.
So we do just that walk along sidewalk with all the cars partying and checking us out but we proceed forward and I find what looks like a good spot to get photo but we had to hop the fence and then climb down a steep incline of rocks in complete darkness but finally got down to shoreline. Now one the keys to this photo working is we got right down basically almost in the water and set the tripod and its very lowest angle. Thus taking a moment to picture in your mind how you’re going to crop your photo is very critical and then do what ever possible to get that correct angle. Now this story is not really about the technical aspects of this photo but it is important to note that the reason for the large backpack which probably weighed close to sixty pounds is due to the technical challenges of getting this particular shot. First of all we knew we would need a very long exposure time, which means very good tripod. Plus we were across the other side of the river so very long lens to zoom in towards city on opposite side of river. Another key just for note is you need a remote otherwise no matter how careful you’re going to move camera with the long exposure if not using remote, also don’t forget a flash light. Now anytime someone is explaining how they took a photo hate it when they do not include what the camera’s setting were without that descriptions of shot they are worthless and thus this photo was shot “ ISO 100, 50mm lens, F 18, at a 20 second exposure.
So that’s the story behind the photographing of this New York city scape photo. After getting the photo we climbed back up the incline and everyone was still partying by their cars and me and Rick walked down a ways and called a Uber and went back to Manhattan and ended up in a bar watching the Golden State Warriors Championship game on a TV in a pretty cool bar attached to condo’s we were staying at. By the way another aspect of this photo was my photo partner Rick. Very important that you do not venture out on photo adventure with a partner that is going to be a hinderance . Rick on the other hand was absolutely awesome photo partner and he actually helped carry the very heavy backpack for several miles and just awesome friend to spend time with. However the wrong photo partner can absolutely ruin a photo trip and thus 90% of my photography adventures through life have been solo trips.
This Photo is only available in a large canvas versions 18X24 500.00 24X36 600.00 30X40 700.00 Plus this story is printed and laminated and attached to back of photo and autographed personally. Just email me your contact info purchase via website and will mail to you at no cost for shipping.