NYC
Bike MS
On October 2nd, I biked the Bike MS tour to raise money and awareness for MS. Below are.photos and a map of the ride.
2,753 chairs
Tensions are high around the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Police checkpoints, memorials, and news reports of possible attacks to the city filled the air. The photo below is a memorial in Bryant Park. 2,753 chairs facing south (the direction of the WTC) each representing a life lost during the attack. The New Yorker reports that this weekend from 12:30-2:30p they’ll be typists recording stories from the time. Let’s continue to remember the other injustices around the world and hope in Redeemer to put things right.
2753 chair memorial
Mott Haven, Bronx
New York has five boroughs that contain 60 community districts. Within the five boroughs there are hundreds and hundreds of different neighborhoods that each add their contribution to make New York, New York. One of these neighborhoods is Mott Haven in the Bronx. I was born and raised in Queens but never spent much time in the Bronx. For my class project we’ve been hanging out in Mott Haven trying to learn about the community. A lot is going on here in terms of community development and there’s a lot more that is not going on. Here are a few photos from a recent time in Mott Haven. Enjoy the photos and go exploring!
Mott Haven post office building
South Street Seaport
The weather this past week has been amazing! The sun was blazing and people were generally happy that winter is saying it’s last goodbyes. I met up with a friend for lunch at South Street Seaport. I actually arrived much earlier than our meet up time and so I snapped a few photos while I waited. I was happy the sun was out, but it makes for bleached out photos. Boo. Enjoy the photos!
Downtown Manhattan, where stress is high and money is made!
Top of the Rock (@ Night)
I took a few friends who were in town to the top of 30 Rock. I think the views of NYC are the better from there than the Empire State building. I waited till the sunset to take a few photos because most of the ones I took are from the day time. New York looks great when it’s lit up. Enjoy the photos!
Central park. Prime real estate.
Stairwell
It’s been awhile, eh? Life get’s busy sometimes and sometimes i don’t capture it. Boo, right! Here’s a set from the beginning of this year. Most of the photos below were taken by Regina. We were bored after New Year 2010 and so we decided to play around in our apartment building. Modeling is hard work. Enjoy the photos!
Stairwell in an apartment building in Sunnyside, Queens
The Gantry
Gantry State Park located in Long Island City sits on the western border of Queens. It has amazing views of the eastern skyline of Manhattan including the UN and the Empire State building as well as the Queensboro bridge. The Gantry, named after the gantry cranes that at one time were used to unload cargo from ships, is a great park to hang out in. Go here for great view of the Macy’s fireworks. Jack and I braved the strong winds and cold weather to bring you these photos. Enjoy!
Classic Pepsi cola sign. Pepsi was bottled here starting in the 1930's.
New Tripod
One of the gifts I received for Christmas was a tripod. (Thanks Patricia!) All of the photos in this post were taken using a tripod and a wireless remote. I bought a wireless remote from B&H to prevent shutter release vibrations from my heavy ungraceful finger. It’s been great taking photos on demand. Having a tripod is opening up some creative juices and I look forward to using it more in the future. I also like shooting night shots with a low ISO. No graininess. Enjoy the night time, low light goodness!
From the 46th/Bliss Street platform looking westward. On a side note, it was really cold that night! brrr
Snowfall at Night
First blizzard of the winter season came upon NYC December 19th, 2009. Just about a foot of snow fell through the night (25 inches in Long Island). Regina and I ventured around Sunnyside mid snow storm. After walking for a bit we decided to go home sooner than we thought because of the “heavy” winds. The beat went on the following day. Enjoy the photos!
Trekking home during the storm
Fort Tryon Park
A few friends and I visited some places in NYC that had significant meaning to them. Our first stop was Fort Tryon Park, located in Washington Heights of Manhattan, war site of the Revolutionary War. The park had was special to my friend because this is where is made a commitment to serve the needs of the city. We ended up touring Columbia and Elmhurst as well, but I didn’t take many photos. The last photo is comprised of a different set of friends who I had the pleasure of eating dinner at Xi’an Famous Foods (I highly recommend the lamb noodles). Enjoy!
View of the George Washington Bridge from Fort Tryon Park.
A Little of This and That
It’s been awhile eh? The following is a hodgepodge of photos from the last few weeks. Locations include Princeton Junction NJ, St Mark’s Place, and Sunnyside. It is now late November here in Sunnyside and the temperature hit a nice 60 degrees. Enjoy the photos!
Regina is figuring out a song on piano
Museum of the City of New York
My wife and I went exploring in the city and wound up at the Museum of the City of New York at 103rd street along museum row. We spent a little over an hour there and wished we could have stayed longer. The highlight was definitely a fascinating short on the history of New York from the 1600′s-present. So much happened in a relatively small amount of time. I thought it would be wrong to post photos of the photos in the museum and so I left those out. If you ever get a chance to go, you won’t regret it! Enjoy!
Front of the museum at 103rd and 5th Avenue
October 12th, 2009
(Happy birthday to my sister!) I caught some photos of the Columbus Day parade while waiting for some friends to go into the Met. Since I arrived there a little early I popped by Central Park in hopes to take some pictures of the fall foliage. Turns out I was also too early for the awesome colors of fall. The Met was great. We all compiled our favorite works in the Met and had our team’s greatest hits tour. I didn’t include photos of our favorite works of art. Maybe next time. Enjoy the photos!
People in the Met. I work with most of them.
A Changing Harlem
I took these photos after a class I’m taking in Harlem (mostly along Frederick Douglass blvd between 125th and 119th Street). Harlem has gone through some major changes in the last few decades. From wikipedia:
New York’s revival in the late 20th century has led to renewal in Harlem as well. By 1995, Harlem was experiencing social and economic gentrification. Though the percentage of residents who are black peaked in 1950, the area remains predominantly black.
I had a chance to walk around and soak in some of the life in the community. It was great. Enjoy the photos!
City Seminary of New York in Harlem
Brooklyn – Park Slope
I took these photos walking in between meetings in Brooklyn. Park Slope is a pretty nice area. It has lots of character and lots of stoops. Enjoy the photos!
Stoops everywhere. 8th avenue and 1st Street
Subway photos
Here are a few photos taken in NYC subway lines/stations from the summer. Enjoy!
Pigeon with a plastic bag hooked on its wing. It was panicking a lot.
First Week of College
Here are some pictures from the first week of college at Columbia and Stony Brook University. It was great to see the combination of excitement and anxiety on student’s faces. Enjoy the pictures!
Columbia University on the main green. Today was the Activities Fair where prospective student can check out various groups.
1 Photo From Each Summer Project Day I had a Camera
I chose 1 picture from each day of photos I took to highlight certain aspects of the Tribeca Summer Project of the Epic Track. It was hard to pick just one picture for some of the days. I think I took over 8 gigs of high res photos over the course of summer project because halfway through the summer, Andrew lent me his D300, which took an average size of 4-5 megs/picture. I digress, enjoy the photos!
Top of the Rock. The students explored the city and it culminated here. Everyone barely knew each other.
River to River:42nd street
I decided to walk on 42nd streeet from 12th avenue to 1st avenue of NYC. It helped to have a little focus when shooting stuff.
12th avenue - Westside HWY. This is ~13 mile stretch of path for cyclists and runners that spans the westside of Manhattan.
Click for more photos
Pictures from work
Wednesday, the Multicultural business association and Columbia students for Christ (MBA and CSFC) hosted a joint workshop at Columbia. Jane Hyun, author of “Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling” talked about career strategies for turbulent times. She talked about how culture influences the way you interact with the business culture, primarily from the asian american perspective. I learned a lot. Hopefully others did as well.
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times square
Today, I helped some of my co-workers shoot a video in Times Sq. Often times I saw small video crews filming in Times Sq. on the walk back to my old apartment. I always thought the people being filmed were semi-important/famous. Now I know that’s not always true =P.
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Andrew let me borrow his awesome rig to play around with before thanksgiving. Nikon d300 with a 30mm 1.4 lens. Pretty sweet.
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Times Sq is a platform for advertising, prime space with all the car and foot traffic. Uniqlo gave away free undergarments made out of HEAT TECH , some new technology that kept your body warm using the moisture from your body. It feels like the Under Armor stuff. Anyway, there were a bunch of guys/women walking around in these space aged suits and I got on line to grab me some free space aged clothing. I was pretty disappointed to find out upon opening the packaging that it was a long sleeve tee. You can get yours for the low price of $10 at Uniqlo.
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shooting with new lens + MPSC
So I’ve been shooting a little with Regina’s dad’s old lens from an SLR, a Nikkor-S Auto 50mm f/1.4. The auto focus doesn’t work on my digital camera and so I have to do everything manual. When i get the settings right, i.e. not over/under exposing and focusing correctly, the pictures turn out amazing!
Check out the pictures from Regina’s food blog.
Andrew and Angel invited me to volunteer at a fundraiser for the MPSC. It was 1920′s young supporters event with celebrity bartender, David Plant of Pravda. I checked coats all evening with Jack, Audrey, Andrea, and Jenny. It was kinda hectic organizing coats when we ran out of space, but I’m glad everyone got their stuff back. =P
Here are some pictures from the night using Regina’s dad’s lens.
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I think for everyday purposes i prefer to shoot with Andrew’s lens, the 18-200mm, because it’s so versatile. But when it comes to taking pictures of things that are stationary and need more of a macro feel it, I gotta go with the 50mm 1.4.
Grand Central
I passed through Grand Central on the way back home from the office.
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The Cheat!