april 23, 2011
photos © anita aguilar
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Showing posts with label trees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trees. Show all posts
before the firestorm
i personally cannot complain about the christmas weekend blizzard.
i don't have a car.
and: we have the best team at our condo--by 10am on monday they'd shoveled clean the widest swath of sidewalk in all of murray hill.
but it's hard not to be outraged after reading and hearing about conditions in other parts of the city, as a result of misjudgment and inaction at the local level.
i don't have a car.
i don't need the subway or bus to get to work.
i wasn't stranded anywhere.
and: we have the best team at our condo--by 10am on monday they'd shoveled clean the widest swath of sidewalk in all of murray hill.
but it's hard not to be outraged after reading and hearing about conditions in other parts of the city, as a result of misjudgment and inaction at the local level.
(meanwhile, jersey knew what to do.)
***
here are a few shots from the very first afternoon, before the city got all stomped on and sloppy, and well before the effect of bloomberg & co's snafu was fully evident.
it was pretty, especially in madison square park...
all photos from december 27, 2010.
© anita aguilar
fall: into black and white
a couple of weeks ago i slipped into the mary boone gallery to catch lee friedlander's recent western landscapes on the last day of the exhibition.
individually and as a collection, the photos were tonally soothing.
anyway, i went both ways--took one black and white photography class at SVA which wasn't great (and i wasn't great at it). i'll occasionally convert color images to black and white, but mostly as a way to salvage a poorly exposed shot.
last year, i came across a short interview with ny times photographer todd heisler--i think his black and whites are so elegant--and i remembered almost every bit of advice he offered (it was after reading this that i started to play with curves; i also employ his post-prod "time limit" to judge a particular shot) but i didn't really adopt his use of the monochrome setting. but i've decided that's the next step for me, to shoot, and try to "see," in black and white...(though this is there is so much nice new york color right now, it's gonna be hard to resist).
some were haunting.
some were pretty.
(i maybe love fallen trees and bark a bit more than the average person, as any poor soul who saw all my snapshots from bryce canyon will attest? i have tons of photos like this, taken with my very first point and shoot, a canon A95)
but what stood out to me was how perfectly exposed the friedlander black and whites were. no heavy shadows. no blowouts. how did he do it? a white sky and dark bark give a lot of contrast--you really have to know light and metering to find the right balance.
when i started to really become interested in photography a couple of years ago, even before i bought my digital slr, i sought advice of everyone i knew that was a photographer (enthusiast or pro) or photo editor.
when i started to really become interested in photography a couple of years ago, even before i bought my digital slr, i sought advice of everyone i knew that was a photographer (enthusiast or pro) or photo editor.
one friend recommended that i take a black and white film photography class, she said it would be the best way for me to understand "light," which sounded incredibly romantic to me--the sensitivity of the film and paper, all those groovy chemicals, the "big reveal," in the bath.
everyone else simply said, eh, shoot "raw" in color and convert it later, which struck me a little as cheating?
(voila! i mean, that took 5 seconds. and it's not bad, eh?)
anyway, i went both ways--took one black and white photography class at SVA which wasn't great (and i wasn't great at it). i'll occasionally convert color images to black and white, but mostly as a way to salvage a poorly exposed shot.
***
last year, i came across a short interview with ny times photographer todd heisler--i think his black and whites are so elegant--and i remembered almost every bit of advice he offered (it was after reading this that i started to play with curves; i also employ his post-prod "time limit" to judge a particular shot) but i didn't really adopt his use of the monochrome setting. but i've decided that's the next step for me, to shoot, and try to "see," in black and white...(though this is there is so much nice new york color right now, it's gonna be hard to resist).
these first test shots reveal...there is a whole lotta learning to do.
union square, nov 3, 2010
union square, nov 3, 2010
union square, nov 3, 2010
all photos © anita aguilar
storm king, part 10: i've never been to england
but what has lasted in my imagination, at least since last winter, are david hockney's dreamy renditions of the yorkshire landscape, which you can see here.
these "new york trees" are my dream of england.
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