City Lights

Hello, first post here. Three photos of NYC at night. Hope you like it, C&C welcomed.
(Note: some of my web photos include the pseudonym "Sebastian" or "Leo Sebastian")

Ruben Alfu said:

Hello, first post here. Three photos of NYC at night. Hope you like it, C&C welcomed.
(Note: some of my web photos include the pseudonym "Sebastian" or "Leo Sebastian")

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Hi Ruben,

I'm impressed with the trio of pics but why is one in B&W? Is there a special thought in your mind here? If it's for no particular reason, then all in color would make sense.

To remove color in one, without any statement means what?

Asher

Asher

I like them. I do this sort of shot very badly.

Thanks Rachel, glad you like it.

Asher Kelman said:

To remove color in one, without any statement means what?


Asher

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Hi Asher, I must agree with you, it doesn´t makes much sense. I´ll keep this in mind. Thanks!

Ruben Alfu said:

Thanks Rachel, glad you like it.

Hi Asher, I must agree with you, it doesn´t makes much sense. I´ll keep this in mind. Thanks!

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Let's ignore the "Dutch" angle of the second picture, an overused trick. perhaps.

Perspectives*, however add verve and punch to an image and are natural.

Anyway, I like such pictures because they convey the feeling of looking up as a tourist. They put us there with you in New York. Maybe, try correcting these in photoshop for perspective so the verticals or true and it would be interesting to see if they still have punch?

Asher

*A Word on Perspecitive you might already know: the camera, not being able to automatically stitch, (like our eyes do and make corrections constantly), has to use a wider angle lens to include the whole interesting view. Our eyes got that by scrolling! So, as a side effect of using a camera, we seem to get this distortion. It's this, in a compressed presentation that gives back and evokes the towering buildings and the "feel" of the place.

Still the actual perspective is the same but we see less of it with a glance and so it's not as obvious in real life as the view is not the compressed wide-angle-lens-view, squeezed into a small frame. Perspective actually depends only the position of the lens, (its distance from the subject), not the focal length or anything else.

I think the black and white conversion of the top one is very well done and probably changes it from being a run of the mill a tourist or postcard picture of the theatre district into a more memorable image. No doubt the original had lots of different colours which may have been fighting with each other and muddled it a little. I think it is clean and conveys a 1940s Broadway feel to me.

The third is also interesting simply for the choice of figure and ground.

The second one is contrived IMHO. I am not a fan of strange angles for the sake of it. I didn't know it was called a Dutch angle, he he, I am sure we have a few Dutchmen in the forum who might take umbrage . But a spade is still a spade, and you learn something everyday.

Asher, very interesting points and thanks for the valuable information. Let me note that contrary to what these images might suggest, I´m not a fan of perspective distortions, but I do use it now and then as an artistic choice (perhaps a poor one hehe).

Regarding the second photo, remember that place was a Ducth settlement so, there you go. Seriously, googling "Dutch" angle I found that it is also called "Batman" angle, and with all honesty I did wanted to give this shot sort of a Gotham City feeling, so now there you go!


Nigel, thanks for looking. Your observation about the color is correct, the original one indeed looked more like a postcard.

Nigel Allan said:

The second one is contrived IMHO. I am not a fan of strange angles for the sake of it. I didn't know it was called a Dutch angle, he he, I am sure we have a few Dutchmen in the forum who might take umbrage .

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I have no problem with that, it's just a saying. In fact, for some reason, many negative sayings use "Dutch" as a somewhat negative adjective. It usually has something to do with being stingy, or creatively bending some principles for (monetary) gain. I could think of worse attributes. The fact it got a position in the English language only underscores the important role the Dutch played in colonial times. We were e.g. the first and only country to have a trading post in Japan, and we discovered (and 'sold' you) Manhattan after buying it from the Indian native Americans 400 years ago. Australia was also discovered by the Dutch. Our forefathers got around and left some footprints (not all positive though).

I remember a funny incident my father told me about. It was somewhere in the early 60's in New York and my father and several other crew members were crossing the street in Manhattan. They were stopped by a policeman. He said,"Gentlemen, that's a Dutch crossing!". My father responded, "That's correct, we are Dutchmen", after which they could go without a ticket.

Cheers,
Bart

Lovely story.

I was stopped for speeding once on a Saturday night in downtown Philadelphia. I was probably doing about 60mph in a 25mph zone tryiong to meet my friends at a night club.

The policeman asked me for my driving licence, which I didn't have because I am Englsh and only living there temporarily so I said, sorry, I don't have one but I can show you my British passport.

I could see on his face the horror at all the paperwork this might cause him so he waved me on and told me not to do it again.