Posted on December 18, 2013
This was taken in the middle of the night from a high vantage point looking east out over the East River towards Queens with a long 25 second exposure. I used a Zeiss 135mm manual focus lens mounted on a Canon 1DX and a tripod with a remote trigger. My focus point was on the solitary street lamp in the center of the image which produced a beautiful sun star effect. Sometimes this image looks like there’s a secret meeting going on down there within that little group of trees, and other times it just looks calm, still, quiet, and cold.
I love the clarity and detail that this lens captures invariably… this may end up being one that I frame for my personal collection.
Posted on December 18, 2013
Since we’re having a very white holiday season this year, I decided to try my hand at cold-weather photography and see what I could come up with. The hardest part of shooting in the winter is the lighting, especially while it’s snowing. Everything is so monochromatic that it’s almost impossible to get an interesting shot with color photos. The sky is grey, the clouds are grey, the ground is grey, and even the light has a grey tone to it. To get around that problem, I decided to play with contrast instead of color, with out-of-focus areas instead of in-focus, and with an old-school nostalgic look instead of a sharp modernistic one. Before I started thinking out-of-the-box with this project, my photos were totally uninteresting. Turning to the idea of using the camera like a brush instead of like an instrument got me a nice winter collection… a snowmage if you will…
Posted on December 12, 2013
The Zeiss 28mm f2 lens that I shot this with draw warmth like this so well, especially on the Canon 1DX with its incredible metering capabilities. Wonderful combination for late evening photography, especially with long exposures on a tripod.