New York City with My Camera

I mentioned in my post last week that I’d post some of the photographs I had shot while on my big adventure to NYC.  And here we are!

I ended up taking only 847 photo’s in the end which sounds a lot but isn’t.  I would have taken loads more but my camera decided to keep discharging it’s Li-ion battery due to being out in such cold temperatures.  It was rather annoying but it’s taught me two very important lessons:

• Either bring two batteries or two cameras so one set can always be charging
• Learn about the potential problems with low temperatures and camera batteries before heading off so I am at least aware of a few hints and tips to make life easier (doh!).

Anyway, I still got a few good worthy photo’s so I’m not fretting too much, and in the places I wasn’t able to take photo’s, well I just say to myself I’ll have to go back!

Below are a selection of photo’s and, at the very bottom of this page, I’ve created a gallery (you are more than welcome to look at it, if you’ve got time).

But before that I’ve picked just four of my absolute favourite photo’s from the journey and explained why I love these ones the most.

Click on any photo to make it larger

Taken on the ‘Top of the Rock’, Rockefeller Centre

This photo was me standing one what felt like the top of NYC and I felt great.  I’m looking down and all around me on this city that is instantly familiar by the Empire State Building, and the Freedom Tower in the back ground. The sky is blue (although it’s extremely cold), and  I feel a sense of complete achievement and peace.  I’ve made it.  All those years of talking about coming over to NYC and here I am.  It was a tremendous feeling.

Times Square

I desperately wanted to try and capture the essence of the city.  In some places it was manic busy at all times, such is Times Square, and other places quiet and serene in quality.  When I first started walking the various streets at first I thought it was another London, but on closer inspection its absolutely nothing like London, not like Paris, or any other city.  It had it’s own uniqueness.  It had order and and no order,people jostled with vehicles crossing the road, it had noise and no noise.  There was a constant back ground of horns beeping or people shouting but nothing sounded unfamiliar, just a big city with lots of action, all of the time but in a very unique way.

There was a sense of being not so much trapped by so many tall buildings in NYC, while walking between them all, but more like feeling cocooned.  I recognised the company name on this building as being a major publisher but I wished I could have seen in the buildings.  Seen people at work, ask them what they did. So many of the buildings in the city were either really fancy or decorative with detail or just simple design and I wanted to capture them all.  Alas it wasn’t possible.

Zelda the Turkey, Battery Park

This picture for me just sums up what a superb and quirky place NYC really was.  I was just stood around one morning aimlessly, waiting for the Boss to come back with (hopefully) some directions to somewhere, when I turn around and find myself face to face with what looked to be a turkey.  In a metropolis park.

I thought that in itself was a pretty good find but that’s just where the story begins.  Turns out Zelda is the famous wild turkey of Battery Park.  The story goes that she mysteriously turned up in Battery Park one day over nine years ago and she’s been a celebrity of the Park ever since (probably because she’s avoided being eaten!).  It just made my day, of all the 1,000’s of famous people we could have seen (and probably just walked right past in some cases), here I had been up close to Zelda, and bearing in mind Battery Park was a full 25 acres it just must have been fate to meet!

Hope you liked that little summary of photo’s.  I could have spent a year or more and still not fully captured how I saw NYC but I’ve certainly managed to capture some memories in colour!

I’ve added just a few more to the gallery below.  🙂

Coney Island

South Ferry Subway Station

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