Tag: New York City Photo Walk

Brooklyn Bridge

The last of three images I captured during a photo walk around the Brooklyn Bridge Park with Trey Ratcliff as part of the #TreyUSA tour.

This is 3 exposure HDR (-2/0/+2) shot on my Nikon D5100 with a Tokina 12-24mm f/4 AT-X Pro DX-II (rented) and a 0.9 (3 stop) ND filter. The images were imported into Adobe Lightroom and then combined in Photomatix Pro using an export preset. I applied the natural preset in Photomatix Pro then imported the resultant image back into Adobe Lightroom for further processing.

Jane's Carousel

This is one of several images I made during the recent Trey Ratcliff photo walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. As expected, the turnout was huge. I won't assess crowd sizes, but I think there must have been over 200 photographers at the event.

This is a three-exposure HDR (-2/0/+2) shot on my Nikon D5100 with a Tokina 12-24mm f/4 AT-X Pro DX-II (rented) and a 0.9 (3-stop) ND filter. The images were imported into Adobe Lightroom and combined in Photomatix Pro using an export preset. I applied the natural preset in Photomatix Pro and then imported the resultant image back into Adobe Lightroom for further processing.

The 35mm full-frame lens equivalent is 18-36mm f/6. The image was shot at 12mm f/8 (18mm f/11), ISO 100.

The following Adobe Lightroom adjustments were made to the HDR image.

  • Exposure set to +0.60 to brighten the image
  • Contrast to +11 to pull out more of the cloud details
  • Set highlights to -100 to reduce blown out areas.
  • Increase shadow to 75 and white clipping to 1
  • Set black clipping to 54
  • Set blue to 51
  • Set clarity to 33

There were some cranes that could be seen near the tops of some of the buildings. I didn't like these, so I imported a copy of the image (with Lightroom adjustments) into Adobe Photoshop and used content aware fill and clone stamping tools to remove them. The resultant image was imported back into Adobe Lightroom.

I then imported a copy of the image (with Lightroom adjustments) into Nik Color Efex Pro and applied the Reflector Efex preset with the setting of Gold for the method with a light intensity of 33%.

Trey Ratcliff New York PhotoWalk

When Scott told me a few weeks ago in a private message on Twitter that Trey Ratcliff might be coming to New York to host a photowalk, I was ecstatic. I made sure that my afternoon schedule was cleared so that I could hop the train from Princeton Junction to the World Trade Center. I knew it was going to be a crowded affair. Trey is a well-known popular photographer.

We met up on Courtland Street near the World Trade Center, but the first group to arrive were chased off by the police, so we regrouped around the block. I thought this was strange behaviour by the police until I realised we standing in Occupy Wall Street territory and a few hundred people with cameras might have seemed like "trouble".

We slowly made our way down Broadway. Trey would stop, set up his tripod and teach. I find it incredible how much he can do for the community of photographers. I assume he must have been tired after hopping off a plane from New Zealand but never showed it. He remained patient and gracious. We stopped for a bit in Bowling Green before finally making it to the waterfront at Battery Park.

I hung out and chatted with photographers from New York and New Jersey.   I discovered some of them, like Daryl Meek, lived less than ten miles from my home and made some new contacts. Later in the evening, a small group of us snuck away to Ulysses' on Peal Street for some food and drink. I didn't get the chance to talk to Trey directly because the group was just too large, but I had a great time.

Tuesday 14 August, 2012 | Nikon D40 | AF-S DX Nikkor 35 mm f/1.8G
Tuesday 14 August, 2012 | Nikon D40 | AF-S DX Nikkor 35 mm f/1.8G
Trey Ratcliff and Scott Wyden Kivowitz | Tuesday 14 August, 2012 | Nikon D40 | AF-S DX Nikkor 35 mm f/1.8G