Paris: Arrival

We got to Paris today, visited the Arch. Interesting place, Paris. It was really busy (New Year's Eve), everyone's pretty, and it's great to finally back in a big city. I missed New York for a while.





Panorama-rama!



A little composite photo. The above is my brother, the one below is a tree on the way to France.



A different view of Paris.



Funny story. I was on the train for about 15 minutes, really wanting to take this picture. And, without much surprise, this guy's stare was preventing me from embarking on my journey. So, before the last stop, I got a rough focus, got the exposure, and right before I got off the metro, I snapped it. This is probably my favorite picture so far, if anything for the chuckles.

Switzerland Panoramas and Geneva

Took a train to Geneva to meet my brother's friend, Beau. Took more panoramas and finally had food that was reasonably priced (and tasty). Since Geneva is near France, everyone here speaks French and maybe the proximity has something to do with the pricing and taste of food. Where we're staying, Basel, everyone speaks German or Swiss-German. The minimum wage of Switzerland is also around 13 Swiss Francs, which is probably why everything seems so expensive.



A train stop where we transferred while traveling to Geneva.



This is a cathedral in Geneva. Don't know the name of it. I'm not a good tourist. I'm ok with that.



I think this is where Lake Geneva empties into Rhone River, and the fountain on the left is Jet d'Eau. Don't let the picture fool you. That thing is huge.



This is a museum around Head, a big design institute in Geneva. I think it was closed, so we have a loitering shot. In the foreground is Brett, Beau has her back to us, and on the left is Orson Welles. He ain't dead.



These guys were at a river-side restaurant playing cards. They seem content.

Switzerland Day...4(?)

Starting to lose track of the days. Took a quick trip to the market during sunset, and the light was pretty nice.



The inside of the train station was lit from the other side, giving this strange effect of a glowing train station.



Not to mention the ability to smoke inside it, which made for some dramatic lighting.

Going to Geneva tomorrow, and hopefully I'll get some nice panorama shots.

Switzerland Day 3: Boat Ride

We went on a boat ride, in Lake Zurich.



I tried using the photo stitching feature in Photoshop CS3, and it came out pretty well. Not the most impressive picture though. Better ones to come, and I'll try to find a host that can support full sized images.



There was a gas-powered torch at the dock, probably for warming yourself while waiting for the boat? This guy's got the right idea.



A man takes a smoke-break while we pass by.



The town of Zurich, lit up, almost like it's filled with stars.

Switzerland Day 2: Snow

It snowed today. It was damn beautiful.



We rode a train to Bern, and the snow made for some great moments



These kids were practicing soccer in the morning, in the pouring snow. This is not a good picture, but they deserve some recognition for their commitment.



Though the food has yet to really impress me, the scenery in Switzerland, especially with the snow, it's really beautiful.



Again, too many wide shots...whatever.

Switzerland Day 1

I'm in Switzerland and these are pictures from my first day.



Ferry conductor.



Looking out onto the Rhein River, with the four-legged beast.



A bridge over the Rhein River.



Two types of tourists.

I need to take less wide pictures and start getting closer to my subject. I'll consider this post the establishing shot.

Phone Phun

Inspired by Damon Winter's pictures of the war, which he took with his iPhone, I bought the same app and gave it a go. Cell phone pictures are interesting because people are much more natural around a phone pointing at them, and you always have your phone with you, so you get "those moments" that would otherwise would be lost.

I started with less journalistic and more portrait-oriented pictures.



Charles



Dominic, falafel chef



Adrian



Carl



Josh

Lt. Dan Choi

Lt. Dan Choi came to Wesleyan to talk about the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. He recently came out on national television and was subsequently discharged from the army. Recently, he re-enlisted in the army, as a gay man.



Lt. Dan Choi putting in eye drops, minutes before he began his talk.





The 200+ seat lecture hall was packed. Lt. Choi often made the audience laugh while making his points.

Early Morning Hot Air

Woke up at 6am on Saturday to help on a film thesis that was using a hot air balloon.



(DP extraordinaire, Ben Kuller)







We ended up having to go off road to look for where they landed. We couldn't find them, but the fields were beautiful.



Good night, y'all!

Age Old Diner

Long Live the King of Pop

A few weeks ago, it was exactly one year after Michael Jackson's death. My friend and I figured there would be something going on in the streets of New York City, and sure enough, there was music and dancing right outside of the Apollo theatre in Harlem.





Even little kids got in on the action! As you can tell, the left shoulder of this kid's shirt is "blown out," meaning that this spot is too bright to have any highlight detail and is effectively just white. If you shoot in RAW (or NEF in Nikon language) format, the information from the sensor is not processed nor is it compressed, letting you use that saved info to edit the picture. So, if you shoot in RAW, you get a lot more leeway in post-processing. In this case, I shot in JPEG and I was not able to recover the highlight-details because it was thrown out by the camera.




And the glove seems to give this guy some awesome air guitar skills.

Empire State

Living in New York, you never do the touristy stuff. At least that's how it is with me. So, I went to the Empire State Building for the first time.





I did enjoy the trip, probably more because I wasn't alone (I went with Conor and Librado Romero, photojournalist father and son). But I think I learned more about the city when I was outside of the building. I never noticed how sunlight spills through the gaps between buildings, and it creates a dramatic effect when shooting pictures, but not so much when you're looking with the naked eye. This is probably because our brains aren't limited to processing images from just one "exposure." I expect that we "see" the shadows brighter and the highlights darker, just a composite image of when everything was properly exposed. If that makes any sense. Moving along, the sunset, combined with the bright white shirt of this lady, let me expose the picture dramatically enough:



But, I could see that some people were developing fond memories up at the top of the Empire State Building. Kind of fun to capture a moment, one which someone else won't ever need a picture to remember.



Not a good picture, but you get the point.

Crooklyn

My friend, Jarret and I took a trip over to Brooklyn for some famous, awesome pizza. It was my first time walking across the Brooklyn bridge, so I took a camera, but this time it was a point-and-shoot camera (Panasonic DMC-LX3) for weight-related reasons.



This camera allows for you to change aspect ratios (i.e. the length and width of the pictures). I decided to use the 16:9 ratio, which is common for movies these days. It gave the pictures a cinematic feel because of how we have been visually programmed. We never realize it but the norms of television and cinema directly impact how we perceive pictures and videos.



(Above, the right side is cropped a bit, so it isn't quite 16:9)



After waiting in line for about 30 minutes, we finally got in. Maybe it was the anticipation or the hunger, but that pizza tasted awesome. (The place is called Grimaldi's, right across the bridge.)



Throughout the walk, I tried to find new views of the bridge, refraining from the exhausted, looking-straight-down-at-the-thing angle. But I had to do it once.