New York, New York
March 9th, 2007 by Benji Mast
Manhattan has always been near the top of a very long list of places to visit and shoot. The trip was very short notice and impulsive. Shane was visiting and invited me to come back with him for two days. We got there Monday running on about 3 hours of sleep, got a couple of large coffees and headed over to Followers of Jesus School. Followers of Jesus School is school in Brooklyn for inner city kids, a wonderful ministry. I was put to work scoring tests and other tasks. There were two guys with egos slightly larger than their games who were talking big all day. So Shane and I decided that we should probably take them on. Much to our satisfaction we beat them.
Then Shane and I took the subway downtown. Stepping above ground I was awe-stricken by number of extremely tall buildings. It took me a while to actually tear my gaze and camera down for even a moment. It’s a wonder I made it across the first couple of streets without being killed or at least severely maimed.
We then took the Staten Island Ferry. I was somewhat disappointed because the weather was quite overcast and was hoping to get the sunset behind the Statue of Liberty. Medium-length story short, the wind blew the clouds away and the was setting perfectly as we went past. Unfortunately the knob had accidentally slipped into “M” and I was shooting straight into the sun at 1/80 5.6 ISO 100. After I finished snapping wildly during the moments the sun was in the proximity of the statue, I was dismayed to look down and see huge areas of the screen blinking. D-SLR shooters know that is bad news. Luckily I was shooting RAW and I was very pleasantly surprised at the flexibility it gave me to pull, apparently blown-out, highlights back in.
We then went to pier 17 and ate.
The next day I got an all day subway pass and walked and rode my way around the city. I carried only Heidi’s S3 because my XT was nearly out of battery, I lost the battery charger, and I wanted to save it for that night.
The New York Stock Exchange
The Empire State Building
Shane came in after dark and we met at Times Square…
..we then took the subway to the Brooklyn side and set up under the Brooklyn Bridge looking into Lower Manhattan. It was gorgeous.
.
Yes, I know that the last two repeat themselves, but I could resist leaving them both in.
P.S. Consider it egotistical, consider it over-cautious, nevertheless because of concerns, ignorant or no, and ease of the process I have begun to watermark my high-res pictures I display. If anyone wants a clean copy email me and I am more than likely to determine you as personal-use-only user and send you whatever you want.
P.P.S.
The S3 is a wonderful camera that I would recommend for anyone in the $300-400 range looking for a high quality, high zoom digital camera.
That last picture is seriously cool!
The pics are wonderful! I love the last two. Great having you around.
hott. those pics are really awesome!
Nice. Excellent work. I can applaud anyone who makes the necessary effort to go out and just shoot it up. Way to expend the effort!!!
nice pics, benji! way to go!! i agree, the last one is just totally cool. and i’m assuming you’re talking about the canon S3 IS?
awesome pics - glad you got to spend time in NYC
Yes, I was referring to the Canon Powershot S3 IS.
Hey those ARE nice pics. looks like a fun trip!
great work and thanx for the recommendation!
Hey Benji looks like you had fun in New York.
wow!awesome pictures!!!
Excellent! Excellent! Possibly I shall have to buy one of those some great day.
You did that with a point-and-shoot!? Good grief man, that’s crazy!
I’m an equipment buff. My fault, I suppose. Never mind that fact that I could never afford what I’ve got…
Only #3, #4, #5, and #6 were taken with the S3, the rest were with my XT.
Hey Benji, I don’t know if you really know me, but Hans does, so you can blame him for getting a comment from me. He said in his site that we should come check yours out. Nice last two pics, wow!