Stuff on my desk Dustin photographed
You can learn a lot about someone by looking at what’s on their desk.
My brother, Dustin, has been getting more into photography lately, and so he’s been taking photos of everything in sight.
While he was here over Thanksgiving, he made this little inventory of items on my desk.
What do they tell you about me?
Fun fact: Regina recently mentioned that I keep my desk mostly clear of debris, but at the cost of all the surrounding area.
Bowery Dugout - Penthouse
Dec. 6, 2019
Bowery Dugout was recommended to me as “the best seafood in Kingston.”
I’m usually hesitant to take a person’s suggestion if they haven’t established themselves as having the same level of food snobbery as me, but I made an exception here because I was curious to try the place.
When we arrived, we saw two staircases leading away from the ground level.
Up: “Penthouse”
Down: “Dugout”
We were in the mood for something a little snazzier than what sounded like a sports bar downstairs, so we went up to the Penthouse.
It was a pretty, quaint place. Popular with an older crowd, based on the patrons.
I’m trying to think of what one might call a place like this. Casual Fine Dining? It’s basically on par with Red Lobster, but a local variant.
Dishes are pretty basic - fish with a starch (like a baked potato or rice pilaf), preceded by a simple salad.
The place isn’t bad, exactly. “Passable” is more accurate.
For the same money you spend here, you could have a phenomenal meal at Hotel Kinsley or Wilde-beest rather than the fairly mundane offering here.
Can’t recommend it.
That said, I’m still willing to give the ‘Dugout’ part of it a chance.
Maybe they do a decent Fish ‘n’ Chips.
We’ll see.
Oh, and for anyone keeping score: another regretted recommendation.
Le Canard enchaine
Cole claimed Le Canard Enchaine, a friend restaurant in The Stockade of Kingston, had the best french onion soup he’s ever had, all throughout his travels. I though that was a claim worth investigating.
I was excited, but the soup did not blow me away. I’ve had better, most recently at L’Express in Montreal, but that’s not really a fair comparison.
Still, it was warm and satisfying on a cold night, so it hit the spot.
Fred Hersch at Senate Garage
Dec. 7, 2019
Went out for a little jazz night in Kingston, saw pianist Fred Hersch.
Engaged crowd
Senate Garage made for a very pretty and quite intimate venue.
Owner Don Tallerman saw me shooting and said “a lot of photographers have said it’s very difficult to shot in here because of the light.”
I disagree.
Battenfeld Christmas Tree Farm
Cut-your-own is the christmas tree version of those pick-your-own berry farms, and it rules.
We moved to Upstate New York last year just before Thanksgiving last year, and one of the first thoughts we had about the new house is “Where will we put the Christmas Tree?”
We were busy getting settled in so it took us a while before we got around to going to get one.
We found a lovely little place, Battenfeld’s Christmas Tree Farm, in Red Hook, Ny, where we were able to roam the fields and select our own tree. It was a blast.
Tree selection 2018
But this year, we were ready. So ready, in fact, that we tried going the weekend before Thanksgiving to beat the crowds.
That didn’t work. While it said they were open online, the place was a ghost town when we showed up.
So, defeated, we drove home and awaited the next weekend, when we could return. But it wasn’t all bad, being turned away. while the friend that was with us wasn’t able to roam the trees, We instead got the company of my brother, Dustin, and his girlfriend. And since Dustin is enthusiastically taking photos with his new camera, he did a little cataloging of our adventure.
Here’s what he shot:
After we selected and sawed down a tree, we noticed a tractor rolling by with a trailer behind it labeled “tree taxi”, where we deposited our seasonal decoration, which left us free to roam around until we went to pick it up.
On the walk back, I noticed a stream running through the woods, which Dustin and I climbed through the brush to photograph.
I’ve yet to take a photo of a stream that I love, but that’s not going to stop me from trying.
This post isn’t sponsored by Peak Design, but their bags are rad.
L'Express, Montreal
Casual french fare in Montreal
Naturally, Regina only smiled for the iPhone photo.
Feb 25, 2019
We didn’t really have any plans or expectations when going to Montreal, we mostly just went to see what good food we could found.
We went on a Monday, which is basically the worst day to good looking for restaurants to try, since a ton of restaurants are closed on Monday. So no Joe Beef for us this time around. We did find this great french place for lunch, though. And that’s what you gotta have when you’re in Montreal, right?
And we went for some very classic choices:
Soupe à l’oignon (‘French Onion Soup’)
Rillettes
Steak Frites (which we were too busy eating to photograph)
This crazy looking desert I cannot remember the name of.
They also had huge jars of cornichons on every table.
I honestly can’t remember what the food was like, so it can’t have been life changing - but it was a pretty place, and and I’m glad we went. It felt like the classic brasserie experience.
Shooting Film, for the first time. Ektar 100 on Canon AT-1
The first step on my journey into 35mm film photography
For all of my professional career, I’ve shot on digital cameras. Canon Digital SRL cameras, specifically:
Canon 20D
Canon 40D
Canon 5D mk ii
Canon 6D
And it’s been a really fantastic time using them, I’ve never had a single problem and I’ve always been very satisfied with my images. But after years and years of using the same system, it’s possible for things to get a little stagnant, and I felt that happening. I’ve heard a lot from other photographers about the importance of shooting film, especially if you didn’t start out with it.
Kenmore, Boston, MA. Just above Hunt’s Photo & Video. Notice the subtle reflection from shooting through the window?
It slows you down, limits the number of photos you can take, forces you to stop and consider each image more carefully.
The disparity is obvious - how many times have you pulled out your iPhone to take a photo, and you take 10 of the same shot just to make sure you got it? Even I do it, or I used to until I made a conscious effort not to. Maybe we all have a subconscious distrust of technology that pushes us to do it. But that’s an article for another time.
The point is, using an older manual camera with fewer futuristic features helps to focus the photographic process on what matters: composition. When you know you have a limited number of pictures you can take, you slow way down, and seriously consider each one.
I thought those little fairy lights on the top right were a reflection, but they’re in several of the images and might be damage in this lens.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s been wonderful to learn without that limitation, and I think that’s a good thing. Digital cameras allow us to take tens of thousands of images without a thought, and practice does help to hone ones skill - but there’s a bit in there that’s the problem. “without thought.”
And eventually, that’s what you need - something that forces you to change up the photographic process.
This is my favorite photo from the roll. I love the light that comes into the Cory Manufacturing factory though the skylights in the evening after the place shuts down. There’s something serene and peaceful about it.
I’d gone back and forth on picking up a film camera so I could see what it was all about, as I’ve found myself more and more interested in getting ‘the film look’ and for how I could evolve as a photographer by doing so.
Funny enough, when I mentioned all this to my friend Sergei Hasegawa, he felt it was a terrible crime that I’d never shot on film (besides using a few disposable cameras as a kid), he immediately went in his closet and dug out his old Canon AT-1 and placed it in my hands.
Sergei, excited to see his old camera in action again.
Oh boy, what a camera!
Unlike most of the photos in this post taken with this camera, this meta photo was made on the trusty ol’ iPhone.
And not only did he lend me the camera, but a whole slew of goodies laid out in this old camera back that he, ever the tinkerer, modified himself, with a little film bandolier and extra pockets.
I spent most of this first roll of film taking pictures of things around the factory. The world just looks different through old cameras like this, and I see pictures forming in my head that I might not create if I were shooting on my digital camera. I plan out my shots more, I look more actively for something worthy of spending the precious few frames on.
In the case of this image, I watched this window for a time and started to envision this shot. There was a moment when everyone left the room for one reason or another, so I turned the lights off, framed this up, set the exposure, and snapped of the single frame.
Then by the time they returned, the lights were back on and everything was back to normal.
Fun fact if you’ve read this far:
I started this post on Sept 10th. Today it’s Nov. 3 and I just hopped back on my blog and saw this unfinished draft. Shameful, no? But life is very busy and I don’t make much time for writing blog posts these days. That’s something I certainly need to remedy, though. So let’s get this thing done.
Here’s another image where I wondered how the florescent lights would mesh with the daylight coming through the window. It’s not as terrible and green as I feared it would be. Sure, the white balance is a little off, but I kind of like it.
Here I tried using my modern hotshot mounted flash with the retro, analog Canon AT-1. Flash from 2016 or so, Camera from 1970. It works! Sergei’s mind was blown.
We went to dinner later that night and I shoot one of my typical restaurant photos that I used to do so many of back in the Nooklyn Neighborhood Guide days. I feel like it handled the low light very well.
This was a fun shot, and the only one for which I got out the tripod. I used my digital camera to get the exposure right and get a test shot, then I set up the AT-1 and mimiced the setting to make this picture, which I really like.
Morning window at the hotel. I’ve been making a lot of images like they lately. Really love the relaxed, contemplative vibe.
Rainy mornings make for excellent imagery. This is the breakfast lounge area at the hotel near the factory.
This images is the one I think could most pass for digital - but when you get close you can see the really beautiful film grain, which is lovely.
There’s a lot of neat stuff to see in the factory, but I was most drawn to the these open doorways with all the greenery beyond.
Toni, CNC guy and attention lover, was happy to have my taking some photos of him at work in spite of him thinking the work he was doing wasn’t interesting. But to me, who’d never seen a point-to-point machine like this in action, it was all new and exciting.
Again, the white balance is a little off from reality, but I really like the look it has, so I didn’t change it.
This bulbous monitor is straight out of Akira.
This lens produces some really lovely out of focus areas at its maximum aperture.
More open doors and soft light coming in. If you saw this out of context, you might not know there was a busy factory in the other direction pumping out cabinets.
My first double exposure, and really it was an accident because I was just showing Sergei how it was done on the camera. I didn’t actually mean to take one.
On the extremely late drive home I was nearly passing out, so I stopped for some coffee. There was the beautiful mist covering the area and this photo was calling out to me, so in spite of me nearly falling asleep, I had to take a moment to get this. It’s one of my favorites from the roll.
Maybe I should print it for the house.
I took a short nap on that couch while I waited for my drink to be ready after taking this, haha.
Got home safely, but I resolved to never drive that tired again.
Back at home, and what better to do with a new camera than make some cat photos?
Regina and I drove up to Ghent, NY to pick up our CSA allotment from Woven Star Farm, and on the way we saw this antique gas station that seemed like the perfect subject for some film photography. So on the way back home, I made sure to stop here and take a few pictures.
I don’t remember where it is exactly. Somewhere between Ghent and Rhinebeck, probably on Highway 9.
We drove down to Rhinebeck afterward, I don’t remember why. Maybe to have dinner. I decided to take a photo of the Co. Working Space for the architect, Frank Mazarella. Didn’t know how it would turn out, given that it was my first architectural photo on film, but I’m pretty happy with it.
And that finished up my first roll of film in the Canon AT-1.
I’m not sure how, but the shutter curtain broke after that and I didn’t notice. I shot two rolls of film and they both came out blank. The first time I thought it was user error. The second time I knew something was up and had Ian at Artcraft Photoworks (the lab where I have my film developed here in Kingston) take a look at it, and we discovered that the shutter curtain wasn’t moving at all when the shutter tripped. Whoops.
Later, Sergei found a guy in Georgia, Joe Careta, who specifically repairs this camera, plus the Canon AE-1 and AE-1 Program. And that’s it. That’s all he works on. Can you say expert? He completely fixed and replaced nearly everything on the camera for $95. it’s basically brand new. Can’t recommend him highly enough.
Chez Edgar - Gatinaeu, Québec, Canada
Mind blowing brunch amid cold, cold, slippery, icy, cold Canada last February. Can’t wait to go back.
With the first snow just landing on the ground here in Kingston in mid November, I’m reminded of this trip Regina and I took to Canada last February.
Why would we go to Canada in the middle of winter, you might ask?
I don’t know, maybe we were a little off our rockers.
Bein’ touristy
Or maybe we had Hyatt hotel points and Ottawa was the most fun sounding place in driving distance.
Regina got suckered into this “Obama cookie”. I knew it would be flavorless, but I put aside my snobbery for a moment and got into the spirit.
It.
Was.
Cold.
Cold like we’d never been. But - there’s a fabulous outdoor spa that is now etched into my memory as the ultimate winter destination, and I’m dying to go back.
Yes, that’s all ice on the ground.
On the morning of our trip up to the spa we drove from Ottawa into Gatinaeu and stopped to have brunch at this little joint I came across on Foursquare, as I do. A photo of the dutch baby is all it took for me to be completely certain this was a must-visit spot.
Regina and I were really shocked when we got down into the quiet neighborhood where Chez Edgar was located, only to find that apparently they don’t salt the roads over here, and we didn’t have tire chains, which surely people use - because the roads were entirely slick ice. Parking the car was… a challenge.
But oh boy, was it ever worth it. The food here is phenomenal.
And, while we waited for the food to come, I decided to play around a bit with my tilt-shift lens and do some wild perspective control, which I never really do with it when shooting architecture. We had fun.
Also, I’m sure as soon as Regina sees this post she’s going to start drooling and asking “when are we going back?”
The next day, we drove to Montreal in a whiteout blizzard. We made it.
Oh, Canada.
Luxury Real Estate Photography - Prospect Lefferts Garden, Brooklyn
I got a chance to visit the man who got me started in the real estate agent life, the path that eventually lead my to architecture photography, and photograph one of his beautiful listings.
I do a bit of real estate photography here and there for old buddies I used to work with back when I was a real estate agent. This time around I got to do some for Bryan Soto, who is actually the person who hired me and showed me the ropes of being an agent. While I moved on to become a photographer and left agent life behind, Bryan has been cracking away at it non-stop, and he’s helped lots of nice people find really great homes.
Back in June he got a particularly nice listing and asked me to come down and photograph it, which I was quite excited to do, even more so when I arrived and saw how beautiful the place is.
Fun side note: My biggest lesson from this shoot actually had nothing do with photography, and everything to do with traffic. Never again will I try to drive into the city at 9am. Absolute nightmare.
Welcome Home, Oct. 23, 2019
Hopping back on the vlog train, started with a little video when I first got home from my west coast travels.
I’ve encountered several people lately who have encouraged me to get back into Vlogging, because they enjoy seeing a slice of of life that’s different than their own. I often think my life is fairly unremarkable, but I’ve heard otherwise from people I’ve shown some videos to, so for them, I’ve been more diligent about recording with increasing frequency. I’ve been intentional about simplifying the process by shooting mostly with my iPhone and doing as little editing as possible, that way I’ll actually make the things frequently, rather than giving myself so much video editing work that I’ll never get it done. I’ve discovered about myself that I want to spend as little time in post as possible. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it - it’s just that if it’s more than a very minimal amount of work, I will never do it. So, the only way for things to get done is to simplify them down to the level that it will actually happen - and it needs to happen immediately after I made the video. In the case of this one, I made it and uploaded it from my phone before I even got up from where I shot it.
And what is this one about? It’s about how excited I was to be home after 2 weeks of traveling to the west coast. Traveling is wonderful, but one of the best things about it is how much you appreciate home when you get back to it. Stay in the same place for too long, and you’ll probably start to think it boring and regular. But leave for a while and return, and everything seems new once again. Highly recommended practice.
Revision: Real Estate
While I’m out shooting real estate for Nooklyn, I create a ton of images, sometimes over 1000 in a day.
Several of these are simple and just document a space for the prospective renter, but occasionally, there’s something special, something that speaks to me.
I see in those images the potential to transcend their life as “just some real estate photos”
Maybe they can give a little glimpse into what life is like right now in NYC.
Maybe they can show some moment of beauty in light play and shadow.
In almost every case, these pictures were originally edited to be much brighter.
I’ve brought them down the level that suits my current aesthetic:
Shadowy, moody, contemplative.
You’ll likely notice a recurring theme of mine - light coming through dark doorways or windows.
I love the way the light gracefully spills into a dark room.
Side light, like that that comes in through a bedroom windows, helps to bring out texture in brick, stone, and tile.
Sometimes there’s a slice of history, like an old lobby that once contained and active fireplace, which as long since been abandoned and unmanned.
Sometimes i’m lucky enough to catch a little scene fo life playing out in front of a building.
Surely something used to happen in these grand lobbies. Were they filled with furniture? Staff? Activity?
Now they’re just vacant corridors people pass on their way to their apartments.
They still get nice light.
Many of the places I visit aren’t quite finished, and have a bit of construction debris around. I’ve come to embrace it and appreciate the places just as they are, mess and all.
This is just a moment in time for them, and there’s something magical to be observed in every moment.
And often in the midst of that chaos there’s a window with just the right light in just the right place, that draws completely away from the chaos.
And the best days come to a close with a beautiful sunset.
Thinker
This image popped up in my apple memories feed the other day (august 6th, 2016).
It’s fun to look back at photos from previous years and see how my style has evolved over time. It’s a lot like looking at old journal entries and seeing how you used to think. You see things much differently as time goes on.
But you also see what endures, and that’s what I see here. This image is the darkest of the images I shot on that day, and now looking back on it is my favorite - an indication of my move toward more under-exposed photos and more appreciation of shadow.
For comparison, here’s another photo from earlier that same day:
Granted, I was intentionally going for a more summery vibe to match this beach, seafood-shack style restaurant, but you can see a massive difference in tone between these. This represents my earlier imagery, where I leaned often on bright, over exposed imagery - and I’m not saying there isn’t a place for that sort of thing.
But as I’ve watched the evolution of other photographers beyond myself, I’ve seen a similar trend - the longer we’re at it the more we tend toward more natural looking, softer, lightly-laminated images. Or maybe that’s just what I see because that’s what I’m currently attuned to.
I hope you’re enjoying the journey as much as I am.
Video Fun:
Here’s another memory from that same time period. It was around this time that Instagram rolled out the “stories” feature, and I was among the first people to upload DSLR footage to instagram, which was blowing peoples minds left and right. I remember playing around with a lot of rack focus and copious use of the warp stabilizer in premiere to fix my super unsteady footage.
I tired to find the video I made here, where I was rack focusing on this beer, but my video archive in the photos app only goes back to August 15th, 2016. Here’s a good example from back then:
I later wrote a blog post about how to add said footage to instagram, and to this day it’s still the most popular post on this blog.
Here’s an unrelated fun fact - that first image is at Hungry Ghost, a coffee shop on Fulton Street in Fort Greene. My brother, Dustin, currently works there as a barista, three years after I took this photo.
Stop and smell the mountains
For years I’ve peered out the window as I drive down the road and something would catch my eye. I’d think “that would make a nice photo. I should come back here some time and take that.”
It’s a terrible habit - passing up something that is wonderful right now, ignoring the fact that moments are fleeting, and knowing deep down that I’m never going to come back.
So I’ve been changing my habits. I’ve started to pull over and take it in, and snap that photo that I want right now, while it exists.
It gets me to pause for a moment and take in how wonderfully beautiful our world is, which, in the end, is what my photography is all about.
Reading is Fundamental
I’ve been ‘reading’ a bunch of audio books lately. Here’s a quick tally of books I have at least started:
Life/Philosophy:
12 Rules for Life - Jordan Peterson - This is what I’m on currently. Listened to a bit of Ch. 4 this morning.
7 Habits of Highly Effective People - In here he presents the idea that you should, within 48 hours of reading a chapter, talk to someone about what you’ve learned in that chapter. Because your mind rewrites it when you’re presenting it to someone, and if you know you’re going to present it to someone when you start reading, you’ll pay more attention. I intend to adopt this model for all books of this style, which is part of what prompted me to write this post and hopefully many more after it.
Wait, What? - James Ryan - “true wisdom comes from asking the right questions” is what one reviewer said. Given that, I suspect this was Tim Ferris recommendation, since he often says that asking good questions is paramount.
Sales/Business:
Sell or Be Sold - Grant Cardone
The 10x Rule - Grant Cardone
If you’re not First, you’re Last - Grant Cardone
Be Obsessed or Be Average - Grant Cardone
• Just a note here, all of these GC books are amazing. He reads them himself, adds more than is in the books, and gets fiery and animated in an infectious way. They’re exciting to listen to.
Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss - a book on negotiation by an FBI crisis negotiation
The 4 Hour Workweek - Tim Ferris
The Automatic Millionaire - David Bach - I actually listened to this one quite a while ago when I first got audible, but I’ll include it in this list anyway.
Architecture:
A Place of My Own - Michael Pollan - I actually got a physical copy of this from the local library, but after reading it for a while decided to go audio. I got this because in my effort to be a better photographer of architecture, I seek to understanding it more deeply.
Built - Roma Agrawal - This is really a book on engineering, but it’s super interesting. This one I’ve been reading a physical copy of, not audio. Which is important because of all Roma’s great engineering doodles.
Biography:
Steve Jobs - Walter Issacson - this was fantastic. Really helped to demystify the guy. We love to look at successful, iconic people and assume that they made everything happen straight by pulling it out of the void. This book helps show how one thing lead to another, and the invention of the iPad and iPhone made a lot more sense to me after having read it.
Here are a few I have in the Audio Library I haven’t read:
How to Win Friends & Influence People - Dale Carnegie
The Graveyard Book: Full Cast Production - I bought this by accident, wanting to get the Neil Gaiman read version at Tim Ferris’s suggestion. But I’ve heard this version is good, too. I’ve already read this, actually, as I read a physical copy some years ago. Great book.
Where should we begin - Esther Perel - Tony Robbins had this lady on his podcast a few times and she’s got a lot of interesting things to say on love, attraction, fidelity, and relationships.
You are a badass at Making Money - I listened to this before, but discovered that the physical book is much better since it’s filled with exercises, and those are easier to do when read. But I got the audio book again to listen to in the car. Haven’t gotten around to it yet, though.
The Three Body Problem - Liu Cixin - I’ve heard this was great. Obama liked it.
More Walter Issacson bios:
Einstein
Leonardo Da Vinci
The Innovators
• I don’t have Ben Franklin yet, but I hear that’s great, too.
• I should get Elon Musk’s bio, too. And Richard Branson. (not by Issacson)
So that’s what I’ve had in the queue or what’s coming up in the queue. I’ve also been listening to this 10 hour long youtube video of Alan Watts which is basically a visual audiobook. My brother, Dustin, sent me a picture of his version of the paperback, and I went hunting for it - Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life, and I could not locate an audiobook of it. But then I found this video, which is perfect, and probably better than audio since he gives lots of visual examples. I’m guessing that’s why there isn’t an audio book version.
I’ve been listening to audio books for a long time before subscribing to audible, too.
Previously I was making really heavy use of Overdrive/Libby to get audio books from the Brooklyn Library, which is totally fantastic, but newer/more popular books can take forever to come available because 30+ people might be in line ahead of you.
I could go through and list all the audio books I have read on that service, but I’ll stop here.
I’ve done a moderate to okay job of keeping track of my reading via Goodreads, which you can check out to get a further understanding of what I fill my mind with.
Don't trample your passion by demanding too much from it.
Passion, like all fires, has to be carefully tended from the tiniest of embers. it has to be nurtured like a delicate sapling. If you demand a roaring blaze or the delicious fruits immediately, you’re going to destroy it.
I did.
My love for photography was born out of a love for food.
Or maybe it was always there, and the food just helped bring it out.
Before I took photos professionally, I spent years taking photos for my food blog and eventually for this private underground restaurant that I ran out of my apartment.
It was a lot of fun and I really loved doing it, but I didn’t have enough money saved up to make a go of it. I learned a really powerful lesson there about demanding too much from your passion
I was extremely passionate about food and cooking, but I asked way too much of it too soon.
We hear all these stories of, say, an attorney who’s fed up with law work so she quits and starts a wildly successful pie baking business. What you don’t hear about is the runway of success that she had selling pies for a long time before realizing she could make enough doing it to quit her job.
Yeah, I didn’t do that.
I just said “I want to do this and I’m going to make it work” and tried to force it into being.
Could I have been successful? Eventually. But only if I had income from another source supporting it, or a long enough runway from savings to make it work.
Sean McCabe talks extensively about how to do this in his book Overlap. A big part of why that message resonated with me so much is because I had this exact experience, where I demanded my delicate little sapling of a passion bear me fruit immediately.
It doesn’t work like that.
Nature dictates that things needs time to grow organically.
So I learned my lesson. When I started to get paid photography work, it was a very gradual thing, where I SLOWLY got more and more work to the point that I could afford to stop doing my current job (real estate agent) and move over to photography full time.
I made less at the photography, but I enjoyed it significantly more, and that has always propelled me forward. I’ve always been careful to protect this little seedling, and not demand too much of it too quickly, because the pain of losing my last passion is always in the back of my mind.
But when my old days of cooking came up in conversation, I started to remnisce about the fun I had, and finding my old listing of Foursquare and thumbing through the images took me back. I miss it.
I wonder if I’ll get back into cooking professionally some day?
I always liked the idea of running a bed and breakfast.
Maybe it’s still in the cards.
When the time is right.
For now, have some fun flipping through some images of my past at Sky Garden Bistro:
“Is expensive” hehe
Columbia University Medical Center
By: Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Gensler
Sometimes I hunt around online or in books for beautiful buildings to photograph.
On one such hunt I came across Columbia University’s Medical Center and found some really beautiful pictures of it.
I wanted to give it my own shot, so one day after some client work on the upper west side, I decided to drive up and see if I could catch it at twilight. Benny Crown was with me, as he had assisted me with my shoot for UEG. We got lucky with a parking spot nearby, and then scouted around the building trying to get onto neighboring rooftops - to no avail.
So I found the best spot I could right in the driveway, looking straight at the building.
I kind of like the way the garage driveway looks. I keep thinking about the X-Men jet launching out of it.
I made the image out of just a few bracketed shots - in order to get detail in some of the darker areas of the image, I had to take a few where that light in the garage was incredibly bright.
By fusing them together in Photoshop, I was able to make this image, which I’m pretty happy with. I would have preferred that the lights be on in that one section that’s dark, but you don’t always get lucky with lights when you’re just popping by a building at night on chance.
Here’s a basic outline of steps:
Here’s a handy gif to show you how the editing process went. What you don’t see: all the behind the scenes selections and masking.
Part 1 - In the field
Find the composition, which involved backing up in some bushes next to a sheer drop into an alley that I’m sure would have hurt a lot if I slipped.
Raise the camera as high as possible on the tripod.
Shift the lens up to get as much of the building as possible.
Shoot brackets from deepest darkness to brightest blinding lights.
Pack it up and get outta there.
Part 2 - Post
Combine the images in photoshop, from the darkest images used for the brightest lights - the garage, to the brightest images used for the darkest areas - concrete in the building facade and the bushes.
Replace the sky
Adjust color and tones, add a vignette, color cast, and other creative touches.
Fix the perspective
Export
Part 3 - Share on the blog
Oh, that’s this part! Look, we’re here already. Hooray!
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More posts on Architecture Photography:
5 Tips for better Architecture & Real Estate pictures with your phone!
5 Quick, Easy Tips for better cellphone photos.
Got a cellphone in your pocket?
Do you like taking pictures of buildings for fun or work?
Here are 5 great tips for better photos.
1. Clean off your lens!
A quick wipe is all it takes for sharper photos!
Smudgy, blurry, gross!
So crisp and so clean, clean!
We put our hands all over our phones when we use them, especially pulling them out and putting them back away. Chances are if you’re not paying attention, you’ve smudged your fingers across the lens, and this leads to blurry, hazy pictures - especial if you keep your hands moisturized (you should keep your hands moisturized).
So give your lens a quick wipe with a cloth to clean things up and give yourself a nice, sharp photo.
2. Straight lines.
Make sure to hold your camera straight and parallel with the the vertical structures.
Angled Down: Oh no! The viewer feels like they tripped and are falling over forward. Not the face!
Angled up: Oh no! The viewer feels like they’re slipping over backward on that dastardly banana peel. Don't hit your head!
Ah, standing up straight, true, and plum. It feels strong, confident, safe.
Buildings are designed to stand up straight and strong. So when you’re holding your camera, make sure that you hold your camera parallel to the vertical lines of the structure, rather than angled down or up.
3. Turn on your grid overlay
Tap into your camera settings and enable grids.
Now you can line up your shots perfectly.
The easiest way to get your verticals right is to turn on your camera’s grid overlay, that way you’ve got both a guide and a subconscious reminder. You can find this in your camera’s app’s options.
4. Shoot "Dead On” - The one-point perspective
Line up your vertical and horizontal lines for a powerful & compelling composition
Oh no, it’s lopsided!
Ah, that’s just right.
The most powerful composition is facing straight at the subject, where your verticals go straight up, and your horizontal lines go straight left and right. Again, the grid helps a lot with this.
5. Two hands on deck
Whoa there coffee jitters. Two hands are better than one.
Do you want shaky, blurry photos? Because this is how you get ‘em.
Strong, stable, sharp. A good grip in two hands is how you take the best photos.
Do you want shaky, blurry photos? Because this is how you get ‘em.
Strong, stable, sharp. A good grip in two hands is how you take the best photos.
When you hold your phone with just one hand, chances are that you’ll shake it when you go to press the shutter, and you’ll end up with a blurry picture because the camera is moving as it takes the shot. To avoid this, you want to use a stead grip with both of your hands pressed against the phone so it doesn’t shake a all when you take the photo.
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Photo Archive Critique - Angel's Share - April 22, 2015.
To see where you’re going, it’s often best to look at where you’ve been. Take a look back into the archive with me and we’ll go over some pictures from my past and I’ll give you pointers on how they could be improved - Lean from my mistakes, and you won’t have to make them yourself.
Memories.
That’s who we really are, right?
What would we be without memories?
Apple likes to play up that nostalgia in the Photos app by creating little memory collections. A recent one popped up with these photos of a trip to Angel’s Share that I took on April 22nd, 2015.
It’s pretty likely, given this visit and subsequent munches at Village Yokocho (which I’ll show you in the next post), that I was out with my old partner in debauchery, Sonny Seng, for this occasion. - I just checked, and he and I also did an east village cocktail crawl just a few days prior, on April 14th, 2015. I discovered the images for that were mysteriously absent from Photos, so that’s been corrected, and I’ll share those with you in the future.
Let’s talk about one of the ingredients of a great photography - love for the subject.
I love craft cocktails - they’re often mysterious, complex, and rich with a history and origin story.
My affection began in college when a friend of mind who really enjoyed a tipple lead me down the path and helped me stock up a home bar. We started off with intensely sugary drinks (have you ever had a Rusty Nail? It’s Drambuie and Scotch. Drambuie is SO SWEET. YUCK. I can’t imagine drinking it now. I gag just thinking about it), which unsurprisingly was also how I eased my way into enjoying coffee.
As I got older or just had more experience with both of these flavorful liquids, I began to appreciate the complex flavors beneath all the sugar, so now I tend to like my drinks fairly dry instead of painfully sweet, and I like my coffee pure black - so I can get the essence of the drink and appreciate all the care and attention that when into its production.
I began to appreciate the story and history that get wrapped up in craft cocktails and the storied bottles they come from, and that love and fascination make them a great subject for me - I already care about and understand my subject, and that helps me know what I want to convey with my images, and to anticipate what’s going to happen next, because I’m deeply familiar with this process - again, because I have experience with the subject and with photographing it.
By this point, I’d been taking pictures of food for years, since it was the subject that originally sparked my interest in photography. But it wasn't only recently that I had transitioned to being a professional photographer, and brought along all that intention when it came to making images.
I made the best images I knew how at the time, always pushing myself to the limit of my knowledge and ability. It’s been several years now, and I can look back on this work and be proud of it, but I can also see some areas for improvement, and I’d like to point those out to you for your benefit.
Fire is always a fun subject, given our deep historic connection to it. I’m glad I kept this image dark, preserving the moody feel of the speakeasy. Smokey cocktails were still a rarity at the time, and this was the first time I’d seen someone blowtorch some spices and then invert a glass on it. It was quite the spectacle.
How could this be improved? I think I crushed the highlights a little too much in the edit - I don’t like that the white of the flame is a little dull and grey. Killing the highlights is a pretty common mistake for beginners, and I made it plenty in my early career.
This photo conveys what’s happening - the finished cocktail being strained into the smoke filled glass - but it’s not as obvious and dramatic as I would like. It’s teaming with grain and noise thanks to me really pumping the ISO on a camera not built for low light performance. If I were taking this picture now, I would really prefer to use a flash behind or to the side of the glass to capture all the smoke. If I couldn’t use the flash, I’d try to put some light source in the room behind the glass by changing my perspective. It’s also a little tight on the composition. These days I like a little more environment and breathing room.
I enjoy a low-key photo, but this feels more dim than it should be. It feels a little dim and muddy, and the sliver of focus on the ice cube and bubbles isn’t really apparent enough, so the image basically looks out of focus. Not a winner all around.
Another shot where the composition is just too tight. It’s focused on the pouring action, so that’s good, but too much of the subject is on the very edge of the frame - both the cup and the shaker. A good rule-of-thumb in photography is to keep your subject away from the very edges of the frame unless you’re going for some intentional disharmony.
This one’s not bad, but would be improved if there was more separation between the glass and the bottles behind it so that you’d be able to more easily focus on the glass.
It’s important to work in a little atmosphere, because no bar is just the drinks - a huge aspect of why you visit one place over another is the atmosphere and ambiance. This picture tells the story of the window in the foreground, the pretty flowering tree in the midground, and the background of buildings across the street. You understand it’s the view you’ll see out the window when you’re here. But, the composition could be better. There’s an opportunity to artfully overlay the grid of the foreground window over the windows of the building in the back, and a few minutes spent perfecting that compostion
Here’s a nice little collection of images of a vibrant orange drink. Probably had carrot juice in it (hey, it was a long time ago). All of these suffer from the same problem that plagues the rest of the set - claustrophobic composition. The final image with the copper cup is slightly better in this regard. You could call this the “learning to use a macro lens” phase. The problem is that this distance is kind of in between where a lens like this shines - it should either be closer and really focused on a single tiny element, or further away and just using its long focal length to make a well compressed shot.
This photo has some nice things going for it - the blurry second drink in the foreground, a somewhat wider composition than the previous images, and a good range of colors. Some people like the diagonal horizon, feeling that it adds action and tension to the image. I don’t. It could work for a stylized image if that’s intentionally what you’re going for, or say, you’re taking a picture of a dirt bike doing a rad launch, but that’s not what I’m after in my imagery. Given my overlap into the discipline of architectural photography, I prefer a more clean, crisp, minimal vibe in my images. So I make sure never to have angled horizons in my imagery these days. But that, of course, is and element of the style I’ve developed, and not necessarily a hard photographic rule.
Hey look, I took this with my iPhone 4! No, I didn’t. I took it with a DSLR, I was just pushing it too hard in the darkness and didn’t even hit the focus. Is it a terrible image? Not necessarily. You can tell what the subject is and you can tell what’s going on, but that’s not good enough for me. I want a more clean and crisp image now, and wouldn’t be satisfied with this. It could be so much better.
This image is fine, but would benefit from a little more space on the top and bottom. So a step or two back would be in order. But also, I probably wouldn’t shoot this image today - I’d instead go for a straight-on, one-point-perspective, again going back to the more architectural imagery approach I’ve adopted.
Here’s the brightest image in the whole set, and I still like this one. It’s wide enough that you get a sense of place and environment, it tells a story of the man behind the bar, working on preparing this drink, the order for which he’s got just off to the side. You can just see his face at the top of the frame, so you can see a little peek of him without it being distracted. The colors and light could be managed a little better in post, but out of this set this is one of my favorites.
Here’s another favorite from this set. It’s dark and low key, but you can still make a bit of detail in Ben’s face and clothing. It captures the mood and ambience of the speakeasy.
The only photo in this set where you get a good look at his face. There’s a lot of wasted space at the top of the frame that isn’t really adding anything to the image. It would be better if I’d shot it landscape, so that he could be looking deep into the frame.
Here’s a fun one where you get to see a smile on his face, as well as the ingredients of the cocktail he’s building in the foreground. I don’t know if they set the bottles out for many of the customers, but he knows how interested I am in what goes into the drink, so he often does this for me. I like all of the elements of this image, but they’re not layered quite as well as they could be - it would be better if there were a clearer view of the cocktail he’s making, since that’s where this whole story is going. This could be accomplished either by my moving to a different vantage point, or by shuffling the bottles around.
Here’s the finished cocktail from the previous shot. I like the angle on the drink here, looking slightly down into the glass and also seeing through it. Light and colors are still a little muddy, as has plagued most of the images in this series, but again, this camera wasn’t built to be a champ in the dark. Or maybe I just didn’t know how to use it well enough back then. There’s a good compositional line here, in that your eye enters the image at the top right and then roams across the bottles and down to the cocktail. And, if your eye enters the frame from anywhere else, it will drift straight to the cocktail thanks to its dominant color. It’s got the guts of a great image and a little refining on structure and light could make it better. It’s also always nice to get rid of or hide those rubber bar things. They’re very practical, but I never like seeing them in photos. But that’s a luxury you’re probably not going to get unless you’re doing an official shoot for them, or unless you’re very persuasive.
Almost good, but the bright light on the left is the most eye catching thing in the image, and pulls the eye away from the cocktail. You know the cocktail is the focus, and you want to look at it and appreciate it, but that bright light just keeps yanking you away. Be careful about what you let be the brightest object in the image, because that is what the viewer is going to see more than anything else.
Many a good sipping session ends with a shot shared between the bartender and the patrons. My love affair with rum was picking up, so that’s what we had. I enjoy this pouring shot where some of the glasses are filled but not yet all of them - it gives you a clear sense of what’s happening. Odd numbers are often stronger than even, so I could have tried to compose this so you didn’t see the fourth glass, but that would be slightly dishonest about the real story - that four people were going to be drinking. There’s always a choice to be made between an artistic image and an honest, storytelling image. I also like that you can see the label on the bottle, and I’m sure Bacardi would like that, too. How could the image be improved? That napkin and empty glass on the right aren’t adding anything, so they could be moved for cropped out. And as with every other image here, I could have moved a little further away or use a slightly wider lens for a less cramped composition. And if I were taking this photo today, I would very intentionally line up the glasses in a perfectly straight line.
One thing that comes from experience is a willingness to get more involved in the image. This was fairly early in my career, so I mostly sat back and took the pictures photo journalistically. Also, I was just here having drinks, not on an assignment. But these days, even if I’m just traveling or out having fun, if I see a photo I want, I’m doing to reach out and fiddle with whatever I need to in order to get the photo I want. I build the image I see as I see it in my mind, because that’s how I share my vision of the world with my viewers.
Do this.
I encourage you to take this approach with your own pictures, no matter what skill level you’re at. Look back at pictures from a week ago, a year ago, 5 years ago, and ask yourself what you were doing then, and what you can do better now, and the photos you take today and tomorrow will be better for it.
Props to Ben
Quick shoutout to Ben Rojo for making some of the most fabulous drinks around. When he sees these old pictures of himself he’ll probably respond as many do when looking at old pictures of themselves: “hey, delete those!”
If you read my previous post on the power of repetition and prolific production, then you know the best thing you can do is go out and put some of the stuff you learned here to use. Send me some pictures you took using the lessons you learned from this.
How to take better pictures
What’s the one thing that will improve your photos more than anything else, without spending a dime on equipment or tutorials? I’ve got you covered.
Want to take better photos without spending a fortune on better camera equipment and investing in training materials? I’ve got you covered.
Just one piece of advice
If there’s a single piece of advice I would give to anyone aspiring to get better, it’s simply this: create new photos NON-STOP. As many as you possibly can, as often as possible.
BE PROLIFIC.
Let’s talk about CLAY POTS
Have you ever heard the story of the competing teams that made clay pots? Two groups of people are tasked with making clay pots and they’ll be scored on who makes the best, but they’re told to work two different ways.
Team A - “Focus on making the single absolute best pot you can. Make it perfect.”
Team B - “Make as many pots as you possibly can.”
Who do you think made the best pots?
That’s right, Team B.
Why? Because team A never got enough practice to improve. They were too stuck on trying to get it right the first time that they never got the valuable lessons of past experience.
So practice, practice, practice.
You’re not the least bit surprised, right? Of course not. Occam’s Razor.
What about education?
But what about training and education? They are massively helpful, there’s no question, but they do absolutely nothing for you without practice. Just like building muscle in the gym, knowledge only comes from exercise and putting what you’ve learned to work.
Education is only valuable if you use it.
You’ll find that nothing else will help you start to understand your images as much as making many, many more. Then going back to study what you’ve made.
Think about how you can improve them, and think about what you’re doing well and doing right, so you can do even more of that.
Repetition leads to improvement.
Sure, you can look at the work of others for inspiration, but then you should look back on the images you made yourself and think “ah, I wish I would have…” and “it really would have been better if…” These are things you will start to see with clarity the more you produce and the more you review what you’ve done. Those are the thoughts that train you and take you to the next place.
Review your images, then improve upon them.
You’ll also go through phases as your interests shift. You may be really into one photographic style now, and years later you’ll look back and think “those are kinda gross.” But it was a necessary step to developing your vision, so dive all the way in to whatever you really like now and explore it, enjoy it, get the most out of it.
Pursue your interests, use that excitement to make more photos.
So, what does that look like?
I’ve got some examples for you coming up in the next post.
Subscribe if you’re not already to make sure you don’t miss it.
Airbnb in North Bergen, NJ
I’m a big fan of Airbnb. I always love living just a little bit like a local when I’m visiting a new place. I almost always go hunting for an Airbnb to stay at instead of hotels, so I’m always excited to do a project where I get to help out an Airbnb owner.
In this case, it was a little 3 bedroom house in North Bergen, NJ, for a very friendly fellow who was kind enough to make me an espresso while I was in there photographing the place. Fortunately it was already well staged, so I didn’t have to spend much time moving things around, and instead got to focus on composition and light placement for each image.
What most surprised me was the level of precision and craftsmanship that went into the renovation, and it turned out that the owner did a lot of of the work himself. Very impressive. I remember one time I made a tile backsplash behind my stove, and let’s just say it did not come out quite so polished.
I had a really good time on this shoot - I spent 4 hours on site totally absorbed in making images and finished up with around 20 great ones - Here are some of my favorites.
By the way, scroll down past my images if you’re interested in seeing the “before” images of what the owner had posted before he hired me.
After
Tap on an image below to open lightbox, then you can rotate to landscape and swipe if on mobile.
Before
Below are the images the owner had before he brought me in photograph his space. I’m really excited to see what impact this will have on his bookings. It’s a bit too soon to know now, but I’m going to check in a few months down the road and then in a year to see what return he gets year over year. The difference in images is pretty drastic, and I’ll bet the increase in bookings will reflect that. I’ll put an update here once I’ve got that data (it obviously won't be for a while).
