..several people looked up to see what i was shooting at, little did they know that i was shooting “it all”.. 🙂
Category: series
..captured at the same time and place where i got this.. trying to visualize some ideas that have been simmering in my head for quite some time.. there’ll be more to come from this place.. 🙂
..on a different note, the lakers lost game 3.. argh..
..i’m sure you’ll get to your destination in no time when you get this pedicab..
..seeing that soccer is not among the top sports played in north america (i just googled it), i guess it’s wise to bring the game to the crowd for them to appreciate it..
..moving on, i posted a link a few days ago about “participating” in the NYPH (NY Photo Festival) 2009.. well, i got an email a while ago and one of my images were shown via slideshow and they took a picture of it and sent it to me.. yay! (you’ll have to excuse me, i get pleased easily.. ;D )
..i’m no expert in soccer so i’ll just call this move a crossover (just like in basketball)
..imagine if they played this at wall street while wearing suits, now that’d be cool..
*..i’ve updated the title, apparently, this move’s called a regate.. (thanks to albert) 😀
..shifting gears from “earth week” (those nature-oriented photos i’ve been putting up lately) and going back to the thing i like most, concrete.. 😀 here’s another take of grand central terminal.. previous one is found here..
..i always seem to end my stroll sitting down in this place..
..same place where i shot this using a 15mm fisheye..
..from here, let’s go inside..
..what better way for a seasonal easter sunday post than this shot of the saint patrick’s cathedral a la moleman..
..amazing what a few steps and a different angle could do to change how an image looks.. the reason why i had this one tilted so high up is because of the scaffolding surrounding the cathedral, it just doesn’t look right..so for this one, i tried covering it up with light trails which seemed to do the trick.. (i guess)
..on a whim, here’s another one from the moleman series.. i could’ve named this the sewer rat series.. i think that sounds better.. hmm..
..for those of you who are familiar with this place then no explanation necessary.. for those who aren’t (including me.. lol), here’s a wiki excerpt:
Wollman Skating Rink is a public ice rink in the southern part of Central Park, Manhattan, New York City. The rink was opened in 1949 with funds donated by Kate Wollman. Historically, the rink has been open for ice skating from October to April and in the summer seasons is transformed into a venue for other purposes.
The Rink has been used as the venue for several summer concerts. The first annual summer music festival at there was sponsored by Rheingold beer company and opened on July 1, 1966. The Rheingold Central Park Music Festival also took place during the summer of 1967. The first annual Schaefer Music Festival opened on June 27, 1968 and ran each summer through 1976. The first annual Dr. Pepper Music Festival opened on July 6, 1977 and ran annually through the summer of 1980 (the 15th, and last annual music festival held at the Wollman Rink).
SummertimeThe venue no longer hosts concerts, but it is still used for public ice skating in the winter and in the summer it houses the Victorian Gardens Amusement Park.
Wollman Rink has also been featured in several movies, including Love Story.
Wollman Rink is currently operated by the Trump organization, and is today known as the Trump Wollman Skating Rink. Donald Trump leased the rink from 1987 to 1991. From 1991 to 2001 George Makkos from The Makkos Organization of M&T Preztle, operated Wollman Rink. Since 2001, Wollman Rink has been operated by a joint venture between Trump Organization and Rink Management Services of Mechanicsville VA. Trump completely rebuilt the Rink.
..btw, i’ve recently heard of Enfuse and tried it out with this image.. it’s like HDR but just not quite HDR.. have a go at it if you’ve got time.. it’s pretty cool.. (it stripped my exif data though)
..ahh, monday…
..for those of you who haven’t ventured inside the st. patrick’s cathedral on fifth avenue, here’s what it looks like..
..money makes the world go round, the world go round.. la la la..
..here‘s something funny to watch this monday (and educational too.. i promise.. all that stuff about photographer’s rights etc. etc.)
..ah, monday.. wouldn’t it be nice if you were at the mall now? 🙂
..whee! the “moleman” won a photo contest.. well, technically, i didn’t win it, someone else did.. but the photo that won the competition was “moleman-ey” / “moleman-esque” (or so i’d like to call it..) check out page 42 of popphoto’s january 2009 magazine.. if you don’t have it, then check it out here.. looks familiar? yep, leslie wargo noticed it a while ago too.. it’s the first and second photos of the “moleman series” taken last october.. and alex’s photo won the grand prize! whee! to alex’s credit, he took this shot last july so he had this idea before i did.. i was just a few months late.. wah!
..and while we’re on the topic of talking about the “moleman”, i’d say my main inspiration for starting the series goes out to archie from whateverland.com whose fishtown photo totally blew my mind and had me looking at NYC thru a fisheye.. 😀
..now on to the image, taken from lower manhattan’s zuccotti park, this here’s mark di suvero’s 70-foot-tall red steel sculpture Joie de Vivre, which anchors the park’s southeast corner.. it’s northwest corner is decorated by j. seward johnson’s Double Check, a dark bronze sculpture of a man with a briefcase, which sat in the original park for early 20 years and was relocated after 9/11.. i guess i was subconsciously thinking of archie’s spokes & legs shot when i saw this sculpture.. 😀
..wow, my first post for 2009.. i’m pretty bleary-eyed and sleepy from last night.. so in the meantime, here’s the place where some blokes freezed their asses of watching jonas brothers.. lol..
..the times square ball will be dropped down the same time tomorrow as i post this image now.. referencing a clock face, it’ll be at the building located at six o’ clock.. the One Times Square Building.. and the stage where the performers would be is where i stood while taking this shot.. dunno if we’ll be standing there freezing our asses off / watching fireworks somewhere / boozing at a bar / wolfing foodies / sleeping soundly.. i just wish everyone out there a HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 😀
..well, i took a friend out for a stroll around manhattan’s tourist traps so i wasn’t able to get some good shots today.. also, i can’t keep my hands out of my pocket for long periods of time because of the cold.. and so.. (har har) the moleman’s back from the grave..
..this here’s the helmsley building at park avenue.. i passed by this place a while ago and saw that one side of it was under renovation so i thought about posting it here now.. 😀
..some factoids from wikipedia:
Located at 230 Park Avenue the Helmsley Building is a 35-story building straddling Park Avenue. Before the erection of the Pan Am Building, now the MetLife Building, this building was the city’s dowager queen, lording over the city’s second most prestigious avenue and marking the elegant heart of the city as it was the tallest structure in the great “Terminal City” complex around Grand Central Terminal designed by Warren & Wetmore. The building was designated a New York City Landmark in 1987.
**btw, those aren’t dust spots – or dust bunnies, as i’d like to call them.. they’re just flares from the street lights etc..
..it’s the weekend.. time to slow things down for a bit..
..ah, monday.. it seems i’ve been sleeping a lot during the past four days (hence the headaches).. i’m not built for the ‘bum’ life and i wasn’t the slacker i used to be.. hm.. i’m getting old..
..same place where i shot this..
A chapel of the Parish of Trinity Church, St. Paul’s was built on land granted by Queen Anne of Great Britain, and Andrew Gautier served as the master craftsman. Upon completion in 1766, it stood in a field some distance from the growing port city to the south. It was built as a “chapel-of-ease” for parishioners who lived far from the Mother Church.
Built of Manhattan mica-schist with brownstone quoins, St. Paul’s has the classical portico, boxy proportions and domestic details that are characteristic of Georgian churches such as James Gibbs’ London church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, after which it was modelled. Its octagonal tower rises from a square base and is topped by a replica of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (c. 335 BC).
Inside, the chapel’s simple elegant hall has the pale colors, flat ceiling and cut glass chandeliers reminiscent of contemporary domestic interiors. In contrast to the awe-inspiring interior of Trinity Church, this hall and its ample gallery were endowed with a cozy and comfortable character in order to encourage attendance. (more)
..i feel so lazy..
..i think oversleeping causes headaches..
..after shooting some moleman series shots at The Rock, while i was waiting for wifey.. i decided to set up the tripod, focus on something and just mashed that shutter button.. call it an offshoot of the moleman series or what not, so here’s another series of shots that came out from a few minutes of boredom..
..Passing Strange is a broadway show.. i haven’t seen it yet, i just pulled that title out of nowhere, maybe because i’ve been seeing the ad everyday on my daily commute..
..remember the “daffy” building in old fart reflections? i finally got to know what it’s called, as seen in the photo, it’s called the One Herald Center..
..today was supposed to be a follow-up to yesterday’s experimental shot.. well, since it’s all new to me, there’s some chance it’ll fail, and fail it did.. let me play around with this first and i’ll share some nitty gritty details about it later.. 😀
..anyhoo, the moleman’s back and he’d like to give a shoutout to michael paulison for writing about this series.. i’m glad he liked it as much as i did, i hope you do too..
..have you ever wondered how Pikachu feels like when being sucked into that red pokeball..? my guess is that it somehow looked like this.. pikachuuuu.. 😀
..excerpt’s credit goes to nyclovesnyc.blogspot.com, as taken from blueofthesky.com
..you can find more about Isamu Noguchi and his art here..
The bright red painted steel of Isamu Noguchi‘s Red Cube stands out in strong contrast to the blacks, browns, and whites of the buildings and sidewalks around the sculpture. Located to one side of a small plaza in front of the BROTHERS HARRIMAN (previously HSBC) building on Broadway, Red Cube is surrounded on three sides by skyscrapers, the height of which draw a viewer’s eye upwards. The sculpture itself adds to this upward pull, as it balances on one corner, the opposite corner reaching towards the sky. Despite its title, the sculpture is not actually a cube, but instead seems as though it has been stretched along its vertical axis. (this one looks like it was stretched in all axes)
Aside from it’s striking color, Red Cube also stands out from the surrounding architecture in that all of its lines are diagonals, whereas the buildings are made up of horizontal and vertical lines. Additionally, the sculpture is balanced somewhat precariously on one corner, while the buildings, by contrast, and solidly placed.
Through the center of the cube there is a cylindrical hole, revealing an inner surface of gray with evenly-spaced lines moving from one opening of the hole to the other. Looking through this hole, the viewer’s gaze is directed towards the building behind, tying the sculpture and the architecture together.
..very much like Grover saying.. “this is near, this is far.. this is near, this is far”.. now, listen to the Moleman say to you “this is night, this is day.. this is night, this is day”
..as the title says, this is the night shot of the day shot i posted awhile back.. makes sense? good..
..*spoiler alert* i wouldn’t click those last links if i were you.. they’re just the same links as the ones before them.. 😀
..i’ve been looking at Peter Lik’s site and got curious about film.. since i haven’t the time & resources to try it out, i went for the next best thing.. since i’ve had my grubby hands on a “film” plug-in that i haven’t tried out yet, i decided to play around with it on my “digital darkroom”.. two-strip(ped) or two-color(ed) and GAF 500.. i wasn’t able to gather any info as to what GAF 500 is, but i like how it turned out.. 😀
..taken in Rockefeller Center, closer to the GE building, there’s the skating rink down south..
11/09/2008 10:00 PM
..i’m a bit bleary-eyed from the buffet i ate.. *burp* i think i see a pentagram.. hmm.. better get to sleep..
..this one was obviously taken at the brooklyn bridge.. early morning too, so i was among the few pesky tourists around the area..
..the first fisheye photo i’ve seen that impressed me most was a shot of this place.. ever since then, i’ve also wanted to shoot it with a fisheye, but i just can’t remember where it was.. turns out, it was close by one of my photo haunts.. on broad & south william street (financial district).. so here it is..
..the international telephone and telegraph (itt) building, a 35-story, 433-foot high tower, was built by buchman & kahn for garment district developer abraham lefcourt as the lefcourt exchange building in 1928. it was almost immedately bought out by itt, who commissioned louis s. weeks to add an addition that dominated the entire block. the southwestern entrance has a mosaic dome depicting commerce uniting the hemispheres with electricity..
..a memorial at the african burial ground national monument honors the memories of the estimated 15,000 africans buried at the approximately seven-acre site in the 17th and 18th centuries.. created by haitian-american Rodney Leon, the noticeable structure is a highly polished wall of granite which is called an “ancestral libation chamber”, which serves to physically, spiritually, rituistically and psychologically define the location where the historic re-internment of remains and artifacts of 419 africans has taken place.. it’ll also serve to acknowledge the site as a “sacred place” where thousands of africans are currently buried..
For all those who were lost
For all those who were stolen
For all those who were left behind
For all those who were not forgotten
**that’s my “snout” at the bottom part of the frame, i didn’t bother removing it as proof that i was “in” the shot.. 😀
..saw this on the frontpage of amNY, “Bullish or Foolish?”.. the article that accompanied that headline pertained to people still investing in stocks even though the market was down..
Charging Bull (sometimes called the Wall Street Bull or the Bowling Green Bull) is a 3,200?kg (7,000 pound) bronze sculpture by Arturo Di Modica that sits in Bowling Green park near Wall Street in New York City.
The sculpture depicts a bull, the symbol of aggressive financial optimism and prosperity, leaning back on its haunches and with its head lowered as if ready to charge.
The sculpture, one of the city’s most photographed artworks, has become a tourist destination in the Financial District. It has also come to be an unofficial symbol of the Financial District itself, and it often appears in the local news media to punctuate stories about optimism in the financial market.
..the moleman is back with new fun stuff..
..i really had fun playing around with this lens, it’s a challenge too because you get to see things in a wider, different perspective.. of course i planned what i wanted to shoot but i had to look around & turn around to see if it’ll look good, most of the time i had the camera stuck to my face as i did that weird dance to see firsthand what the effect would be.. of course i got weird looks from people around me but that’s what i like about nyc, most people don’t give a s**t..
..this here’s grand central terminal, shot from the west entrance..
..if you’ve been to the Top of the Rock, then you’d know that this is the “bottom” of the rock.. this is where you shell out $$ to pay for a great view.. the view’s better than Empire State’s though..
..this is where i got this..
..and it’s monday again, i’m pretty much recharged, slept most of the time this weekend, i’m raring to go..go back to work, that is.. 🙂
..here’s another from this fishy series, shot from the 59th Street subway exit, underneath the Trump International Hotel & Tower’s Globe.. and that’s the Time Warner Center up the stairs..
..walking down the middle of Park Avenue amidst these skyscrapers, the untrained eye would most definitely wander around these buildings..
- 2 o’clock – 270 Park Avenue / Union Carbide Building
- 4 o’clock – 280 Park Avenue
- 6 o’clock – Helmsley Building
- 8 o’clock – 277 Park Avenue – current home of J.P. Morgan & Co. Investment Bank
- 10 o’clock – 299 Park Avenue / Westvaco Building
..if you’ve been watching Gossip Girl on the CW, by looking at this you would know that this is the hotel where Serena Van Der Woodsen (Blake Lively’s character) stayed when their UES apartment was under renovation..
..not familiar with that show? then here’s a better explanation.. 🙂
..this is the NY Palace Hotel’s facade, previously called the Villard Houses, bought by Harry Helmsley in the 1970s and was declared a landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, both wings belong to non-profit organizations and to read more click here..
..it’s funny that i’ve been posting images of NYC but have nothing about the Statue of Liberty..
..up until now.. here ya go..
..shot in the unholy hours of the morning, when tourists and workers flock around & walk the hallowed canyons of manhattan.. here’s the ‘morning version’ of this shot..
..flip off a switch and voila, no lights! magick!
..to start off with the “moleman” series, here’s Fifth Avenue, shot from “below” Atlas, a 45 feet sculpture created by Lee Lawrie, a famous architectural sculptor..
Categories
dirty dancing
..i’m not artsy but was just in the mood to do some ‘research’ 😀
..corollary to this post, and this post.. here’s another shot from this year’s dancing at the crossroads event..
..a dancer from the buglisi dance theatre performing an excerpt from the ‘suspended women‘ choreographed by jacqulyn buglisi..
inspired by the writings of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, one of the finest Hispanic poets of the 17th century, acclaimed in her time as “Phoenix of Mexico, America’s Tenth Muse.” This new work involved 12 women and 4 men and the terrible beauty that is seen in their surrendered falling and rising. This dance explores the places in this world that are neither here nor there, neither up nor down, neither real nor imaginary. They are the in between places (thresholds) difficult to find and challenging to sustain. Yet they are the most fruitful places of all. For in these liminal narrows, a kind of life (suspended) takes place that is out of the ordinary, creative, and genuinely magical. Suspended Women will be danced to composer Daniel Roumain’s arrangement of Ravel’s Concerto for Piano in G major, with interpolations on the score composed and played by Roumain. Ms. Buglisi uses this dance as a vehicle to speak out against violence and supression.
..update.. changed the title, this sounds better.. 😀