FOSTER IDEAS NYC

Me, my iPhone, and an ongoing relationship with New York City.

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Time for a little reflecting.

I snapped this at the Columbus Circle subway station. The shiny reflection in the glass and steel creates an interesting foreground and background, offering depth from a flat surface. The people on the escalator and in the reflection add some humanity to an otherwise motionless shot.

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Rhythm and repetition create an almost musical composition.

The playground bars, fencing and tree branch look almost like sheet music with people creating the notes. At least that’s what I see. This one feel musical to me for some reason.

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Central Park may be the people-watching capital of the world.

This girl wandered into my camera field accidentally. And while I wish she were a littler further up in the frame, and bit to the right, I still like how the yellow in her shorts is pulled through in the background. Her smoothie gives a nice pop of color as well.

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Manhattan is a study in organized chaos.

Color, sound, movement, even smell, they all come together in this beautiful mess that is New York City. This picture of Columbus Circle—a series of intersections at the southern tip of Central Park—is a snippet of that crazy urban stew. People scurry in every direction, across streets, up from the subway, along sidewalks, somehow managing not to get hit by the traffic flowing in almost unpredictable patterns. Your eye never really knows where to look or settle. It’s a lot like being in the city, everywhere you look there’s another little story. The building that anchors the left edge is the only truly visual reprieve.

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Like a Bomb Pop made of concrete.

Happy 4th of July from America’s first capital.

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Yes, there are pockets of patriotism in NYC. Usually, where there’s blatant commercialism.

Saks 5th Avenue has a cool Americana window display. Above it, they had rows of flags. Happy Birthday, America!

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What’s more American than cheap souvenirs made in China? Okay, maybe firearms and fast food.

Nonetheless, on this day before the 4th, let’s celebrate our God-given right to exploit this great city and our great country with tchotckes. I prefer to think of it as the pursuit of throwaway happiness.

I took this at one of the many gift shops that populate Times Square and the surrounding areas. Window displays often make interesting shots with all the background reflecting going on. The pinks and oranges make this one somewhat celebratory. A great way to say, I love NY, and I love this country.

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St. Patrick’s Cathedral flying the Stars and Stripes.

Some nice masonry detail with interesting angles make this image work.

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That annoying music tells you…it’s summer!

More a fun study in fun colors than anything else. It makes me hungry.

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“Play ball!” (1/5) Since we’re coming up on the great American holiday, let’s do a series of shots around the great American past time.

I had to shoot this through a chain link fence. By positioning the lens of the camera/phone just right, I was able to eliminate any of the surrounding links. 

Timing is everything when shooting sports. There were actually a number of good pics of this particular batter, but none as dramatic as this one. The ball is in the air, the batter is taking off towards first, and the fielders are closing in on the ball. Perfect! The overcast skies dulled the yellow in the sand, which can be overwhelming to the camera on very sunny days. Also, the scene moves diagonally across the frame for a nice composition.

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“Play ball!” (2/5) Ayyyyy, batter, batter…SWING!

On any given day at any given time there are five or six—maybe more—softball games going on in Central Park. There are usually a lot of people blocking the action, and of course, the chain link fence, so it’s not always easy to get good shots.

In this particular shot, I decided to incorporate the fence. I think it makes for an interesting first person point-of-view. You get the feeling that you’re at the game.

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“Play ball!” (3/5) Take me out to the...

Every once in awhile you accidentally get something that just works for no real reason. This is one of those. I do like the way the red numerals on the jerseys pull the eye across what is a very banded horizontal composition, as do the people walking across the scene.

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“Play ball!” (4/5) The wind up...the pitch...

This pitcher had lousy control but good form. (See next picture for the result of this pitch.) The guys in the field looking the other way are the players of another game in an adjoining field. Four different fields share the same outfield space. 

I was shooting from near home plate so I had to do a bit of zooming, losing some detail in the process. 

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“Play ball!” (5/5) Bam! Grand slam! 

Another example of good timing. There’s real power in this one as the batter extends to send the ball deep beyond the outfielders. The bases were loaded and this guy drove them all in. 

As you can see, the yellow in the sand is a bit too much. Not something that’s easy to fix without going into Photoshop, which I don’t do for this blog. If I were to print this out for display, I’d probably pull the yellow back though.

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To get this pic, I had to stand across the street. Cars are constantly whizzing in and out of the shot and ruining it.

To make things even more challenging, having a person in the scene makes it more interesting, so you also have to wait for somebody to walk by and be at just the right spot when no cars are driving by. On the first day, I got a shot of a woman with her son, but they were right in front of the railing, which screwed up the composition. (Because it’s hard to see the screen in the bright sun I usually don’t know if I have a good shot until I’m back at the office.) The next day I came back later, only to find that the building was totally in shadow. Today, I came back at noon and finally got a shot I liked.

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Sometimes you just get lucky. 

Traffic was stopped at the light along Central Park West and I noticed there was a whole lot of color in one spot. I’ve been trying to get one of these sightseeing buses for some time, but it’s not easy to get them in an interesting shot. They’re tall, so you’re usually shooting up at them which puts wires and traffic lights in your way. And, like in this shot, there are usually other cars. It just happened to work in this photo. The building in the background helps to hold everything together. Also the red on the bus and scooter pull your eye across the image. Right place, right time, and the presence of mind to take the shot. Luck.

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The woman to the right with her shirt around her waist had just taken a picture for these European tourists. 

I failed to get a good shot of that, but I did get this pic of them looking at the photo she took.