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Posted on March 27, 2014
Lovely B&W of 10th Avenue in New York facing due east on a late evening summer day in 2013. This image was taken from the iconic viewpoint of High Line Park, and was quite a difficult image to capture because of intense shadows produced by the setting sun behind me. The detail that this lens captured in the architecture in incredible, and I’m more than excited to see how this renders in an Giclee print. Perfect for a classic gallery frame.
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full moon
Posted on March 27, 2014
Silvery full moon captured in black and white with a long exposure time to allow the moon’s light to illuminate the surrounding clouds. This image shows off the intensity of the full moon itself, but still has a softness about it that I love. Taken with a Carl Zeiss 135mm f2 Apo Sonnar lens mounted on a Canon 5D Mark III camera with a 15 second exposure very early on a freezing cold March morning.
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queens crescent
Posted on March 12, 2014
Crisp, clear black and white photograph of a lovely crescent moon over Queens taken in the middle of the night with a very long 25 second exposure. If you look closely, you can spot Venus in the top right corner, and if you look even more closely, you can see the slight celestial motion that the long exposure captured. Venus is not a distinct spot of light, but rather a small dash, and the moon is not a thin well-defined crescent, but rather a thicker version of itself. It’s amazing that there was enough motion of the sky during the 25 seconds that the camera shutter was open, but it’s there, and it’s beautiful. Taken with a Zeiss 50mm f2 Makro Planar manual focus lens.
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sunrise series. sky high.
Posted on March 12, 2014
Stunning B&W of an enormous morning sun blaring through the clouds as a distant bird flies by in silhouette. The dreamy lines of this image would make a wonderful canvas piece, and especially so with it’s two sister images in the sunrise series collection. All four photos were taken with a Zeiss 135mm f2 Apo Sonnar lens in the very early morning.
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rush hour
Posted on March 6, 2014
A typical scene almost anywhere in Manhattan at almost anytime of the day, especially during rush hour. The morning sunshine blasting through from East to West across 62nd Street as it intersects First Ave created a wonderfully contrasty image here, and the composition is very cramped to illicit the same feeling you get if you were sitting in your car on this very street… something New Yorkers are quite familiar with. A classic image for anyone who recognizes that there is only one place this photo could have been taken… Manhattan. Also notice that the traffic light is green 🙂 Taken with a Carl Zeiss 135mm Apo Sonnar lens.
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no sail
Posted on February 17, 2014
Desolate, lonely, but strikingly beautiful sail boat dock in the middle of winter. There are no sails to be had here, but the inverted reflections of the wood posts and large masts in the distance set this image off, and the calm crisp atmosphere makes this photo a special one. The evening light and the setting sun provided a beautiful backdrop and a backlit contrast on the dock itself that made it perfect for a B&W capture. Taken with a Zeiss 35mm f2 Distagon lens mounted on a Canon 5DIII camera.
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high line lookout
Posted on February 17, 2014
Stunningly detailed black and white photograph taken from the High Line Park in the MeatPacking District of NYC. This view is almost as interesting in color as it is in B&W with the exception of all of the tremendous fine details that your eye misses when the image is viewed in color. Shooting this image in B&W gives it a classic old-world look that makes it a truly timeless photograph and a familiar scene to native New Yorkers everywhere. Fine detail like this is perfect for a professional Pearl print… you’ll notice twice as much detail as you do on your computer monitor!
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motion
Posted on January 5, 2014
I’m fascinated with the art of capturing motion within a still photograph, and this is why! Look at the streams of light from the traffic that past through this view during the 30 second exposure time. Look closely at both levels of the bridge, and on both lanes of the FDR Drive below… a white stream from headlights traveling north, and a red stream from brake lights traveling south. It’s just a wonderful representation of what New York is all about… constant, constant motion…
Taken with a Zeiss 50mm Makro Planar manual focus lens set at f/11 mounted on a Canon 1DX with a tripod.
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shadows
Posted on January 3, 2014
Long shadows have a such a dramatic appeal to them, especially when the sun makes it’s first appearance after a storm.
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composed
Posted on January 2, 2014
This a wonderfully simple photo that is all about composition. I struggled for several shots to make this scene interesting, and this is the simple composition that finally did it. I was initially interested in the beautiful texture that the light dusting of snow created on the lawn, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get that to translate into a real photograph. The carefully landscaped circle outlining the base of the tree placed carefully in the corner was the missing piece of the puzzle.
Taken with a Carl Zeiss 135mm f2 apo sonnar lens mounted on a Canon 1DX.
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champagne
Posted on January 1, 2014
It’s strange how random things catch your eye sometimes. I saw this champagne cork leftover from a New Years party sitting by itself on a black marble countertop and boom, inspiration. It turned out to be a really fun image that would actually look great as a piece of background art at a bar or restaurant, or even in a den or library at home. Floating canvas would be the way to go since the image sort of floats in space on it’s own.
Taken with a Carl Zeiss 100mm Makro Planar lens, f/6.3, shot at the minimum focus distance. Super soft transition between the sharp subject and the soft out of focus background.
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I took a black and white version as well (because I couldn’t resist)…
watercolor
Posted on December 10, 2013
I’m amazed almost every day with the colors the sun throws into the sky on its way up in the morning, and I’m equally amazed at how many different sunrises there are! Some are aggressive and bold like unfiltered. Some are calm and expansive like creation. And some of are like a watercolor painting, like this one.
I took this with an 85mm Carl Zeiss lens with the aperture set to f/5.6.
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reflection
Posted on November 19, 2013
While taking a walk a few months ago, I got caught in a 30 second downpour that soaked me and my camera. On my way back home, the sun came out and a reflection of these tree limbs cast by the new light onto a puddle of rain water caught my eye.
The image was taken with a Zeiss 25mm f2 lens, which is one of my absolute favorites. It consistently draws it’s photos with a somber, darker, and subdued color profile that is somehow relaxing at the same time. It’s hard to describe without taking a few hundred photos with the lens, but I do love the cinematic look that this lens gives it’s images. This photo is different because I shot it in black and white to emphasize the reflections in a way that I was not able to do with several tries of shooting it in several different color profiles, but I think the qualities of this lens are worth mentioning. It’s small, light, has a wonderfully precise manual focus ring, and the extra 4mm of length that it has over the Zeiss 21mm actually makes more of a difference than you might think. I struggle to use the 21mm lens for my favorite style of close up with context photos because it’s always just a bit too wide for this application, but the 25mm f2 does this beautifully.
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it’s just so
Posted on November 17, 2013
I was once having a conversation with a friend about our favorite times of the day to take photos, and she told me about an interesting article she read. It was about a photographer based in the UK who made a personal mission out of turning the dreary, colorless light that he sees day in and day out into interesting photos.
Since I normally gravitate towards the light of the late evening when the shadows are strong and the colors are made vibrant by the harsh angle of the setting sun, I thought I would challenge myself and experiment with shooting on a cloudy, ultra-blah day. I went to a rooftop on a drizzly, cold, cloudy Sunday afternoon… a day where the light sucks the color and energy right out of everything. I shot until I felt that I had run out of ideas for composition, returned to the office, and uploaded my photos to the big screen.
As I was scrolling through my shots, feeling depressed because I wasn’t happy with any of them, the same friend happened to wander through the room and said “Wait, go back to that one.” Here’s how the rest of the conversation went…
- Me: “This one?”
- Friend: “Yes, that one. I love that one!”
- Me: “Really? Why?”
- Friend: “I don’t know. It’s just so __________ !”
I took another look and realized that she was totally right.
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