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.

Fishes

It's a new year, and I thought I should keep this page going, if anything, for myself.

My fish have been gravitating towards one side of the aquarium. I have wondered about this for a while:



It turns out they're just in it for the light show that is my kitchen:



They're either hankerin' for a sandwich or like the warm color-temperature of tungsten.